being artistic in the DR

With a few orphans in Haiti

Dariani

another week........it starts

okay, we haven't started quite yet. the new week i mean. the team that has been doing construction was in church this morning and then left right away for the beach.
speaking of church this morning, i have been playing guitar for the church when i have been in santiago. but with the usual worship band. and i didn't really know the songs so i had to use a guitar and a microphone and the sound was messed up, and just a whole bunch of things. but this was with a different worship band that i've been practicing with, and we solved some of the sound level problems and i've practiced the songs more and it went really well this morning. really well, it's exciting. i even got to sing a little bit.

we played last night for the youth group worship time. there was a little bit more energy in that service.

these next couple days me and the other interns, which after one more comes in tonight makes hannah, rebecca, and katie, will be doing a bunch of laundry. with that and any last minute preparations for the basketball week those days shouldn't be completely busy.

have a great Sunday everyone, and keep praying for me. i'm studying spanish and this week is going to be a blast.

the big week's a comin'

first of all i have three pictures to show you. me with hair, me with a hair cut, and another hair cut.




lovely huh?

well, for all this week i have been helping Will get prepared for next week. Next week is basketball week. a group of 29 people are coming down, 21 of them are guys who play basketball. we'll have camps all week. over a hundred some kids. it's going to be busy busy busy.

today Will and Pedro had sign ups at the court. they've been telling kids for the longest time to be there on this day, other wise they couldn't come to the camps. so thankfully there was a small crowd on time when we got there. so my morning was making sure kids were standing in line and wathing basketballs while Will and Pedro took names and divided them into teams.

yesterday was looooonnnnnnnnggggg. we painted that same court. it's a gravelly asphalt type surface that is breaking down so it's textured with stones. we painted lines, and the lane. it took all day. and man was it hot. but it's all so it looks good, and it looks good for sure.

last night Will and Audrey took me out to eat. the mall they have in the city has a food court and i got pizza hut. oh man. it was so good.

tonight or for the rest of the day i'm sure we'll just do more stuff to prepare for the team that's coming. i'm off to study spanish. :)

summing up haiti

wow, i've been busy the last few days and i am can tell that i'm not going to remember every little detail about the rest of haiti so i'll try my best.

one of the mornings i was awoken by john grabbing my foot. he said, brent get up, you're going back to the dominican. i said, "when?" and he said right now. startled i stumbled out of bed as john continued to give me directions. i was going so i could call in to tim krause with john's cellphone. i was going with our security guard jose. he was picking up food to bring back for us. this was a day where da jabon became a free trade area. the border of haiti is kinda expanded to include the city so haitians can go there and buy and sell. so with john's phone and the money for the food i set out with jose and we quickly got a motorcyle taxi ride to the border. that in itself was an experience. three men on a motorcycle through crazy streets. i liked it though.

da jabon was packed, and most of the time i either had jose's arm in my hand or the other way around. he said a few times i need to hold onto you for your protection. lol. what an experience i tell you. jose speaks some spanish, i speak almost no spanish. we rented a guy with a wheel barrow and he followed us around to get ice, bread, spaghetti, and five live chickens tied together by one foot each.

i ended up not being able to call tim but it was okay because jackie was able to call back in ouanamenthe.

we played soccer against the haitians in the evenings everyday. we had a vbs at the church again, then on saturday we had vbs at another church deeper into the city. that was crazy. it was such a small building and it was so hot. and there were a bunch of teenagers that were interested in stealing some of our stuff so i had to stand guard.

we also had our soccer camps everyday after lunch. those went well. some of the kids were really good at soccer.

on sunday me, romano, and marisol were coming back early and the team was heading to a beach resort to spend some relaxing time. coming through the border was much different this time though. many guards bribe their superiors to let them work the border because they don't get paid well and they can try and force people to give them money to come through and even people who are allowed to come through they try to get money out of them. they didn't mess with me really because i'm an american and i had my passport. and they didn't say anything to marisol because she's dominican, but they gave romano the hardest time. especially the guard at the gate on the bridge. romano told me that they make you argue and waste time or pay and you can go. romano has papers and whatever that lets him live in the dominican but he says that he doesn't have to show that guy. they only people he really has to deal with is customs but there are like 4 other lines of guys that try to mess with him.

