Hurricane season!

So Hurricane season is upon us! It is supposed to be an overactive one this year, which means i seriously have to do something about the huge gaping window in my apartment. Thinking about just tying a shower curtain to it when it rains. There is a tropical storm heading towards us right now actually so i better get on that, huh?

Anyways, short blog. Not much going on here. Started my engineers group to a raging success! 10 kids showed up on time, were excited the whole time, didnt want to leave, and couldnt wait till the next class! ITs such a refreshing attitude, as opposed to the way people have felt about my computer classes, which can be summed up in one photo....

Thats a picture of a boy smashing a computer monitor like it tried to molest him.

Other than that, weve been advancing through my small business class, and are halfway through with my 2 students, lol. They are getting a lot out of it, though, which is good.


Well, thats about it. Gotta go to the hardware store to pick up some waterproofing materials.

Here is a picture of my new engineer group!


Here is a photo of me and the group

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!

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!

My bike! Keep scrolling to see the real blog.

These are just pics of me and my bike, Sasha. First is of us on the way to the museum. The second is of us on the back of a truck hitch hiking back to Heathers house. We have the best times......oh, Sasha.....

Vacaciones!

Just got back from an amazing 2 week vacation...oh yes....2 weeks. It has been a blast. First there was Semana Santa, like i told you guys so everyone in the entire country was off celebrating that. The second week my Aunt and Uncle came to town to visit and put me up at the Barcelo resort with them! Man, was that nice. All you can eat, air conditioned rooms, hot water(most of the time) and comfy beds. It doesnt get much better than that.
So Semana Santa started off by hanging out in Moca. Heather and I rode our bikes 2 hours straight to get to the Hermanas Mirabal Museum. Who are the Hermanas Mirabal you may ask? Well look here! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirabal_sisters
It was quite a fight to get there so we decided to hitchhike back to her house. Luckily a truck stopped to give us a ride and they happened to be going right by her neighborhood! so we rode with our bikes in the back of a truck filled with empty chicken crates, haha (hence my facebook pic).
Midway through the week another volunteers(Carly) parents came into town so we all enjoyed a free night out in Santiago, gracias a sus padres.
On Saturday i headed up to another volunteers(Topher) house in the mountains towards puerto plata and hung out with him and another volunteer (Chandler). We hung out in the local river and enjoyed some good tunes and good people. Very chill.
Sunday, I made the trek over to the wonderful Barcelo all-inclusive beach resort to meet up with my Aunt, Uncle and cousins. They stayed until Friday and we did all sorts of stuff. We went on a cable car ride up to the top of this small mountain which had amazing views of the country. Then we went and jumped off some 12 waterfalls in Imbert for half of a day, that was fun. We ventured to Santiago to visit my site but i had forgotten my keys so we couldnt get into my apartment. We did manage to rig up a ladder and my 2 cousins and I climbed through the window for a bit, haha. We went to Cabarete the next day to enjoy the beach, and then friday the left. It was a much needed break :) and i was so glad they had a good time. I loved showing them around my little island. Seriously, if anyone wants a free tour guide, im your guy!
Now its back to reality. This weekend is a readjustment period and then i start a new small-business class on Tuesday. Im pretty excited about this one, well see how many kids show up. Also filling out a grant to get cement floors and tin roofs at a neighbor community, and working on helping paint the basketball court in my community.
Oh! we also celebrating my little neighbors ChaCha's 3rd birthday. We went to McDonalds and had chocolate sundaes. Haha she wore this little dress and a crown. It was the cutest thing ever! She doesnt look very happy in the picture with me, but trust me, she loves me, haha.
Good things happening, staying busy, living the life, poor as dirt, haha. Thats about it for now. Hablamos.

Whats happening

Hmmm...whats happened in the past month....instead of going 4 days straight without water.....hard to think of anything other than that haha.
Seriously, that was a while ago, and it really wasn't that bad. There was an "incident" where a few fellow volunteers were staying at my house and one of them was stricken with a variation of intestinal distress, of course, i had no water that day. Theres not much worse than 5 people in one tiny apartment while someone is "going through the motions" in the bathroom with only a bucket to flush. It is a sufficient way to get it all down.....but it doesn't necessarily complete the job, and lets face it, there are a whole lot worse things than that, ha. Gracias a Dios, it wasn't me this time.

Anyways, in related news....we just had our annual bola race! Each year most of the volunteers in the country gather in one location, then are given the name of a destination to get to using only free rides. Basically, we all gathered in Santiago, and were told the morning of the race to hitchhike to Las Terrenas. Rules of the game: You must have a partner of the opposite sex. You must wear a costume. You must assume a character. So, another volunteer, Heather and I dressed up in wedding attire. Full on dress and tux and raced up to LAs Terrenas. Ultimately, we took the wrong route and ended up next to last, BUT it was a blast and a once in a lifetime thing. Who can say they hitchhiked with a bride halfway across the Dominican Republic! Ha! There is my 10 year reunion story, haha. Im not really married though. Dont get your hopes up....or be disappointed in me :)

Other news, a few weeks ago we completed the boys science camp we had been anticipating for a while. It was an awesome success. We hosted 32 boys ages 10-14 for a 4-day 3-night camp focused on engineering and becoming a man/proffesional. I gave a presentation to 32 little boys about what it means to be a man.....can you imagine....it was a disaster, i could not have done a worse job. They seemed to take little bits and pieces from it though, so who knows. We did all kinds of science projects. We made cars out of rat traps and raced them (my team came in 3rd), we made boats out of recyclable materials (my team was the only one that could fit a person on and float the boat down a river!) We also did a lot of tiny experiments and a lot of team building educational games. We slept on the ground in a town that is probably the highest elevated town in the DR. At night it got into the low 50's thats cold when your outside, ha. It was awesome to see these kids run around in a camp-like environment. None of these kids had ever been to anything like this. We take summer camps for granted in the US, they loved it!
I was able to bring 2 kids from my community and they both had an absolute blast.

Now, its back to work as usual. Spend a few hours at the school everyday, tending to the needs of the people, lol. This week is Semana Santa, which means Holy Week. It is in observance of what we call Easter. We get a whole week, i dont know what you suckers get! I plan on traveling to see a water system inauguration tomorrow. Another volunteer has finished his water project, which basically provided water to a town that previously had no direct access. How awesome is that? Im gonna spend this week traveling throughout the tri-region area celebrating the Holy Week. LIFE IS TOUGH.

You will all be pleased to know that i am not moving to that shack i showed you in my last post. After much thought I have decided its just better to stay where im at for many reasons. But, i will still be working over there. Yesterday i went through about 25 houses inspecting them for a grant i am writing focused on cement floors and tin roofs. There are a lot of homes, like the one i was gonna rent, that have dirt floors, and a lot of houses that have very damaged tin roofs, which leak heavily when it rains. Im hoping to get this one approved so we can start working over there.

Also, I have been in contact with a teacher from the Carol Morgan School in Santo Domingo. He is going to bring 25 of his advanced AP students (this is an international school where all the students are multi-lingual from very fortunate backgrounds) to my high school for one day on May 26th and show the teachers how to utilize the science lab we have. We have a room labeled Laboratorio de Ciencia but no one ever uses it because there are no instruments. They have offered to leave us with sufficient instruments to run and sustain a science lab!! I'm really excited about this project.

That seems like all for now. I attached a few pictures. Hope you all enjoy! Miss you guys! Excited for my aunt and uncle to get here in a week!