Friday, May 27, 2011
Cave Diving!
Here is another cool picture i wanted to share with you guys. This is my group of friends whom i came in with celebrating our 1 year anniversary in-country by cave diving!! How sick is that! We went down into the annals of the earth and there was this pristine crystal clear pool at the bottom. Absolutely one of the coolest things i have ever done. The flash from the Camera makes its look a lot brighter than it was. It as pretty hard to see down there. Bats and stuff..
Awkward...
Starting these blogs is always awkward. I never know how to start them……soo…..alrighty…….whoopsidaises? Then there is the title of the blog. Due to my utter lack of creativity i cant come up with anything better than….update #7 or…..next blog…….
Anyways (theres another one) not much new here. Yesterday was an awesome day for me and my school. As I mentioned before, I have been communicating with the Carol Morgan School to come and help us out with science lab equipment...since we have none....and yesterday they came!!!
Oh man was it great! They came and held a 3 hour science lab with 25 of my students!! Keep in mind that these kids have never in their lives been a part of a science lab, or done any science experiments in school. They had no idea science was anything but theory. we split up into 5 groups of 5 with 3 students from Carol Morgan in each group. These kids are bi-lingual, very privileged students that have very bright prospects, in contrast with my students who can speak one language poorly who have no real regard for the future or anything past lunch. It was hard to convince these kids to stay after school to attend this lab, because they reaped no immediate benefits from it in their mind. One kid kept asking if they were going to give diplomas or certificates....for a 3hour lab!! Its so frustrating sometimes. Anyways, They ate their words, because each and every one of them had a blast. I could tell from the look on their faces, I had a few teachers sit in, and they were loving it. It felt so good to be able to connect 2 existing organizations together. At the end of the lab they presented us with a brand new microscope!! The room burst into thunderous applause. Not only that, one of the teachers from Carol Morgan is making a second trip up here to deliver more chemicals and instruments for our lab! We will finally have the tools necessary to start using our science lab. Sustainability!
Other than that, my small business class is going pretty well. I have 3 students (take what you can get) and 1 actually just dropped out.....kinda....shes gonna sit in the class but not actually partake.....so another one bites the dust. The other 2 seem pretty motivated. One has the idea to open his own restaurant, the other to open a Laundromat. These dont sound that cool, i know, but they are pretty big needs here.
Im started that engineers club June 1st, just made the formal invitation for 15 boys between 11-15 years old. Its gonna be on my roof deck, pretty excited about that. The kids ask me every day when it will start.
We have still been having a lot of rain here. My apartment flooded again yesterday, so that sucked.
Now im gonna vent about something. Some of you may know my project partner/good friend Francisco. Well, some of you also may know his wife left him/kicked him out of the house for no apparent reason other than she wanted her "freedom" back, (bitter). He now lives across the street from his house in a tiny shack of a house, while his ex-wife and kids live in the house that HE PAID FOR. I know there are 2 sides to every story and what not, but this woman is cold-hearted and just....a.....ya know. She admits he never cheated on her, and wont give any reason why they broke up other than the freedom thing. She just hates him. He is just as confused as ever, and to make matters worse, she now refuses to cook for him, even though he is paying her!!! Its not like he eats in the house, his daughter brings the food to him and he eats alone. Now he has to go out and buy food. I make him some food sometimes, but as the father of her children , i believe its her responsibility to make the food that he is paying for. There is one side to this story, she's horrible, thats it. I just want you all to take his side on this, haha. I know its a terrible thing to say, but she is pure evil. Ahh, makes me so angry.
Anyways, thats all for now. Adios!
Anyways (theres another one) not much new here. Yesterday was an awesome day for me and my school. As I mentioned before, I have been communicating with the Carol Morgan School to come and help us out with science lab equipment...since we have none....and yesterday they came!!!
Oh man was it great! They came and held a 3 hour science lab with 25 of my students!! Keep in mind that these kids have never in their lives been a part of a science lab, or done any science experiments in school. They had no idea science was anything but theory. we split up into 5 groups of 5 with 3 students from Carol Morgan in each group. These kids are bi-lingual, very privileged students that have very bright prospects, in contrast with my students who can speak one language poorly who have no real regard for the future or anything past lunch. It was hard to convince these kids to stay after school to attend this lab, because they reaped no immediate benefits from it in their mind. One kid kept asking if they were going to give diplomas or certificates....for a 3hour lab!! Its so frustrating sometimes. Anyways, They ate their words, because each and every one of them had a blast. I could tell from the look on their faces, I had a few teachers sit in, and they were loving it. It felt so good to be able to connect 2 existing organizations together. At the end of the lab they presented us with a brand new microscope!! The room burst into thunderous applause. Not only that, one of the teachers from Carol Morgan is making a second trip up here to deliver more chemicals and instruments for our lab! We will finally have the tools necessary to start using our science lab. Sustainability!
