iBlock: Albert Pujols...what?

Monday, March 11th was a day like no other. A day when I realized that I should watch more sports so I can talk about sports with famous athletes, or their wives, better.

I thought the day was just going to be another ordinary day. Teaching and hanging out with kids. I was wrong, way wrong. My day started out teaching at Nueva Creacion, a school close to Compassion International. It was a stressful class, but I got over it quickly. After teaching, Hannah, Katie, Seth, Nick W, and I made our way over to Compassion too hang out with the kids. The kids were so cute and I did not want to leave. 12 o’clock rolled around and it was time to head out. We walked out side of the building when Nick was telling us that he got interviewed by a cameraman, named Joe, that works for the Pujols Family Foundation. Joe had filmed for FOX, and motorbiked with Tony Twist, who apparently is a fighter in hockey. Anyways, he interviewed Nick and asked him questions about what he thought about the Pujols Family Foundation being there, what our group was doing in the DR, and how he thought it was to meet DiDi Pujols. We were just standing around when Joe came up to us 5 and asked for his picture with us, which was crazy. I didn’t really know what was going on. Nick then pointed to a lady and said that that lady was Albert Pujols wife.

If you don’t know Albert Pujols, he is an amazing baseball player. He has set all of these crazy records in the past. Pujols used to play for the St. Louis Cardinals, and now signed a contract with the Los Angeles Angels for 250 million dollars for 10 years. He is one of the best baseball players in the MLB. Pujols grew up in the Dominican Republic, so it was a pretty big deal for quite a bit of locals for his wife to be there. He unfortunately could not be there because he is doing spring training in Florida.

Didi Pujols, Seth, Katie, Hannah, Lauren, Nick

There were a lot of “gringos” around, which is rare. Nick gave us a bit of background information on who these people were. They were part of the Pujols Family Foundation. There purpose was delivering beds to the families of those who have a child that is a part of the Compassion program. It was legit. There was a cameraman, Joe, two photographers, two trucks loaded with bed frames, two trucks loaded with mattresses, Mrs. Albert Pujols, a coordinator from Pujols Family Foundation, a head lady at Compassion, and about 5 workers, including truck drivers. We were offered if we wanted to help deliver beds to the community, and without hesitation, we accepted. This was an opportunity of a lifetime, and there was no way we were going to let it pass by.

No time went to waste. Within at least 10 minutes, we were on a road about to deliver the very first bed of the whole project. Our whole group seemed pretty excited about what was about to go down. Nick and Seth helped with the first bed. I tried too, but failed. After, the trucks kept on driving and we followed. The trucks stopped at an entrance to a road that lead into a village. We walked down the road, and waited for the trucks. The trucks weren’t going to come down at first because the road was uneven, and very narrow, but they had too because we didn’t want to lift twelve beds back and forth. At the second house, the boys had to lift out the old mattresses and bed frames. When an old mattress was placed down, a mouse jumped out of it. It was really gross and it gave me a sense of what some of the people of the Dominican have to deal with. We then continued down the road to deliver more beds. Some houses got one bed, and others got two. All the families were so happy to get these new beds. Not going to lie, they were pretty comfortable. Our group delivered around 15 beds in under two hours. We had to split early because had to go back to Nueva Creacion to teach.

That night at circle time, Mark, Jason, Adam, Joel, and Brad couldn’t believe that we got to have that experience, so the next day, Tessa, Mark, Jason, Adam, Brad and I went to Compassion and Nueva Creacion. Joel wanted to join us but he was unfortunately ill. Jason instructed us to wear red because that is the colour of the Cardinal team. Mark wore his Yankees t-shirt. When Siesta time came, the boys were already outside getting ready to do some heavy lifting with the beds. They couldn’t stop talking about how they excited they were, and I don’t blame them at all, it was so exciting. That day went a bit slower, so we only delivered around 10 beds. The boys didn’t see DiDi the whole time, until the end. She was sitting inside a church because she got burnt the day before. Once the ice was broken between them it was smooth sailing. The boys wanted a picture with her, but she couldn’t stand beside Mark because he was wearing the Yankees shirt.

Overall, I had an amazing two days. An experience I probably won’t get again, and I am thankful that I was apart of it.