Day 1 with SJR! (St. John's Ravencourt)

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This morning was the first day for the team that arrived last night. We had a long morning of general OO orientation, English teaching orientation, and we toured the town close to the orphanage as well as the orphanage. This lasted several hours and is often painful for the team involved because it is a lot of rules thrown at them at once, but they did well and we got thru it pretty quickly. We had about an hour before lunch to hang out with the kids some and Heather and I planned a get to know you game for after lunch.

After lunch, we did introductions and asked everyone to say what super power they could have if they were a super hero. Mine was to be able to fly anyway super fast, so I could come home to visit or come here to visit, etc. We then played a game where we put a character or famous person's name on everyone's forehead and they had to ask Yes or No questions and try to figure out who they were. This is always fun but I'm horrible at it. I had trouble guessing mine and I knew all the characters because I made them up! I was Dora!

I went and got my stuff ready to go to the batey with Dr. Garcia and then hung out at the mesita with the kids. They were all piled around there because the group was hanging out. I sat with Yessica and Nicol for a while talking with them.

Today I headed out to Batey Higuero, one I haven't been to yet since I've been here, but one of my favorites from the past. It is a small little batey and I'm not sure why I love it so much but I do. Mom and Jo, this is the one you went to where they all wanted their pictures taken! There was a 4 year old girl there that I recognized from 2 years ago. I asked her how old she was and she said 6, but was corrected by her Mom and told she was only 4. I told her I had a picture of her from when she was 2 and her Mom was surprised I remembered her. I remember her because Dr. Garcia was giving a little talk and her Mom picked her up and started breastfeeding her in front of everyone and I remember thinking she seemed a little too old to be doing that! :) There were a couple of kids that would have taken pictures all day had I let them but it was fun going back there. I gave several tetanus boosters and took BPs.

As we finished up I had asked to use the outhouse! Bad idea. It was disgusting. It was weird. It just had this cement square with the center cut out but you could walk around it 360 degrees. I couldn't figure out if I was supposed to stand on top of it and pee or squat, so instead of soiling my pants I just decided to hold it! As I walked over there, Guillermina, the nurse, asked me to throw away the syringe papers. I asked where the trash can was and she just pointed to a pile of trash in front of the outhouse and said to just throw them there on the ground. Such a weird concept, I felt bad littering but could tell where I threw them was a burnt pile of trash that will just get burnt again.

We headed back home and were given some bananas by one of the men that lived in the batey so we all enjoyed those on the drive back.

After dinner tonight the group sorted their donations. They brought so much stuff! It was amazing and awesome to have so many donations. They have made goodie bags for all of the kids to give them at the end of the week and I know the kids will be super excited about these.

Instead of culto tonight, since Pastor Ramon is out of town, we did a game night with the kids on our side. We set up multiple tables with CandyLand, Jenga, Old Maid, coloring books, etc and had all the kids over to play. They had been asking for a while about game night so it was fun to get to enjoy this time with them. My camera battery was dead so I didn't get any pictures unfortunately. I played L,R,C for a bit and then I played Spoons with some people. Mancho, who is about 9-10 years old, was playing and he nevered looked at the table. One round we had all taken a marker (spoon replacement) and we continued "playing" for another minute or so before he even realized he had lost.

One last thing, I found out tonight that Arianni, the other twin, fell off the table today and got three stitches in the back of her head. That makes three now. Franchesca who looks like the twins, and both of the twins. She has a little patch on the back of her head shaved and 3 sutures! I thought I was done removing sutures but I guess not! :)