Other than that, my small business class is going pretty well. I have 3 students (take what you can get) and 1 actually just dropped out.....kinda....shes gonna sit in the class but not actually partake.....so another one bites the dust. The other 2 seem pretty motivated. One has the idea to open his own restaurant, the other to open a Laundromat. These dont sound that cool, i know, but they are pretty big needs here.
Im started that engineers club June 1st, just made the formal invitation for 15 boys between 11-15 years old. Its gonna be on my roof deck, pretty excited about that. The kids ask me every day when it will start.
We have still been having a lot of rain here. My apartment flooded again yesterday, so that sucked.
Now im gonna vent about something. Some of you may know my project partner/good friend Francisco. Well, some of you also may know his wife left him/kicked him out of the house for no apparent reason other than she wanted her "freedom" back, (bitter). He now lives across the street from his house in a tiny shack of a house, while his ex-wife and kids live in the house that HE PAID FOR. I know there are 2 sides to every story and what not, but this woman is cold-hearted and just....a.....ya know. She admits he never cheated on her, and wont give any reason why they broke up other than the freedom thing. She just hates him. He is just as confused as ever, and to make matters worse, she now refuses to cook for him, even though he is paying her!!! Its not like he eats in the house, his daughter brings the food to him and he eats alone. Now he has to go out and buy food. I make him some food sometimes, but as the father of her children , i believe its her responsibility to make the food that he is paying for. There is one side to this story, she's horrible, thats it. I just want you all to take his side on this, haha. I know its a terrible thing to say, but she is pure evil. Ahh, makes me so angry.
Anyways, thats all for now. Adios!
Friday, May 20, 2011
Summer time! Floods!
Soooo....almost a month since my last post. Its hard trying to remember back on all the stuff that happens here. Lets see.....its been raining a lot here. Since I live practically outdoors.......
......Its kind of difficult to keep the rain from coming in. That huge window is always open, there is no glass just iron bars. My house flooded 3 days in a row. Not too bad, maybe an inch of water, and thanks to my chic cement block interior design scheme, everything was already on blocks and nothing got wet. So, thats been pretty exciting.
In other news. I started my Small Business Class at the highschool to a rousing auditorium of 0 people. Despite the flyer promotions and myself passing by each class room to advertise this great new opportunity where you can win 70,000 pesos to start your own business....no one showed up. The first class i figured everyone forgot, so i went by the classrooms again to advertise and people still didn't come. If money wont motivate 3rd world countries, what will, ha. It was super depressing, but i'm lucky to have friends here that understand exactly what I'm going through :) So, now i am teaching 3 of my friends in my community who showed a strong interest. I think its better this way too. Each student has to write a business plan about their idea, this way i can spend more 1 on 1 time developing their ideas.
I completed a grant to complete the water system in a community next to mine.
So, hopefully that gets approved and i can start working on that. It is the community i was going to move to. Its very poor and needs a lot of help. I am going to a training session in Santiago next month about the possibility of Biosand Water Filters. There are a lot of people who could really use those here. It would allow them to drink their tap water, which is huge!
Sasha (my bike) has been having some problems. She is originally from Japan, which means she had to travel quite a distance to get to the ghetto pawn shop i bought her from. The pedal broke once already, and she's making some interesting noises, straining under the pressure of my legs of fury. Im afraid shes on her last legs, keep her in your prayers, ha.
May 26th! Thats when the Carol Morgan School from Santo Domingo is making a visit to my school here in Santiago. We have been keeping in touch and they are donating hundreds of dollars worth of science instruments so we can finally open our science lab! Im so excited about this. We have a science teacher who teaches the class part, of course, but she's never used the lab because there is nothing to use. This will hopefully change the science program in a positive way for some time to come.
On June 1st Im starting an engineers club, this time with the kids in my community. It will last the month of June and end in another boys summer camp, this time 5 days long in Los Bueyes, another epic mountain retreat near Santiago. We are gonna do things like build volcanoes, egg drops, exploding mentos, spaghetti bridges, all kinds of science projects. My friend Josiel is helping me out big time with this, and it should be pretty cool.
I have also been robbed again. Someone broke....well walked into my house and stole about 3000 pesos cash. I went down to the basketball court for 5 minutes and when i came back my wallet was empty. Granted, i should not have left it on my bed, but who would think someone would rob you in 5 minutes. So that sucked big time, i wont get reimbursed for that cash so thats a big loss. I have been pretty frugal lately so it hasnt been too bad.
Still waiting on visitors people! You all have the unique chance to have a super cheap (aside from plane tickets) vacation to the DR. My tour guide services run at the cost of buying me a cheeseburger. Stay at my place, meals run about 1 dollar a day, it'll be a good time!
School gets out at the end of this month so summer is near!
Adios!
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