well finally we get through and go up to customs and they have to stamp my passport but it costs ten bucks. in american money. i only had pesos. so romano took my pesos and went back across into haiti to see if he could exchange for dollars. which left me with marisol and no english speakers. i finally saw romano again but the guard this time really wasn't going to let him across. he handled him quite roughly and at one point grabbed his gun. romano told me he wouldn't have shot but was just trying to be intimidating. he would have hit him with it before shooting him.

after worrying for romanos life for a few min. romano finally got through and another guy stopped him and tried to get him to pay. he finally got through him and we payed for my passport. then walking through the arch a group of guys stopped us and tried to get him to pay again. then after threatening that we would go back to haiti and get my money back they just let us through. oh man. crazy.

we then ate at the restaurant that we had chicken at before and we hopped onto the bus that came back to santiago. i spent the trip discussing language, the dominican, haiti and girls with romano. then we hopped in a taxi and made it back to hoya del camito where the mission houses are.

i spent the rest of sunday relaxing and i went to romano's soccer game. he's part of a sports outreach and since it's soccer it's almost completely haitians. dominicans are baseball people. and some like basketball. but not so much soccer.

all three of the teams were at a beach somewhere so i got to relax.

monday went by with not much to do either. then the teams came back at night. i got to meet up with the haiti team and it was good to see them. we went to bon (bone) which is the ice cream place here. then night time and they left at like 530 in the morning on tuesday.

i spent tuesday with hannah the other intern cleaning the dorms to prepare for the next team that was coming that night. then we collected all of the clothes that the team left behind and moved them over to the washingmachine which is in like a junkyard type storage area in an area that G.O. owns. we then tried to wash, rinse, and hang up as many loads as we could.

the new team arrived on tuesday night. also another intern, rebecca. this new team will be doing construction in the hole.

the "hole" is a big junk hole type place. i'm not sure how big it is across but the city just throws its junk into it. and people started building houses in it because they wouldn't be charged to live in a junk yard. G.O. has a church down there which feeds around 40 kids their only meal of the day. the girls' basketball team went there to help feed the kids one day when we were here last year in august.

i'm spending this week not with the team, but with will because the next week is a big basketball week and we have to get prepared. it's going to be a lot of work and really long days but i'm very excited for it.

the king of flies

i believe that's a book about kids that are stranded on an island and they form their own government and hierarchy. i thought of it when i was watching the kids one evening from the second floor of the G.O. building. it's all kids. the parents aren't anywhere to be seen. two of the younger girls got into a fight and there was a stand off. some of the kids their age were watching and putting in their two cents. a few older boys came and were just observing definitely just watching the show. then an older teenager or maybe even a young guy in his early twenties walked through and broke it up a bit. telling this person that and that person this. whoever was bigger made the rules. that was easy to see.

day two started at around 530 or 6. by that time it was bright as day. i stayed in bed slightly longer thinking to myself how amazing it was that it was so bright. then breakfast which was incredible. fried eggs i believe. mm mmm. the morning went easy and around 9 i think we went to set up VBS in the church, down on the first floor. there were lots and lots of kids. many just watched from the fence and we kept inviting them in. Veni timmon (teh MOAN). come children. and we filled the church. after singing we split the kids into 3 age groups, which was far from perfect. moving to the areas was wild chaos. and then a translator at each group told a bible story. then we did a craft which on this day (thursday) was a ziplock baggie filled partly with blue rocks and we put paper stars and fish in them. then we stapled a fish bowl shape around the ziplock baggie. the kids didn't do anything really besides sit there and let us give them stuff. i went around our circle stapling and they didn't know how to hold the bags or put the paper bowl around it so i was bending down and holding this and trying to communicate where i wanted their hands, but not only could i not speak the language, these were young kids and didn't really get it anyway. it was so hot i was dripping all over. finally it was time to go outside and play. thank you Jesus.

