In this update (photos):
- Fight Night
- New Haitian school rotation
- Kina
- More teaching
- Class Trip
~~~~~
Here we are again.
It is Tuesday morning. In a couple of days we will be at the half-way point,
but it doesn’t really feel like we’ve done anything in the first half.
I think this may be a survival technique on our part.
If the first four weeks have gone fast, the trip is great.
If they have been slow, then something isn’t quite right.
They have flown.
It feels like we haven’t done anything. The trip is good.
I told the kids last week that I booked a hotel for our final two nights here.
Few were excited and this intrigued me.
“I don’t want to go to a hotel,
...I can’t stay in a hotel after what we’ve experienced. It is elitist”.
Or the other common thought process: “I don’t want to go to a hotel
because it means that the trip is almost over”.
I’ve already had some students tell their parents they’re working
on figuring out how to miss the plane.
That’s where we’re at.
Last week there was a group of five adults here from Michigan and they
stayed for one night. At breakfast they were talking with Miraya and
the Michiganers were commenting on the noise here - the roosters, dogs,
gun shots and other noises representing life in a village (I feel like
I must say this - there are no gunshots heard here).
They were talking about how it was loud and hard to sleep,
and they asked her, “do the roosters bother you?”
Miraya didn’t know how to respond for she was thinking to herself:
"what roosters?"
I remember our first couple of nights here, a mere three and a half weeks ago,
and the children noticed the same sounds and asked me the same questions.
At that time my response was identical to Miraya’s.
We no longer notice what has become routine.
It is our new life.
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| Fight Night (DR 2011) |
It seems like I have begun a pattern of beginning these novellas with
stories of antics and tomfoolery.
This abounds.
I have debated for a week now whether or not I should tell this story.
Most parents are now aware of it since most parents have recently
communicated with their children. I feel if parents know,
we can share it with the world.
A week ago I was chatting with Kina (Max, our host’s, wife - she arrived
on Monday night) when some of our boys came to me asking if they could
have “Fight Night”. They wanted to have a scheduled, organized night of
wrestling matches.
Boys will be boys.
I remember the brawls our family had growing up and we are all still here.
We cracked a couple of doors and put some holes through walls,
got bloody noses and got yelled at, but my family made it.
I figure if Jake can enter a family of four new brothers and
make it through the first two years relatively injury-free;
I figure if my immediate family with my nine brothers (the same amount as
the male students in this class) can make it, then we can be a real family
and fight it out here.
Kina and I gave them our blessing.
After I finished chatting with Kina, I headed to the dorm for Circle
Time. There are at least 6 of the children decked out with signs and
other garb to help promote and get their peers excited for the night’s
events.
Miraya’s sign, which now hangs above her bed, was classic:
“I want to fight too”.
DJ had the complete schedule on his back:
Rachel vs Mitch
Olivia vs Juliet
Kate vs Karina
Megan vs Miraya
David vs Peter
Nathan vs Mitch
John-Mark vs Jeremy
DJ vs Evan
Grand Finale: Jeremy vs Peter
These wrestling matches were well-run. Since Jake’s back is not up to
par and Josh’s tooth is a little sketch, these two were the refs and
boy did they do a great job! Anytime any of the fighters got even
remotely close to something that may harm them, Jake and Josh stopped
the fight. When fights got a little heated, they stepped in and took
ownership of their task. They went over all of the rules and they
enforced them.
They were superb.
It may be hard to believe, especially if you have not been around boys
who wrestle for fun, but this was just plain fun.
The whole group was out there cheering each other on.
Kina was beside me and together we cheered and laughed our fool head’s off!
The overall Champion of Fight Night 2011: Peter - but what a fight!
(sidebar: Jillayna was supposed to wrestle Olivia but she was afraid
she’d maul Olivia. We decided to put safety first and so we changed the
plans a bit. Olivia fought Juliet. It was also decided that on the
night before we board the plane, there will be a match between Jillayna
and Rachael. We’re both in full out training mode.
Bring it on!)
New Haitian School Rotation
 |
| Pato, pato. ganso in Haina |
On Wednesday we added a new rotation to the mix. There is a lady who
cooks for us at the base: Maria (she is one of two ladies who cooks,
actually). She lives outside of Santo Domingo, in Haina, and has
connections to a ministry there and connected us with Tessial. He is a
wonderful man, who speaks English well, and who has a heart for the
Haitian poor among him.
Background: Haitians living in the Dominican are, generally,
second-class citizens. Even if a Haitian child’s great-grandfather
was the one who immigrated into the Dominican, unless he was sponsored
by a Dominican, unless he did everything ‘right’, all of his descendants
will be aliens in this country. This is why Ina was drawn to Cercadillo -
it is a village of Haitian descendants. Although most people currently living
in this village were born in the Dominican, they do not have papers
and their parents do not have papers so (without Ina’s help)
they do not have access to schools and other government run services.
The situation is the same in Haina. Our friend, Tessial, has started
his own school for local Haitian children who do not have access to
public schools. He runs it in a house-type building that he rents.
