Profe in the DR 21

Profe in the DR 21

August 6, 2011

I spent two weeks vacation back in Michigan.  We had a family reunion the first week, all my brothers and sisters were there.  It was great to see everyone.  I was amazed at how much bigger all my nieces and nephews are.  It was wonderful seeing my wife, and difficult saying goodbye again.  I really appreciate all the sacrifices she is making so that I can be down here.

            I arrived Monday afternoon and headed straight to my site, pulling in around 8pm.  I got a very warm welcome back from everyone.  Thanks to the generosity of several people in the U.S., I was able to come back with a suitcase full of soccer cleats for the teenager team I work with.  Tuesday we started matching shoes up with owners.  We were also donated goalie gloves, goalie pants, goalie shirt, soccer socks, and uniform tops from the Plymouth Reign soccer team.  They donated tons of stuff, but I only had room for one suitcase full.  We are thankful to them and everyone else who donated to our soccer team.  Thank you very much.  So that the kids will have ownership in what they received I charged them a small amount of money that I will use for something else later, and they agreed to do a certain amount of work on the soccer field. 

            Wednesday the volunteers in this part of the country were consolidated in Barahona because of hurricane Emily.  We had to stay there until Friday morning.  Emily did not hit the island nearly as hard as they thought it would.  We received a good bit of rain, but that was it.  Unfortunately the rain was enough to flood the soccer field in Batey 7, canceling our game there on Saturday.  Our own field has a lot of water on it, and we are going to head out today with buckets to clear off what we can.  Our field is getting better as we continue to fill in low spots, and it is drying out faster and holding less water than before. 

August 9, 2011

            I spent Sunday working with Jairo on his business plan.  The deadline for entering his plan in the competition got moved back thankfully to September 1^st.  He has a lot of work to do on it still.  Monday I taught three English classes, and studied Creole.  After that I had soccer.   Two women in their late 20’s joined us.  It was the first time we had any women come out and play.  In the evening I continued to help Jairo as kids played chess all around us.  Tuesday morning I had a meeting about the Men’s soccer tournament that we have been planning since February.   It is finally looking like it will happen in September.  The meeting ran all morning, although I think we could have covered everything in 20 minutes if they had tried.   After the meeting, Juan Carlos and I went to Tamayo to use one of the slowest internet centers I have come across so far, to try to look up information for a presentation on Japan that he and four other boys will give at a three day camp we are going to called Celebrando el Sur.  I spent the rest of the afternoon helping Jairo while younger kids were in the house playing jacks, cards, and chess.  In the evening  I spoke with Gitana about the soccer league for some time, while having the usual houseful of kids playing chess.