Happy Belated Birthday BECKY!

Wow it has been so different having a team here this week. It stays so much busier and I feel like I'm never in my room or when I am I'm passing out from exhaustion. But it also fun to see the kids super excited to have people to play with and getting to meet the people from the team.

Thursday was a long day with the wake up bell being at 5:40am! We took the team to the little mountain that is in the rainbow picture and we hiked up it for a sunrise hike. We hung out at the top of the mountain and walked back to head back for breakfast at about 7am. We were able to see the sunrise as we came down the mountain because it was tucked behind El Morro (the large mountain). It was beautiful!

At breakfast we sang Happy Birthday to one of the volunteers from the group. Here in the DR they pour water on people to celebrate their birthdays so I was on water duty, but almost poured the water on the wrong kid! Oops!

I took the group into Francisco Javier, one of the local public schools, for English teaching in the morning. They taught grades preschool-2nd in the morning and the kids were super excited. As we walked thru the gates they were yelling, Americanos, Americanos. The little preschool class was super cute, they were coloring and learning animals so they were making all the animal sounds! At recess, a little girl about 5-6 found me and attached herself to me for the rest of recess. She didn't talk much but followed me around and sat with me. The did a little presentation during recess where they had about 10 people each with a ribbon and they weaved thru each other braiding the ribbon on the pole to which they were attached. I think they are preparing an act for the Independence Day parade/show that they have in February.

When we returned from school I hung out with Arianni and had her on my lap riding the horse and dropping her between my knees. Her giggle is adorable!

In the afternoon, Heather took the group to the schools to teach, and I went to Las Aguas with Dr. Garcia. This is not a batey, but an old community on the same farm that is similar to the bateys. It had about 8-10 houses in the community that I could see and was very dusty and secluded. When we arrived there were about 10 people sitting around a table waiting for us. I took some blood pressures, helped give tetanus shots, and of course took pictures of the kids! They had a scale that they hung in the tree and put the babies in a seat like one of those jumpy things you hang from a door frame and they were weighing the babies in this. Old school!

One little 18 month old boy had a pacifier that he would drop onto the dirt ground and then come back to it several minutes later and put it back in his mouth! There was a 93 year old man there that looked great for his age (if that is his real age). In the campos (these far secluded villages), the people have a slight change in dialect. For example, typically they say "doctor" here but in the campos they'll change the "r" to an "i" and it sounds like "doctoy". One of the men, who was probably in his 30s, was saying "doctoy", "doctoy", and it sounds so different, almost childish but it is just their difference in education.

Before we left I was holding one of the little babies and when they took her away from me she started crying! I wanted of course to take her with me but that probably wouldn't go over so well. They gave us glasses of orange flavored juice as we were leaving that once again shows the kindness of the people here. They have barely anything but want to give something to us for helping them.

Once we got back into town, I got dropped off at the park by the English Institute and came up with a workout for Friday. Then I came back to the orphanage, played with Franchesca some until dinner time, hanging her upside down and having her walk on her hands. After dinner, we had a movie night with the kids since Pastor was gone and they didn't have church. After the movie, I came to my room and hit the pillow at 9:30 and didn't remember falling asleep!

Friday morning I did a fun workout that I had planned Thursday. Vivian, Bryson and I ran to the park and did a circuit using the park benches, the gazebo in the middle, and the space available and then jogged back home. It was a lot of fun!

After breakfast, we went to the school again in the morning and I walked around just making sure everything was running smoothly. At recess, a little 6 year old boy found me and attached himself to me. One girl came up to him and asked him if he knew me and he said, "yes, she is my friend." There was a girl in 3rd grade that used to live here at the orphanage and she came up and sat with me for some of recess as well. I'm not sure if she remembered me but we talked some about her cousins that also used to live here so I'm sure she knew that I knew her.

After school we came back the orphanage and I headed into town to run a few errands. I checked for the Halloween candy Laura, but it hasn't arrived yet! They had two bags of packages but they were waiting for the customs inspector to come check them and I hear this can sometimes take a week so we'll see!

After lunch I took an hour nap! Then I worked some on my health curriculum since Heather took the group back into the schools in the afternoon.

We took the group for a dip in the ocean after they got back from teaching up until dinner time. The beach now with the change of seasons is all rocks. Somehow the sand has all been covered by these large rocks and the tide is way up compared to even a week ago. It was overcast so I just read some in my book while the group swam in the ocean.

We came back, had dinner, and then got the group set up for the history talk and the movie "In the Time of the Butterflies". While they were watching the movie I went and hung out with some of the kids. I played a little basketball with Jessica but was horrible. Then I talked with Leonel for a while and played a version of "MASH" with Jessica. I am going to have a pink wedding dress, white shoes, a gold veil, 10 kids, my boyfriend's name is Jason, I am going to live in a one story house on the mountain, have a 5 tiered wedding cake, Jason' suit is going to be white with pink, our honeymoon is 30 days, and I can't remember the rest but can't wait to what my life has in store for me! After learning my future, I hung out with Nicol, one of the oldest girls, and we just chatted with Heather until separation time.

With about 5 minutes left in the movie, we were waiting to turn off the DVD when everyone starting getting out of their chairs. There were 2 spiders walking around so I killed one (so proud of myself) while Bryson tackled the other. After the movie, the group worked on making goodie bags to give the kids today and Heather and I opened the OO Store to sell sweatshirts, scrubs, etc. We hung out and talked with Coco and did inventory until 11pm when I went to bed!