Brave face

Less than a week! Oh my gosh how has 4 months gone by so quickly! I can’t believe this is really the end of my time here. While I am so excited to go home I am so sad to be leaving.

While there has been so many volunteers here and people always surrounding me Maria and Lauren coming back into town to join me and Emily in my final two weeks has been really nice! It is great to finish on the same note that I started on and it reminds me of everything I have been through here having them back.

It’s been to long since the last time I blogged to give you a day by day but there was two things that I did in the last week and a half that were new. Firstly I drove a moto, which for your information, if you had the same question my mother had, there was no beer involved but poor Nelly needed one watching me drive his moto. The second thing I did this week was I went to church. Though it was supposedly a Catholic church it did not resemble anything I was familiar with. It was a two hour ordeal with the priest yelling into the microphone for the entire time and I didn’t understand a word of it. But hey, I did it!

I feel so connected with this place and more and more every day and can’t imagine leaving. I know the kids at camp and why they have the behavioural issues they have. I know how to handle all of the kid’s different needs and make them all enjoy their time at camp. I know what ‘fun’ is in the eyes of Dominican children (primarily dances that include a lot of bum shaking) but I have also gained their respect to have them sing songs like The Lion Sleeps Tonight acapella with a harmony.

I feel like I have only just started to understand the daily struggles people face here and only just getting involved in their lives and trying to make them better. I have been hanging out with the family of one of my friends, Nelly, quite a lot and seeing exactly how they live has been devastating. They live in what we might use as an authentic camping house half concrete and half wood with a tin roof leaving large visible holes in the walls and ceiling that allow rain to enter. They have hardly any furniture, no running water inside, an outside bathroom and no real kitchen. The three kids are Luiskin, Luigina and Joelson they are 13, 7 and 5 respectively with Nelly and the father of the three kids, Luis living there. The first time I went there I took a deck of Uno cards I had inherited and gave it to them. We were playing and I had Joelson on my lap and I told him to lay a yellow card only to learn that he didn’t know his colours or numbers at the age of 5. Needless to say the Uno cards became a numbers and colours lesson. The more I spent time with them the more I saw just how difficult their lives are.  While Luis works incredibly long hours at a gas station and Nelly stays home to take care of the kids, but making ends meet is still tough.

I wanted to do something to help but didn’t know what and felt much like a spoiled princess who could only solve problems by throwing money at it, which I didn’t want to do and which they would never accept. Instead I asked Nelly to make some souvenirs for me. I don’t want to give away the surprise for those of you getting one, but they turned out so great that he started making them and selling them to all of the volunteers, which has been amazing for their whole family!

I have learned so much here about the community around me, about myself and about the life I want to lead. I have been so blessed in my time here to have met such amazing people who have helped me in so many ways. Nelly’s family has opened my eyes to so many things and given me more than they will ever know. I owe so much to Shawn and Kelly’s family for adopting me and giving me the parent-like advice I need, for loving on me and praying for me when I didn’t know I needed a prayer. To Lauren and Emily I thank them for their down-to-earthness and being my friends through it all.  I thank Mercedes who loved and fed me despite not being able to speak to me for the first two months. To all the other people who have come in and out of my life in the time I have been here you have all taught me something and made my time here a richer experience. To all the kids who have pushed me to my limits, forced me to learn Spanish, shared their stories and let me into their lives and hearts. Lastly to Anthony and Fiona who have had brought me here, welcomed me and my ideas into their work. I am grateful to everyone here and all the people at home who have supported me by praying, thinking and writing to me.

The only thing I need now is a brave face to get through the next week with as few tears as possible as I tell all these people in life just how much they mean to me. See you all soon!