we set up a spot inside the fence where there was a place used as a soccer goal and a spot to kick from. we brought out one ball. i realized quickly that in this culture where it was whoever could slap or push their way through not all of the kids were going to get a chance so i started pushing and pulling kids away from the ball and into a line. easier said than done because even when the kids understand what you are trying to do, they are still trying to get what they want. they look at you and beg not for what is right but that you let them break the rules.

so i stood at the front of the line, holding everyone back, because even in the line they are pushing forward so no one can cut them which pushes the line constantly. when one kid, i think they were all boys, would kick once, i kind of grab the head of the next boy and pull him in front of me. quickly again, i realized that many boys were cutting. quite blantantly. i tried to get help from someone to watch the line but pretty soon i switched places so he could be at the front of the line and i would watch for cutters. they boys were so bad. they would argue. they knew what i meant, what i was doing and they would still try. just so they could kick a ball. they are so starved for fun. for playing. and one of the sad parts is that the other kids being cut really seemed to be used to it. in america i'm sure i would have heard yelling about cutting and "teacher, teacher" but here there might be a short yell and then acceptance. like it was the way things were.

all of the other kids, well, most of them anyway, were occupied by a huge, and i mean huge, beach ball that they would hit in the air and chase. there isn't a field inside of the fence, just a medium sized area and they took that ball all over it. kids from the soccer ball line would run over and hit the ball and then try and get back in line, which i put an end to quickly. but it was so hard to regulate cutting since everyone was trying to do it. if i spent a second moving one boy to the end of the line, the boy who just kicked would move into place right behind the boy who was kicking next. like trying to stop a sinking boat by plugging one hole at a time.

lunch and siesta, which if i haven't explained that before is the wonderful invention where no on does anything really between 12 and 2, then preparing to do the first soccer camp. next to the fenced in area is a field that doesn't really have grass and is kinda in the shape of a triangle. two roads that go on either side of the church area cross on the other side of the field. there is a wall about 4 to 5 feet high along most of one of the roads. between the church and the field though someone is building a house, even though the church owns the land, the guy just took it. i'm not sure who it is or how he is powerful but he doesn't own the land and i guess there has been a lawsuit for the last three years. i bring this up because we take our stuff out into the field to do the soccer camp and we learn from the workers that we can't do the camp on our field. to avoid trouble we decide to move back inside the fence around the church. there are so many kids so we try to pick an age group and then we just pick thirty from that group. there are a lot of kids that don't get to come to the camp today. those who don't stand against the fence and watch from the outside. we have 3 stations and i am in charge of the dribbling station. there was shooting and passing also. i set up cones for the kids to slalom through. the thirty kids are split into three "families" with a parent and a translator. i start my drill by explaining through the translator what the kids are going to do and then helping them. after all three teams go we break down the drill areas push the kids to the side and set up a playing field in the small area. teams of 5 are picked from the kids and they play until the first goal. then new teams. some of these kids are pretty good.

we then have supper and then i find out that some older guys want to play us in soccer. we head out to a school that might be like a 3 min. walk from the church so we can use it's field. but there is already a group of haitians there on the field, not playing, and they give us some trouble. they said they want to play against the americans but we weren't going to do that. so we walked back and used the field next to the church. which i guess it was okay because it was a soccer game and we weren't doing any camp there, so no one had a problem with it.

we split up americans and haitians and it was a great time. so much fun. getting dirty, playing soccer. the field was lined with haitians. lined, maybe even two rows all the way around. and they cheered and yelled. espeically for goals. it was an amazing time. then we went back in for supper.

we had more time for debriefing then we just hung out. another great day in haiti.

