So we have been here for over two weeks now and many things have happened. I already feel like I have been here forever. I have so many things that I would love to share but since I don’t want to take up too much of your time, I am just going to talk about my last two days here (Thursday and Friday.) These last two days I have had the pleasure to be teaching at two different schools, New Creation and Esperanza. Before these last two days I felt that I hadn’t really been connecting with children and I almost felt that kids here didn’t like me. After teaching at these schools though I feel the complete opposite.
It all started at New Creation. I was teaching with Josh, Lara, and Ashley. Josh and I taught together in the morning and at recess time we were invited to go play basketball with the kids. It turned into a full on game, the group of us and two other boys verses basically, all the other kids. Even though we didn’t keep track of the score it was obvious that we lost. But we blamed it on the net that was missing most of the backboard.
After the sweaty basketball game we headed to Compassion. For those who don’t know what Compassion is, it is an organization that sponsors children so that they can go to school. The sponsors come from North American or European families. These kids are some of the poorest kids in their villages. So, when we first got to Compassion the kids just stared and their was a few moments of awkwardness but, it very quickly passed when a kid touched my ponytail and I was soon on the ground letting them play with my hair. Within five minutes I had kids on my lap, holding my hands, chatting away with me, and pulling my hair in various directions. It continued on this way for twenty minutes when they suddenly pulled me to my feet and dragged me to a classroom. I was seated in a small plastic chair and a group of five girls or so put a pen and my hand and paper on my lap. They asked me to draw my casa (house.) As I started to attempt to draw my house I realized how large my house must seem to these kids. Here are kids who live in single room houses with five or six people in their family, while I live with my family of three in a house that must seem like a mansion to these kids. Once I finished drawing a quick sketch of my house on one paper I was soon handed many more pages they all wanted me to draw just something on their paper. It was super cute and exciting and I loved every minute. The next fun part was when a older girl asked me to take a photo of her. As soon as I took my phone out I was swarmed. A few times my phone was even taken out of my hand because every single child wanted their picture taken. I took various pictures with kids and I probably could have taken thousands more but they had to go because it was the end of the day for them. I received many hugs goodbye and all of them asked if I would be coming back tomorrow, sadly I had to say that I didn’t know when I would be back. I returned to the base that day with a huge smile on my face, thinking that no other day could ever compare to the one I had just had. I was soon proven wrong.
The following day I went to another school, Esperanza. I went into the day hoping that it would be good but I didn’t think it would be as good as the day before. My first two classes I taught with Billy. The first class was almost two hours long and was super exhausting. By the end however, the kids wanted us to come back and they hung out with us at recess. One girl in-particular, really stood out to me. Her name was Chantelle. In class she was really loud and out going and she just seemed like every other girl in her class, but at recess I suddenly realized that she had club feet. It instantly reminded me of my Aunt Cora who used to have club feet. My aunt however had surgery done to correct her feet, unlike this beautiful girl in front of me who will probably have to live with it for the rest of her life. My heart went out to this beautiful twelve year old girl in front of me.
To Billy and my surprise the next class we taught was a grade eleven class. These kids were our age. At first it was super awkward because we didn’t know what exactly to teach them. We soon found out that they knew enough english to carry on a conversation, so thats exactly what we did, we just talked. It was a normal teenage conversation. They asked us what sports we liked, what music we listened to, if we dance or sing, and what Canada is like. They were just like us curious of what the other culture is about. One thing that came up, I don’t even know how, but was how do guys treat girls in Canada. When Billy told them that guys don’t hiss or catcall at girls they shook their heads in disbelief. It was hard for them to imagine something that was so incredibly normal to them. This class went by too fast and I was sad when it was over.
By this point in the day I was exhausted but adventure awaited in Siesta. We were told that when you went to this school you had to walk to the river. So the first group of children we saw we asked them where the river was. They gladly decided to show us. As we started to walk, the kids slowly became more comfortable with us. Soon they were holding our hands or they were on our backs. As I looked around I realized that more and more kids were joining us. I think at one point we had twenty kids with us. The path to the river was very rocky and lets just say less traveled. The shacks we passed were small and one room. They were made of any sort of materials you could think of from tin, to cardboard, or wood. When we got to the river after about 30 minutes or so (I’m pretty sure we took the long way their) a little girl started to cry and didn’t want us to go down to the river. We soon got told by older boys that they didn’t want us to go to the river with young kids because it wasn’t safe. Why? I don’t know. So we proceeded to walk the 30 minutes back.
The little girl who had been crying I picked up and soon learned her name was Ashley. My guess was she was maybe four years old. She started to play with my hair on the walk and tried to talk to me. When we got back to the school she wouldn’t let me put her down and would cry when I tried. Eventually we had to go back to teaching so I had to pry her off of me and I told her I would see her soon. It turned out to be much sooner than I thought it would be. An hour later when we were done teaching for the day, we walked out of the school to see that the group of kids and Ashley were still their, waiting for us. Ashley B-lined it for me and came and gave me the biggest hug ever. That alone made my whole day.
My experiences over the last few days have been a sort of turning point for me. I no longer feel disliked by kids here. I realized how much love these kids actually have to give. It doesn’t matter to them if you can’t speak perfect spanish or if your not Dominican. What matters to them is if you just show them some sort of love. Even just a hug or high five. Some of these kids don’t have a lot. They share whatever they have. If they have two candies they will give you one even if those two candies are all they have. These kids have made me very thankful for what I have and opened my eyes to how much more I can give, even if it’s just giving some more hugs. Can’t wait to see what else the D.R has in store for me!
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