It is small. There is one main room. One chalkboard.
30 or so kids each morning and afternoon.
Benches on each side of the room serve as desks.
It is so simple. Primitive. Moving.
This has been our new rotation.
Every student has been at least once.
Jeremy has owned this place as his own.
He came home on Friday and said that he has two kids there.
(their colour is slightly darker than Jeremy’s, but it don’t matter).
When our children are there they teach, sing, play games
etc...basically they love on these kids.
And these kids love on the Canadians.
Last week Karina, Juliet, Jake and David had the privilege
of hearing the kids singing, “Here I am to Worship” in Creole (the
Haitian native language) and naturally the Canadians returned the
favour in English. Tessial was so thrilled! He wanted our kids to write
down the words and teach it to him so he could, in turn, teach his
church on Sunday. Tessial is thrilled with the performance of the
Canadians and our children have appreciated the new environment. He is
so thrilled with our children that he wants us to come to his church
one Sunday and preach.
The children are currently drafting their sermons to see who
the lucky one will be - grade 10 Bible has served them well!
This school has students who speak mostly Creole. Generally, Spanish
is their second language. English is their third. It has been quite the
challenge and the relief for our children to teach here.
They have been brought to the basics of language:
they can not start by teaching English numbers and letters,
they are teaching phonetics first. They are being required to dissect
language to it’s smallest parts. After spending multiple days teaching
just plain English, and struggling through making connections from
English to Spanish, they have now all been stretched even further
as they have often had to teach without the common ground of the
Spanish language.
Some students in particular have been stretched:
Stacey, Juliet, and Megan.
In the afternoons there is a sixteen year old girl, Elva, who comes to school
but she is with kids who are all significantly younger than her.
As a result she has been getting some one-on-one help.
The issue? She doesn’t speak any Spanish.
So our kids have been tutoring her in English without any common
ground. They have all LOVED the challenge! She is eager to learn, tries
hard and they are able to learn a little bit of Creole in the process.
Elva has blessed us.
As mentioned previously, Kina is here.
Kina is Max’ wife. Max is our host.
Max and Kina and four of their five children lived in the
Dominican for fourteen years as their children were growing up. A
couple of years ago they moved back to Stratford, Ontario.
Max wasn’t content there.
His heart was still calling him to missions.
As a result, last year and this year he has spent January - the middle of
April in the Dominican while Kina stays in Stratford. His original plan
was to leave here at the end of March. Last year, and this year again,
Max has extended his stay in order to help out our TDChristian
students.
You can well imagine that being away from one’s spouse for
three months is hard enough. How much harder would it be to extend that
stay by two and a half weeks in order to help out a group of Canadian
teenagers?
Yeah.
Before we left I met with last year’s DR crew who also
worked with Max and Kina. Two days before I was going to leave with
this year’s crew we were all sitting in a circle reminiscing. They
remembered how much of a blessing Kina was to them and to their trip.
I said not a word. I prompted them not.
Ryan asked me how long Max and Kina would be apart.
Three months, I said. Ryan looked up at the group with a solemn face
and said, “Do you guys want to fund raise to get Kina to the DR again?
Three months is way too long to be away from your spouse.”
The group erupted. Smiles beamed. Excitement penetrated.
The kids got together as much money as they could, from their own pockets.
The did not fund raise.
They gave of their wealth.
A cheque was mailed to Kina’s house so she could buy a plane ticket
to see Max. I told her a cheque was coming, but I didn’t know the amount,
and a ticket was booked.
Cost? $525 or so. The cheque arrived shortly after.
The amount? $515.
God is good.
Kina arrived last Monday evening. Max had to leave on Tuesday to pick
up a work team and stay with them at the other base. Kina chose to stay
with us. After two months of being apart, Kina chose to stay with us
and support us.
This is Christ’s love.
She knew she had a role to play.
She wanted to love on my kids in the same way that they love on the
Dominican and Haitian kids. She wanted to help organize details and she
chose to support me. Well, on Tuesday and Wednesday we got details
done. We visited the Haina school and organized for it to start the
next day. We got our hotel for the end of our stay booked. We got other
surprises booked. She took Ian and Karina to the clinic with me and we
got them taken care of. She learned all of our kid’s names and got to
know them. She enjoyed Fight Night 2011. And Kina and I got to spend
some of the day together on Wednesday - which was much appreciated on
my part. And two days later Max came to pick her up.
Kina is a blessing.
 |
| Rachel and Ian and the Circle Game |
On Thursday I had the privilege of going to a school with Rachel, Ian,
John-Mark, Nicole and Evan. If you could only see these kids own their
classrooms... Rachel and Ian taught together for the day, along with
Nicole in the morning. Despite what they may have felt inside, they
walked into each classroom with confidence - Ian even had his shoulders
straight up for a bit ;) What was especially neat to see was the change
between the morning and afternoon classes.
(sidebar: in the DR you don’t work between 12 and 2. This is siesta.
You eat lunch and then you rest. Stores close for those two hours.
There are no classes. You chill. Max sleeps. Often we tan.
It is mandatory rest time.