another country to mark off the list

wow, haiti has now been bellingered. (i hope j.p. reads this) what a crazy experience. it was wednesday and marisol, romano, jackie and i took a cab early in the morning to hop a ride on Caribe Tours. it is supposed to be a very nice bus and we were going to take it the two and a half hour trip to go west to the border of haiti and the dominican republic. unfortunately caribe tours wasn't leaving when we needed it to so we took linear expresso. the difference was if you were planning on staying in a four star hotel and ended up in a one star, or possibly a two star. the biggest deal i was told was the linear expresso usually just packed people in so there was little space, but our bus wasn't too bad. the problem for me was that in the morning before we left i had to do a few chores at the last minute and didn't get breakfast. whatever, i'm a big boy.

john martinez, our leader, was bringing the team in the bus later that day.

our small group arrived in da jabon, a border city in the dominican, and we walked to arsenio's house. he is the pastor of the church in ouanamenthe, the city just across the border into haiti. we waited at arsenio's house for the team to arrive.

the team was from chicago and there were fourteen in the group. one of the team members, sarah, had lived in haiti for six months at some point and knew creoul, the language of haiti. she was a big help throughout the week. the team was going to do vacation bible school in the mornings and a soccer camp in the evenings, or the afternoons actually.

finally the team showed up and romano and i walked to a really small restaurant to order food for everyone. and i mean restaurant in the dominican sense. open to the ouside. looks like a buffet where you point at something and the workers put it on your plate from the other side then hand you your plate. we ate chicken and then we set out for the border. all our bags had been brought in the van and were transfered to a truck at arsenio's house and would be brought separate.

we made it to the border and after a small wait, which praise the Lord was a blessing, we went through customs. which is basically just a big stone arch which on the otherside is a bridge over a small river. the bridge has a gate on it guarded by men with guns, men in camo. then we all hopped on a truck, our bags were moved to another truck and after another small wait for the haiti customs we were driving through ouanamenthe (WANNA MENTH).

people everywhere would wave and smile when we waved to them. kids were running along the streets yelling "blanc blanc" which means white in creoul. we got to the churhc which is a compound surrounded by a chain fence. there is a small area inside the fence, a small school under construction and a two story building that was the church. the church was actually in the bottom floor. the ceiling wasn't very high. it was always very hot. and the pews weren't the greatest. just metal legs with wooden seats and a two by four for the back rest. a lot didn't even have back rests. but it was actually pretty big inside.

the second floor was open to the outside. there were a set of stone stairs with stone railings leading up the one side and the walls were about 4 feet high all round. this is where we ate and relaxed and talked and regrouped. the back half of the floor had about 9 foot walls which made the two dormitories. the celing of the entire second floor was a sloped tin roof and the walls didn't even come close to reaching it. the rooms were separted by an area that was supposed to be a kitchen that was all the way open to the main area. both dorm rooms had many bunk beds that were stacked three high. we all had to use bug nets. in the back of both dorm rooms there was a bathroom with three toilets, three showers and a counter with three sinks. the water in haiti is really bad and even the shower water smelled like feces. our water was pumped up to a container on the roof or someplace above us and so when the generator wasn't' working we had a limited water supply. we had to chose most of the time between flushing the toilets and taking showers.

all water that we drank was bought and brought to us. marisol cooked all our food down the road at the orphanage and that was brought to us.

so we settled in that first day and took a few min. to get adjusted and go over the rules then we got the stuff for the vbs together that the team had brought from the states and went to the orphanage.

the orphanage was just down the street maybe 70 ft. it had a big metal gate that opened and we went into the compound. we never really went inside the building but they had a space about 20 ft wide with a few trees and then a space on the other side of that which was sunken into the ground maybe a foot and had a cement floor. it was covered with a tin roof and had a chalk board and desks. this is where we did the vbs. the kids were precious. the team sang songs with them, they played games with them, they did a craft with them. it was great. then after taking picture after picture after picture we finally went back to eat dinner. i don't remember what we had the first day but all the food that we ate in haiti was really good. thank you marisol. then we debriefed with the team and prepared slightly for tomorrow. i believe we had plans to do something with the church but it ended up not happening. it gets dark there at around 9 and there are no lights anywhere. we didn't run the generator long so soon it was either go to bed or sit in the dark and get eaten by bugs. the heat wasn't that bad for me the first night. all in all, a great first day in haiti.

