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.