Baseball: much more fun with fruit!

Recently we've taken to batting the fruit that comes off of the trees in the school's backyard. Don't worry, we're only batting stuff that is rotting or won't ripen. It all started when Ronni, Ernesto and Felipe shook the avocado tree to get the one that were ready down. Some of the smaller ones fell off at the same time. They wouldn't have ever ripened so we decided that the next best option was to pull out the baseball bat. Then we just started finding more and more stuff to bat. There are a lot of photos in this post...I hope you enjoy!


Ronni. He pitched most of the time for us but he's pretty good at the bat!




Ernesto!


Great hit, Lauren




Look at Felipe! In my untrained baseball-form eyes, he looks like a pro!






Love it! Can you see the avocado splattering all over! It's really quite fun to bat tiny avocados!


Clearly I'm not athletic! And it's so much worse because Ashley (above) and Kim (below) look excellent in their photos! Oh, well. This is not the first, nor the last, embarrassing picture that I will post of myself! Just to clarify, though, I did manage to hit the avocado!


Lovely form, Kim!


It's a hit!




This was quite funny as it actually splattered all over Miguel's face! Desafortunadamente, guanpan burns when it makes contact with your eyes. Who knew?!




The guanpan is dying...


dead!



Riley's the only one I don't have a picture of actually hitting anything. Not saying he didn't break open a few guanpan, my camera just didn't capture it. Sorry, Riles!








Ewww, guanpan after being batted!


I can't remember what Jody hit. But it went flying, that's for sure!


Chepe hit baby coconuts




These were our fans...Profe Kim's class! They were learning about how to appropriately use their hands that day and we were providing a perfect example!


I actually hit it! And it really hurt!


I won't not want to be the coconut that Miguel's about to hit! Do you see the look in his eyes?!




That's right; Miguel broke the coconut!!


The bat. It's not slightly broken and really dirty!

A MacGyver moment from Gare

Garrett loves Odilsia's cooking (who doesn't? Honestly!). One day, after working all morning, Garrett had to go back to the Mak house in Puerto Plata but wanted some of Odilsia's delicious cooking before going. Desafortunadamente (my favorite Spanish word), the food was fresh out of the pot and super hot. So Garrett decided that he would make his plate para llevar (to go) and eat it when he got home. Ahh, yes, the beauty of ducktape! He just took two bowls, taped them together and tucked his precious food away in his backpack to enjoy later! Genius, really. And slightly Dominican. And very MacGyver!

Construction Update

The wall in the back is up! They just need to add the columns


It looks great, doesn't it?


Along this side they are going to put a chain link fence with barbwire on top. The neighbors didn't want us to take away their breeze.


We had some problems with the pump so Miguel was fixing it


Aaaaaand the best part of the day for the workers: NAPTIME! Everyday after lunch everyone gets to take a lovely nap. Aaaahhh!

Some precious kids

Kids playing at recess with Erika


Walking up to school


Odilsia's twin boys with Eduardo (he used to come to our school but his family moved to Los Algodones, where Odilsia's lives, so he doesn't come)


Martin


Marileidi


Carlos Miguel


Miguel Angel


Ashley wishes he were this calm and pensive in class. But he's full of energy!

Burning Cane

Friday through Monday the cane fields were burning. People have been burning them in protest. I haven't quite figured out what they are protesting. Some say that they are protesting because they want the sugarcane factories to open back up again but the government won't. Others are saying that the government is considering open the sugarcane factories up again but the people don't want them opened again. I don't know much about it. What I do know is that there was a lot of ash covering the ground for a few days. Here are some pictures I took from the top of our apartment building of the cane fields burning:


Smoke covered the Puerto Plata area for days.


Burning fields toward Sosua


Billowing smoke. So gross!

La Pared

Here's what's been happening with the wall this week:


We're gringos...


...and we like to all come to work in the same shirt!! Thanks to T.J. Kendall all of the white construction workers can dress alike.


Pobre Miguelito, he wasn't invited to be a part of the "Elite" club


Miguel bending steel...


it's hard work, especially in the direct Dominican Summer sun!


This was one of the trenches on Tuesday. Also that's one of the dogs that had her puppies in our backyard. Also at the very end you can see Viejo (he's 72 years old) digging deeper.


Today, Friday, they are starting with the cement!


Chepe and the cement of the footings

It's going up quickly! More pictures next week.

They're baaaack....

If whilst at the school you find...


some shovels and tubing....


some sacks of chalk and string....


a spool of barbwire....


and Viejo...

what does that mean??

Yep. You're right. The workers are back! Today started phase 2 (the last part) of building the wall around the entire school! We are so excited. No more mangy dogs having puppies in our backyard; no more neighbors drinking beer in our ranchito; no more marijuana grown in our backyard!! More photos to come as the wall goes up. They're starting to dig the trenches today.


Miguel measuring


The chalk-line for the trenches!

Some fun fotos

Elijio singing in the morning


Bernadeta, Memo's mom, is 8 months pregnant


Ernesto's hand. I don't know why but I like this photo


Ambiolix's nose! He's so presh.


Kendall with some of our crazy Chichiguan kids.


Ambiolix playing in Chichigua


Franchesca eating a guava


Bernito...looks like he's thinking but he's really looking at Kendall and Memo


Kendall tickling Memo.


Emilio's hand


Wilton


Alturo, he's so happy!

A little bit of Kim's class

Profe Kim's class learns about the creation story!



Later that day, Profe Kim was super tired!

She, and all the other teachers, are doing such an amazing job! They are working hard to discipline and love and possibly teach the crazy kids we have. And we can already see improvement! We have much less fighting, biting, hitting, screaming, crying, etc. And it's only week 3.

Learning to use our hands nicely

Our students are in need of learning to treat others nicely. It's hard to break them of what they have learned, though. When grown men here "settle" arguments with violence and when parents or siblings abuse each other, what else should we expect. We do, however, expect them to learn to make good decisions with their hands during their year with us. Our teachers have taken to making books about how to use hand (or feet, or teeth, etc). Today Ashley's class was talking about hands and what they are for (throwing the ball, eating, painting, hugging, etc). After Ashley read them the book she made (see video below), they each traced their own hand to hang up in the classroom to remind them what our hands should be used for. Here are some pictures from the day:


Jeson tracing his hand


Miguel Angel, Yery, and Gustavo trace theirs


Escarlet shows off her work


Miguel Angel got marker on his hand...and then proceeded to cover both hands with blue marker.


In the front of the classroom they now have a visual reminder of how we are supposed to use our hands. "We can use our hands for good thing!"


Ashley reading the "Hands" book to her class