gone going gone

wow, what a meeting. what a week. it looks like i'm going to haiti to help with the soccer stuff. it's wild. i've never been to haiti, i have to pack a bag. i need to wash enough clothes to be able to be gone for a week. oh man. i didn't see this coming. which is okay. how exciting it feels. i wish i had more experience and i could be a better asset for this week, but that comes with time. and not that i would be doing a whole lot of different stuff, but maybe i could do the things i will be doing better.

alright. i won't be blogging for a while. i'll try to journal so i can remember all that is going to happen.

it all starts today

quite ominous huh? well, it's fitting, because the crazy is about to hit the fan. this morning i've been painting since 8 to finish up before the teams get here. we have a all staff meeting at 2 and then a little after that people go to the airport to get the teams. 62 people are going to be here this week. of course probably a third of them are going to haiti along with some of our staff. but it's going to be a lot of fun......i hope.

yesterday was another good day. not that i did a lot, but i road around with will doing chores and visiting people for basketball stuff. but then, at night, or the evening i should say, me and will went and played basketball with his friend simon (sea-MOAN). it was like a real game. we had one referee and we played against professional players. there was a score keeper and a clock. it was sooo much fun. i just loved it. simon by the way is around 6'4" maybe, maybe taller and like a statue. just chizzled. will told me he actually had to stop lifting because he was getting too big. dang man. but it was really great. Will is really good and it was fun playing on his team. i made a couple of shots, but nothing from the outside.

well, it's siesta time right now and i'm waiting for my food. then there's the meeting at 2. thanks for reading again. email me sometime at brenton.bellinger@gmail.com.

week two in the books

the incredible thing about time is that it in fact does not fly. it seems to be more of an instantaneous flash. it doesn't matter if you flash for an hour or for a week. but all of a sudden you are in your present place and the past is gone forever. that's what it feels like for this last week.

i am now in mike and goody's apartment. they are missionaries down here but can't be here for the summer because they are having a baby in mid july. yay. and the apartment is wonderful. on the third floor of this building i have quite a view. it is huge for the standards here. i feel like i am in a hotel, a paradise after the apartment i had been staying in before. i really is great. Gracias Senor.

oh man, so many things have happened. we finished cleaning, painting, and restoring the new dorms that are connected to the church. it actually used to be the parsonage for gabriel the pastor and co-president of G.O. Ministries. we finished up that work on friday. then the staff that is down here had a supper meeting at tim krause's. once again he is the field director in the D.R. then Will and Audrey helped me move up here in the apartment. i didn't have a bed yet though and slept on the futon in the living room.

the next morning, saturday, will and I did a basketball "practice" type event for different ages. the young boys just did lay up drills and shooting. the girls did some dribble exercises next. and the last group of older boys were slipt into 4 teams and each team played another for maybe 10 min. and then switched. this was all done on one court for about one hour time slots. the court is a kind of asphalt with the surface being rough because of bigger stones in the mix. the rims weren't bad, but not really good at the same time. not something to write home about i guess, even though i am......nevermind.

after food, i went with will and pedro to check out the courts we are going to be using for the summer. they are spread out all over the city. we will use different ones so kids don't have to walk quite so far i believe, but i may be wrong. we checked out maybe six courts and the last one was near a softball field where our church's team was just starting to play a game. the baseball season is after i leave so i needed to see some dominican softball at least. and it was fun to watch. nothing special though. they do underhand but it's not slow pitch still. there aren't crazy wind ups like girls' softball and they weren't pitching near as fast but the ball never gets above the batter's shoulders even on its way to the plate.

our team has a player named juan jose. he almost made it to the major leagues in america but hurt his knee i believe. he's a great guy and can just clobber the ball, he was the shortstop.

we stayed for maybe two innings and then came back so we could get my bed moved into my apartment. later at 5 i think i went with will and pedro to a minor league basketball game of the team pedro coaches.