Even yesterday at the job site Josh asked if there was any work he could do
during siesta. Peter and I told him emphatically to stop being North
American, to be Dominican and chill! Enjoy the sights, sounds and
people. There will be time for work later.
We heart the DR.
Schools have classes from 8-12 and then a whole new batch
of ninos y ninas come for school from 2-6).
At lunch and siesta the six of us had a discussion about teaching.
I gave them some tips: repetition is key, watch the people you’re teaching,
if you ask the class to repeat something but you only hear a couple of voices
- do it again until you get everybody repeating, target people specifically
to answer questions for it makes everyone pay better attention.
In the afternoon it was beautiful to see the improvement.
At one point Ian and Rachel asked the class to repeat something
but only a handful of students responded.
They said, “No, todo!” (No, all!) and there was a resounding response.
They ended up having to teach a class for nearly two hours and they
rocked it! They did, obviously, play the circle game. This game could
go on forever - the kids still love it and still get ridiculously
excited!
 |
| Hanging out with kids on class trip |
Friday was an interesting day. Jillayna, John-Mark, Ian, David, Olivia
and I went on a class trip. Wendy is a senior student at Renacer, one
of the schools we teach English at. Wendy has been a fantastic aide at
this school. She has been our facilitator every day that we’ve been
there which is extremely helpful given our chaperone’s lack of Spanish
abilities. She is a super star student who organized a clothing drive
at her school and a subsequent trip to a remote Haitian village.
The purpose of this trip was to get her classmates aware of their fellow
countrymen and to get them involved in activities with the kids there
and hand out the clothes.
Well, what an experience.
The Principal, four teachers, about forty students and the six of us
boarded an air-conditioned bus and headed out.
Olivia and I were sitting in the middle of the bus and were asked
to move to the front so all of the Dominicans could sit together.
That was awkward.
We drove for about an hour and a half to this village.
When we got there, the Canadians were sent to a school to teach.
(And the Dominican students, for the most part, hung out on the bus).
This school was fascinating. It was one small building
- maybe slightly bigger than a TDCH classroom. This building had
makeshift dividers creating three classrooms. Every time someone spoke,
each of the other two classes could hear. Our children worked alongside
some Dominican senior students as they taught.
After teaching we were brought to the field to play baseball. The
first game was just girls: us vs. the villagers. Jillayna has turned
over a new leaf and now refers to herself as Sporty Spice so she was
ready to go! Wendy was the go-to person for our team and often when
there was more than one person on base - she told me to go up,
regardless of the batting order. It was clear that Jillayna, Olivia and
I have Holland Marsh baseball roots - we knew how to play.
Our Dominican teammates?
Not so much.
Despite our efforts, The Imports lost 8-3 in a mere one and a half innings.
Oops.
In the afternoon we handed out clothes (again while most of the
Dominican students hung out on the bus).
This was a fascinating but frustrating experience.
We were in the schoolhouse and had sorted all the clothes.
The teachers of both the local school and Renacer helped
with the handing out and sorting of clothes. They started by giving out
a couple of outfits to each of the students at the school. Then they
started handing them out at random through the two windows of the
school.
This was mayhem.
There was fighting and grabbing. People hid clothes they received
in order to receive more. The more aggressive, in-your-face people
got more stuff than others.
Wow.
It was uncomfortable for our group.
We helped out a bit at first but then we just needed to step away.
It was difficult for our group because we saw things that didn’t make
sense to us, but there was nothing we could do about it.
We saw very little good in this process.
The aggressive folks were rewarded.
There was a quieter kid in the school that David and I were playing with.
He got one T-shirt.
That’s it, but there were other kids who were walking away with arms
full of items. It was really tough to see.
It wasn’t help, it was handing out.
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| David and friend who got 1 t-shirt |
We talked about it afterwards and we struggled with what we saw.
We decided that we were really able to appreciate how the donations we
brought were handed out.
The stuff we gave to Ina - she hands it out in her village,
but they do not get anything for free. Her people pay a small price for
everything for this creates ownership and develops responsibility.
Last week she handed out the Crocs we gave her but she
charged her people 50 pesos (about $1.30) for each pair.
We also brought donations to the Ministry Centre where we’re staying.
We put our donations in a room behind a closed door and
we haven’t seen them since.
When a pastor knows of a need in his congregation he’ll come to
that room and see if the need can be filled.
As a result we cannot come home with pictures of cute local kids
holding the stuff we brought.
We cannot come home with stories of where the stuff went.
But we know the donations are going to people who need them.
That is good enough for us.
These two systems just seem to make more sense.
Regardless, it was incredibly interesting and eye-opening to experience
this day.
It was great to see Dominicans looking after Dominicans
because so often I think we assume this doesn’t happen.
It was neat to see a Senior student plan such a day.
It was neat to go to yet another village in the Dominican
that was made up of Haitian descendants.
It was neat, but difficult, to see the same standard of poverty in this
Haitian village.
Despite the frustrations of the day it has been chalked up
to yet another learning experience.
The learning continues...
~Rachael~
