Life in Santo Domingo!

Week 7

17th October- 23rd October 2011

What a week!! We have managed to attend two fiestas in one night, Robin has preached a sermon in Spanish, ive given myself food poisoning, we have visited the Barrio de Naranjos and been greeted/ hugged by many small children!

Work has commenced at our two new projects. Firstly the school which is for children aged 3-10 years and is right in the center of Santo Domingo. In England the school wouldn´t be allowed to be open as it would be classified a 'health and safety nightmare' as the play area consists of a concrete courtyard with uneven dips and the building is still under construction with big iron rods sticking out of the floors and walls. The children are very very sweet and friendly and greet us every day by coming running over and giving us a hug! I fear we are more of a distraction then a help when we enter classrooms! We have been sitting in observing lessons of all the different classes which are again run a tad differntly to England. The children are full of energy and the boys love nothing more than a rough and tumble game of football on the concrete courtyard at break time (often causing a few tears). Robin is very popular with the boys who come running up to him and ram their heads into his groin asking to be picked up or wanting attenion. The older pupils aged 6-8  years have a mixed timetable with maths, PE, language, English and other subjects. It has been really interesting to observe and help the children in their english lessons. PE is not exactly a structured event as the PE teacher places a football in the middle of the courtyard and the whistle is blown and lots of little feet go crazy to kick the ball and sometimes each other. The headmaster Ednaldo has big hopes and dreams of expanding the school so that they can accomodate more children with better facilties. The structure of the school is such that it runs from 7:30- 12:30 am with paying students and then poorer students attend in the afternoon until 2:30pm. Obviously the more paying students the more poorer students can attend.

The Compassion project is completely different as students aged (3-18 years) attend the after school club where they are fed and split into different age categories and attempt to do some homework in reasonable peace and quiet. Our compassion project has 331 children which usually attend on different days except on saturday when they all cram themselves into a not very big building. The building itself consists of a tiny courtyard, one big hall, three very small classrooms, toilets and a kitchen. All of which are concrete! We are yet to attend a saturday where there are 331 children there and experience what surely must be absoloute bedlum! The volunteers who work there are amazing and have helped feed children for the past 10 years. The project is located close to the Barrio Municipal which is well known for its poverty and crime rates. Unbeknown to us the Compassion project offers its students the opportunity to go to University by helping to pay for it. Each one of the 331 children has a sponsor and the students were writing to their sponsors when we were there. The project leader Josia also takes them out on trips to the local pool and arranges football matches for the boys. In this project our work is much more relational getting to know the kids and helping them with their work.

Alongside this we have attended Pastor Ednaldo (the pastor and president of all the ´Assemblies de Dios´churches in Ecuador) birthday party. Which was a very formal affair with all the different churches providing representatives who come and sing a song and present Pastor Ednaldo with a birthday present. We left after 2 hours and went to Monica and Ricardo´s engagement party. Which was an intimate family affair and very beautiful. They both said lots of lovely things about each other and their families and exchanged rings. There was lots of crying.... but tears of joy! Monica is the daughter of Pastor Anibel who Robin along with the step team helped to build his church. Hence why on tuesday night Robin had to give a sermon in Spanish to the congregation. He did pretty well even getting a few amens of agreement. Pastor Anibel and his family have become good friends to us as well as Carlos´s family who have taken us out for a meal and invited us on a trip out to the Rio sometime.

On sunday we attended the assemblies de dios church for the first time, unlike the ´Rosa de Sharon´ church its service is not an hour long but hours long! The women and men were seperated for a bible study on John the baptist and then brought back together for a sermon. After church we went to visit the Barrio de Naranjos where Robin and the Step team worked in their first project. Gabriel and Louis were delighted to see Robin and showed us around the church with the plaque still hanging on the wall with signatures of all the step team. They are going to hold a big reunion on the 13th November which we have been invited back for!

So life is pretty busy in Santo Domingo which is great!
Please pray for help building relationships with the children in the compassion project and school as well as the teachers. Also for my stomach after a good dose of food posioning which knocked me out for 2 days I am only now beginning to eat normally again.

A funny moment this week:
- A load of ants managed to infiltrate the honey bottle, but undettered by this both Carlos and Robin proceeded to pour a load of it into their porridge and eat it.

My camera broke this week so I unfortunatly don´t have any pictures to put up. Thankfully it is being fixed and should be back to working order soon!