So, I know I haven’t updated my blog in a long time! I have been sharing Alicen’s blog as a link
on Facebook, but I know that not everyone can see that. I don’t particularly love writing and she has
been doing a much better job at posting updates. Her blog is daysofjubilee.wordpress.com. We also have a page on Facebook called The
Dominican Experience where we put pictures and post updates. I am only going to
write about a few things on here that she didn’t mention in her post. Therefore if you would like to know all that
we have done you should look at her blog!
Schedule
Monday: prepare activities for the coming week of the summer
program
·
Alicen has some English lessons with members of
the community
·
Susie is working on an undergraduate research
project associated with our summer program.
She is interviewing households to see what foods they eat and where they
get these foods.
·
When the girls are busy doing these things, I
usually play baseball or just simply hang out with the kids.
Program Days: Tuesday-Thursday
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| The kids with the sign we made! |
·
We have our program at three different schools
in our area from 8:00-11:00 in the morning.
This program is focused on nutrition, gardening, and recycling. The theme of our program is Sunflowers. We have a theme that most of the kids have
memorized and translated into English it is something like this: “We are
sunflowers; we have to turn ourselves towards manners of living that sustain
our bodies, family, community, and the world.” It makes a little more sense in
Spanish because the name for sunflowers is girasoles. The verb for turn in Spanish is girar and the word for sun is sol. The fact that sunflowers turn to
face the sun throughout the day is in the name, making the connection easier. So far we have planted sunflowers in
containers made from toilet paper rolls, explained parts of plants and their
responsibilities, talked about photosynthesis, explained the purpose and
importance of recycling by differentiating between things that decompose and
things that do not, and we have talked about organs and their role in the body. Alicen’s blog has pictures and descriptions
of most of the activities that we have done so far and she will continue to
post more as we continue.
Tuesday: El Callejon
Wednesday: Empujador
Thursday: La Capilla
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday: Relax, clean, do laundry, beach trips, run
errands in Nagua or Cabrera (neighboring cities) and just hanging out with the
community.
Random Other Things
Kittens
Alicen’s cat, Hunter, had kittens! So now we have four
precious babies living in our house with us. They just opened their eyes today. Thankfully, they really haven’t been keeping
us up at night. They only squeal and
make noise when their mom sits on them.
She is not even a year old and probably wasn’t ready to be a mom, so it
is funny seeing her have to be responsible.
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| The kitties! |
Visiting Lauren
One of my roommates and best friends, Lauren, is doing an
internship with a ministry called Manna Global in The Dominican Republic. It is crazy that we are both here in this
country doing separate things. Also, we
are only about two hours apart! We were talking about how we would have to find
a way to visit each other. It is hard
because we are both very busy and transportation isn’t the easiest to find. She
had a few days free this past weekend and told me she would be in Rio San Juan
for the weekend, which is about 45 minutes from us. We decided to head there early Saturday
morning to find her. Access to phones
and internet is somewhat rare here, so we essentially went to Rio San Juan
knowing that she would be in that city somewhere. We arrived pretty early in the morning and
went searching for an internet center to be able to send her a message to say
we were there. At 8:30 in the morning on
a Saturday, none were opened. Even
though we knew it wouldn’t work, we were just walking the streets of Rio San Juan
yelling, “Lauren!” to see if we could find her.
We eventually went to a restaurant that had Wi-Fi and I was able to get
in touch with her. She told me that her
and her group were heading to the beach and would be there around 12:00. So we took public transportation to Playa Grande
and waited for them. They eventually
showed up and Lauren and I were beyond excited to be reunited! We spent the
afternoon hanging out with her and her group catching up and getting to know them
and what all they had done!
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| Lauren and I at Playa Grande! |
Piglets
A few nights ago, I spent about an hour watching a pig give birth.
I have never seen an animal give birth and I really enjoyed seeing one of the
women in the community help deliver the piglets. It was dark so I don’t have
any pictures from it, but hopefully I’ll go take a picture of them soon. I’m sure some of the community was wondering
why I was so interested in something that is such a normal part of their life,
but I absolutely enjoy seeing and learning so much from the people in this
community on a daily basis by living alongside them and allowing them to share
so much of their knowledge with me.
Once again, be sure to check out Alicen’s blog and the page
on Facebook for more updates!
Thanks again for all the thoughts and prayers; we are having
a wonderful time here! Cannot believe how fast it is going by!
