Yesterday I had the awesome opportunity to go with my amazing friend Karen to her 3D sonogram appointment. Never before had I ever done anything like that before, so I was so excited to "see" this baby girl that I've been praying for since the fall.
Well, this visit definitely surpassed my expectations, as I got to see, so clearly, this little baby that is being grown inside Karen.
Hearing her heartbeat, seeing her move, counting her 10 fingers and 10 toes, wow. It was amazing. All I could do was stand there and smile.
Smiling because I know that this baby girl is going to be welcomed with open arms into this amazing, loving family.
Smiling because baby girl is so healthy and beautiful already.
Smiling because I love seeing Karen go through this stage of life and seeing her beam with pride at how beautiful her daughter is becoming.
Smiling because this baby girl that has been covered with prayer is now so real to me.
It brought to life the verse in Psalms where it talks about God being the creator, knitting together baby girl in the mother's womb. Baby girl is being grown into a product of Dan and Karen. She definitely has Karen's nose already. :) I see God's hand at work as he provides protection and nutrients for baby girl using Karen as her provider and shield.
I love seeing God at work, at work in baby girl--growing her healthy and beautiful, at work in Karen's heart--preparing to be a mother again, at work in my heart--giving me so much gratitude for God's goodness and faithful design.
I can't wait to meet baby girl for real and get to hold this precious little one that has been loved so deeply and has been prayed for so earnestly.
Yesterday I had the awesome opportunity to go see a motocross competition near where I live. A group of American girls from Doulos, their Dominican guy friends, and Melisa and I went to Corocito to watch this competition. I was blown away by the sheer magnitude of the competition. I never would have imagined that this amazing motocross track would be in the middle of nowhere, up a gravel/dirt road up the mountains.
It was so fun! I cannot express the joy that I had and I definitely got swept up in the excitement.
It was SO hot and we were all putting on the sunscreen like it was our job. Then we walked around, got some hot dogs on a stick and soda, and met some of the racers. There was a super cute American guy who came down for the race. After I found out he was from Jersey, I had this conversation in my mind:
Me: "Oh! You're from Jersey? I am moving to Maryland this summer!"
Cute Motocrosser: "Really? You should come watch me sometime! I love to have fans."
Me: "Oh, well I don't really have a way to get there, I don't have a car right now."
CM: "No worries, I'll just pick you up on my dirt bike and we'll ride off in the sunset together."
We can hope can't we?
photo by Anna Lanier
El Americano (photo by Anna Lanier)
Well, after the heat, it started POURING down rain. Like imagine being in a shower. Now we wished we had brought an umbrella, not only for the sun but also for the rain! We waited there, huddling under umbrellas, for about 30 minutes, then we just decided to walk back to where we had left our motorcycles and saw that they were sunk in about half a foot of dirt. Yuck. The boys got the motos out and finally it stopped raining. As soon as we started back home, one of the motos got a flat tire, so we had to wait for awhile. We were all FREEZING and soaked, but after we made it home, safe and showered, I look back with nothing but happiness at this awesome adventure that we had. :)
Well, this was my second official week of teaching 5th grade. It is so much harder than I imagined it would be. I'm realizing how teaching styles are so different and how different people can set the environment in their classrooms. Although the kids seem so undisciplined and regressed, I see growth in their academics and in their personalities. It has been frustrating jumping in and trying to understand what Laura has done for the past 3 quarters while not changing too much from their daily/weekly routines. To top it all off, I'm getting a new student on Monday. I decided that he's just going to have to figure things out and I am not going to spend a ton of time trying to catch him up, when honestly I don't know what to catch him up on.
Honestly, I have been so angry, bitter, and impatient towards anyone and everything JCS lately. I feel so ready to move on and ready to start something new and exciting. I feel not helped in my new adjustment, everyone just tells me that it'll get better soon. I miss my 3rd graders. It's hard going in there and teaching them and disciplining them when I don't feel like it is my classroom anymore. Although Jess has been amazingly patient with my new teaching situation, I still feel awkward sometimes just stepping into someone else's classroom and teaching/disciplining.