pedro is a man that is mentoring here. he's in his forties and was an amazing basketball player here in the dominican. back in the day pedro was the player of the year in THE basketball league as a rookie. i've heard stories of him scoring 83 points in a game and 61 in a playoff or something in that order. he can throw it up from this side of half court and it goes in. but an oddity in the dominican republic where basketball is concerned anyway is that he is very fundamentally sound. he's got a great basketball mind. he helps with the sports ministry with will.

pedro's team ended up losing, but it was quite an experience. the fans are so loyal, they were going crazy the whole game. the announcer did not stop talking the entire time.

after the game me and will went back and had supper with audrey. it was probably nine at night, and then we sat and talked about lots of things.

today for church i played the guitar again. then during announcements, gabriel asked what my name was, "something something americano, uh como se llama?" and i had no idea what was going on because i was already seated in a pew and will shouted out that my name was brent. and he thanked me i think for playing. of course i didn't really understand any of it. then after church we ate at a place which translated is called "the little grill." i had beef and it was amazing. this afternoon we've all been relaxing and it has been raining pretty heavy the last hour or two. it hasn't rained since those first days i was here.

another day will be a big preparation day for this next week and then we have three teams. i am pretty sure i will be doing construction with the team that is from audrey's church. there is a team going to do soccer in haiti. and i don't know what the other team is doing. but they all are coming on the same flight on tuesday. lol, we'll be carrying their bags and helping in tuesday night and then the summer is off like a flash :). craziness. i don't feel ready but i'm trusting God.

how the time flies

Hello again.

it has been quite a while since my last blog. this was unfortunately due to something needing to be reset or whatever in the office upstairs where none of us had a key.

the last bunch of days have been great though. a couple of my dominican friends that i had met when i was down here for a trip last summer are now here. the two main ones are isaiah (pronounced "ee-sigh-ee-uh) and romanos. the apartment i'm in is right next to a school, and it has a small basketball court in the ouside playground area. it's a very thin court and two on two is about the limit for teams. i think we played first on saturday and it was for about 2 hours i think. it was so much fun. the rules are a little different. you never have to take the ball back, and make it take it. one side of the court is a wall that separates the playground from a side street. there were so many times when the ball ended up on the other side of the wall and we had to wait for a kid in the street to through it back. we also played again on sunday, this time there were a few more guys and we played for more than 3 hours.

well, talking about sunday, i played guitar in church. we had practice on saturday where i met daniel a younger teen who played the drums and Auris (ow-oo-ree) who is incredible at playing the piano. we spent the first part of practice listening to songs on a computer and her figuring out how to play them on the piano, which took a lot less time than i thought possible. yeah, she's good. of course the songs are in spanish so it's hard for me to follow along by listening to the words, espcially since we didn't have them written down. all i did was watch the pinky finger of her left hand to know which chord she was playing and follow along. since i didn't bring my guitar and the one i was borrowing didn't have a strap i had to have one leg up on a chair to rest the guitar on. by the end of the worship part of the service the foot i was standing on was dying. i also didn't have a connection to the sound system so they had a mic set up right in from of the guitar. i'm not sure how i did because there was no monitor for me to hear out of. but it went well and i had a good time.

the pastor, gabriel, who is co-president of G.O. ministries, gave a sermon on not being selfish or not hurting others. it was over david and saul, and i know this because someone told me afterward.

oh, i almost forgot to tell about viviana. she used to work for G.O. but now she's not. she's dominican and engaged to an american, who i think is visiting soon. she's very great. she was a translater and the one to have me come to the worship practice. she sings in worship.

will partin, my missionary, gets here tomorrow. how exciting! we'll have so much fun, and do a lot of work i guess. there is a week that we will be doing a soccer camp in Haiti. and a big basketball one really soon i believe.

today i have just been resting. i came over to the girls' apartment to get on the internet and get stuff to eat. since i'm an intern all of my meals are provided and someone brings them over. rice, chicken, beans, and lettuce. :) it's good. i'm sure i will get quite used to it by the end of the summer.

i love you all, thanks for reading. hopefully next blog i'll have pictures and hopefully it won't take so long for me to post again.