So, one of the things I’ve realized as a volunteer is that you feel every emotion to the max here. If something sad happens or if a kid is really hurting, it hits you hard. If a kid excels at something or is happy, you’re absolutely elated for them, to the point of tears. Basically, we’re the parents of 215 kids. That involves a lot of worrying, but also a lot of being strong and remembering that you’re always being looked up to.
With that in mind, this week was all kinds of crazy crazy crazy. Here’s just a glimpse into this past week.
#1 Monday=trip to one of the poorest barrios of Santo Domingo. Here’s an excerpt of an email I sent the ‘rents.
The Santo Domingo experience on Monday. SO poor. Mothers at age 14. I was handing 10 year old kids toothbrushes and they asked me what they were. Kids crying because they’re so hungry and begging me for food. We served lunch and the line never got shorter, just longer. And we had to turn so many people away. It was sooooo hard to see. Mainly the hunger issue is what got to me. It was one of the poorest barrios of Santo Domingo because its in a valley and every year during rainy season the rain comes down the mountain and washes away lots of the little tin shacks and buildings. SO many people in such a little space. Waiting around for hours just to see if they could get a bite of something. It just felt so hopeless, but I know it wasn’t. And I mean this was like such poverty, that moms would like argue with you for more toothbrushes and for vitamins for their kids and not say thank you. Like just trying to help their family survive. That was their only concern. Ay yay yay. It was a tough day, but such an eye-opening day. I talked to some of the older kids about it and they liked hearing about it. And I felt such an appreciation for what we have here at NPH...3 guaranteed meals a day, medical attention when needed, clothing, shoes, school, clean drinking water, bathroom facilities, etc.
#2 Visitors=We had SOOOO many visitors here these past few weeks!! Like more visitors than kids we joked. Wednesday was the first day we haven’t had visitors in over a month. Whoa!
#3 In other “visitor” news, Michelle, our visitor/volunteer coordinator is on vacation for a few weeks, so Av and I officially taking over that position for a bit (I daresay the most demanding job on site here) in addition to our regular jobs. Specifically, I’m in charge of the Dominican Experience groups, which come and spend full days here working and playing with the kids. Basically, I give lots of tours and meet lots of people. This weekend, we had upwards of 70 visitors here.
#4 We heard on the local news that a boy has been hit by a train and killed. Turns out this boy has 3 siblings at NPH, so the news hit the whole crew pretty hard, esp. since most of the kids knew this boy. Then, the next day, another brother of the same family drowns. Yikes. A somber attitude took over the grounds and lots of deep talks going on. Wakes and funerals happen instantly in this country, so that was two days in a row of mourning.
#5 A torrential downpour hits NPH! Is this what rainy season is like? Whoa baby. I ended up hanging out with 8 kids in the office waiting out the rain and looking at old photo albums. Pretty fun :)
#6 Realized that Easter is in 2 weeks…WHAT? I’ve been so SO busy that I didn’t quite realize that. Just did a little check on the calendar, I’ve actually only not worked through 7 of my 15 days off in the past three months, and that includes the couple days I spent with the fam when they visited. I can’t complain though…I DO absolutely love my work, as crazy as it gets and I DO really go through withdrawal when I don’t see my kids for more than like half a day.
Ok, time to put a check next to the “Update blog” part of my rather extensive To-Do List. Hasta luego!
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