It's hard to take a step backwards and realize that my problems and frustrations will be insignificant in a few months. I'll be desiring to be back in the DR, with my students, my friends, my new adopted country.
Thankfully God is faithful and I know this "low" will be gone in a few days. I just pray for encouragement and direction and a job in the States soon...
Field trip #2 this week went much smoother. Thankfully the party-pooper of the field trip wasn't in my class, so I got to relax and just enjoy time.
Our first stop was to the monument in Santiago and didn't get to go inside or go up in the monument. So we just killed some time, walking around looking at the statues surrounding the museum and taking lots of pictures and enjoying life.
Then we went to the Centro Leon cultural center again. We went to a Visual Art section (not the modern art section...) and low and behold there wasn't paintings of nudity, there were full blown photographs of women from the top up naked and men from the top up naked. Now, obviously the men aren't a big deal, but jeesh. They're 10, 11, 12 years old. Seriously. Don't stop and make them sit down and analyze the pictures with nudity. Idiotas. Anyhoo, then we got to go to the highlight of the field trip: McDonalds. Everything went so smooth this time, thanks to our once-again-amazing field trip coordinator, Dilania, and our secretary, Yesenia, who called in the order early. So I got to gorge myself twice this week on McDonalds and man, I can't complain. :) Although, I did get in a fight with one of the Spanish teachers. Guess who won, even speaking Spanish...
I'm so excited, sidenote, because my friend Janessa and her husband are coming to the DR this weekend!!!!!!!! :) :) :)
Yesterday was my first (and LAST!) field trip with my 3rd graders. Let me tell you. It was a doozy! We all got on the bus fine and it was a fun ride to La Vega, dancing (in the seat), singing, and talking. We went to see some ruins of La Vega, the city center that had been demolished by an earthquake. That's when things starting going awry. Basically, it was a big playground for the kids. They were going nuts.
As a teacher, I was freaking out because there were tall rocks everywhere that the kids were playing on, and all I could see in my head was one of them falling and breaking something. Well, all of a sudden I heard a blood-curdling scream and figured the worst had happened. When I turned around, all that had happened was a kid had gotten stung by a bee. DRAMATIC. UGH. Moms everywhere were comforting this poor child and I just wanted to tell him to suck it up!
Then we made the trip to Santiago, my patience wearing thinner, Jess taking ibuprofen to keep her headache at bay, yelling at kids to sit down and face forward, yelling at moms to be respectful of the teachers' directions, etc. Diale! It was insanity. Then we get to the cultural center, Centro Leon. We are supposed to see the Modern Art portion (big red flags going up) but then our AMAZING field trip coordinator, Delania, got us in to go see the Anthropology part of the museum. Super cool and grade level appropriate. Low-light of that part: right in front of our tour guide, two boys were going back and forth, grabbing each other's private parts in front and in back! AHHHH!!! I wanted to die, I was so embarrassed at their terrible behavior. (BTW: I had to say Anthropology in Spanish about 4 times and it almost killed me. Tongue twister for the gringa!) Then we went, for the last 30 minutes, to the Modern Art portion (where the 2nd graders had spent their hour and a half...). LOTS OF NUDITY. Jess and I were standing in front of paintings so the kids wouldn't see. RIDICULOUS. Delania was so ticked off and it was awesome to see her at work.
Then we finally got to the highlight of the trip: McDonalds. CHAOS.
Trying to get kids the correct meals, other teachers being unhelpful, kids running around with their shoes off, playing like crazy, leaving their trash everywhere, being super loud, ay-yi-yi it gives me a headache just thinking about it.
So we're getting ready to leave, I'm cursing the students who just purchased ice cream because they aren't allowed to take it on the bus, and Delania is trying to get everyone out safely to the mothers that she has stationed around the outside of McDonalds to get back to the bus. All of a sudden a random teenager runs up to me and says, "One of the boys just took off running across the parking lot." I'm thinking, "I am seriously going to kill the kid that ran in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION of where he was supposed to be." The teen runs over and sends the little boy back to me, and I am spitting fire. I cannot even talk I am so angry at him not following directions. It still kind of makes me a little angry.
We finally all get to the bus. The ride home is exhausting, hot, and long. The bus starts pouring water from the air conditioning units. Parents are getting soaked, kids are getting soaked. It's a mess. So the moms end up standing so the kids can sit in their seats.
Seriously, it was a crazy day.
OH: Story of the day:
One of the little boys, right as we are getting ready to leave McDonalds, comes over with a soda and an ice cream cone. "Ezequiel, you know you can't take that on the bus, right?"
Tears pool up in his eyes as he replies, "It's for my mom."
He seriously wanted to take an ICE CREAM CONE back to his mom an HOUR AWAY.
Seriously. Common sense por favor!
As most of you know, at the end of this year I will be returning to the United States for good. At least for now. :) Although it was a tough decision, and daily I wish that I could forever stay with these kids, I truly think it is time for me to return back to the US. I'm considering moving to the Baltimore area with a friend who worked down here in the DR with me last year, Natalie. (Ironic, eh?) And possibly teaching or working with Young Life, an organization that I've come to know and love over the past year.
It seems like far in the future when I am leaving, as for now I am making another big change. My friend and coworker Laura is going on maternity leave starting on Monday and I have agreed to take over her 5th grade class when she goes. What does that mean for my kids? Well, this week we've combined the two third grade classes and I will be giving up (most of) my prep periods in order to be in the third grade classroom as much as possible. My co-teacher, Jessica, has so graciously stepped up to the challenge of having these 23 kiddos in the class.
It wasn't a decision that I really even got to make, as it was the only decision that could be made because the substitute that had been hired, backed out about 2 weeks ago. Although I've known the possibility of me teaching 5th grade, it didn't make it any easier to tell my students nor is it easy for me to leave them. It still makes me tear to think about the fact that I am not going to get to teach my wonderful 3rd graders anymore.
I could probably explain the tumult of emotions that I've felt over the past week, but I don't know that it would do any good, as the decision has already been made. But I know that if I would have been given a choice, I would have stayed with my 3rd graders. It has been a rocky year, but I have grown to love them so deeply...It's funny, but I kind of feel like I've been demoted. I feel like I got fired from my kids (mainly because I had to pack up my classroom and move all my stuff out and everything) and am now having to be a sub. Ironic because my friend (and admin) Karen sent me her "evaluation" of me today, which praised me a lot. and it is just funny because I have to "step down" from 3rd grade but am getting praised. I dunno, just ironic...
I'm here to serve at JCS, not to get my own way, and if this is what God has for me, then I will follow.
Pray for all the kids as they are adjusting to new teachers and new procedures and new situations. The positive is that I was the teacher of the 5th graders last year, so I know them and who they are and what they're like. Keep praying for us. and please pray that I can find a job soon!
This week I began my unit on Alaska. Let me tell you, it is awesome. I love teaching science (geography?) I love teaching Stone Fox. I love everything about teaching units. Let me tell you what. So on Monday we began our unit and filled out our map with all the important places in Alaska. Then I made a big deal about how we were going on a field trip to Mt. Denali (Mt. McKinley for you lover 48'ers)
How was I supposed to know they would take me so literally?!
So anyways, they all thought we were legit going to Alaska on Tuesday from 2:30-3:15.
When they got in class and saw it was a virtual field trip, my lesson got two incredibly large thumbs down. Complete with grumbling, heads down on desks, yells at me for being a liar.
2 boys even cried.
C'est la vie. Live and learn that you can't leave 3rd graders to figure out things logically...
my adventures in the Dominican Republic. speaking Spanish. teaching. making friends. loving life. playing. riding my moto. and learning about Jesus. take 3.
