Aye Chicos!

Hola mi familia en Ft. Myers y Orlando!

I hope you all haven´t been holding your breath waiting for my post, as some of you know I´ve come to enjoy being more reflective and introspective here as opposed to my ´´normal´´ self... Anyway, in an effort not to repeat all of our activities I´ll just let you know some of my emotional rollercoaster that is our D.R. trip...

Wednesday, our classy Spirit Airlines almost marooned me in Ft. Lauderdale because they overbooked our flight...........A few choice words (anger), quite a few tears (sadness) and three nice volunteers later there were open seats for the 2 other flightless friends and me (relief and happiness). When we got to R.D. finally (because our flight was so delayed) Bento surprised us at the airport at 5 am to make sure we got to our little casita con cariño(amor).

Thursday we woke up at 8 and hustled to get to accion so we could reunite with our familia de R.D. (extreme happiness y amor). After being on the WINNING team of soccer (pride!) I was a little (shocked) because I was talking with an older boy at Accion who I´d never met before and, for the first time, I experienced hatred here. Exactly what he said isn´t all that important but whatis important is that it was a huge reality check for me. Until then, I had only witnessed the love and friendship that exists between everyone in Accion and he exhibited a dislike and mistrust of his Haitian verinos (neighbors). Between that and hearing/witnessing the way Accion can change these points of views has got me (contemplative) about different projects to instate and about the immense and underappreciatted work that Accion has done thus far in the communities and barrios.

On Friday I realized that all those days my mom taught me to swim in our duckshaped swimming pool served a purpose (adrenaline). Not only did I swim with the boys in the pool for fun, I swam for survival! Between niños on our shoulders and learning to play the Spanish version of tag (se llama ´Topa´) with Korlins and Cristofer all seemed pretty right in the world. The only ´downer´of the day was that the bus ride was too short (only ten minutes) and those are some of my most FAVORITE times in the D.R.

Sabado subimos el Monumentore por el primero tiempo! We´ve been there many times but this was the first time we went during the day and it was still open. It was beautiful. Not only did we get to see some ´reenactments´of D.R. history (you can imagine what these look like) but we took some funny and unintentional Marilyn Monroe reenactments at the top too (we all wore skirts- except Tomas- and this is not only the rainy but windy season too...) We also saw some boys from Accion and, as always, it was refreshing and comforting to see them. I suppose I should also mention the man we met there too (anger and annoyance). As my stereotypical Dominican-American, he proceeded to ´´enlighten´´ us about ´´his people´´ and tell us that they can´t be trusted and that, against my argument, there was plenty wrong about his country and that we didn´t know what we were talking about loving it and the boys so much...

We also got to go to Wandy´s Saturday night which I was beyond excited for. It ´started at 7´but in Dominican time I don´t think people arrived or started cooking until sometime after 9:30 and we didn´t even eat until about 11. I went downstairs from Wandy´s roof and met some chicas from the barrio and pretty much ended up hanging with them the rest of the night. In my opinion, the party didn´t even really start until they showed up. They were my dance partners and kept trying to protect us from their boracho tio (gracias a dios). Anyway, much to say but no hay mas tiempo for this.

Yesterday, since there aren´t really activities to do with the niños on the weekends we took a little ´´us´´ time and went to the waterfalls called 27 Charcos´(fear). I am terrified of heights.... So you may think you can imagine how this went however, I jumped (wooooo!). Our guide was wonderful, as all D.R. guides I´ve ever encountered are, and spoke enough English to entertain and inform us about ¨his montaña.´´ He also picked up these rocks in the river that turned out to be clay and taught us how to turn them into clay masks to ´make us look ten years younger.´ Needless to say you can also imagine how all the natives stared at us when we got back to the information center wearing blue and gray facemasks and being Gringos at that... When we got home I fell asleep at like 7 and didn´t wake up until the Rooster called to me at abouttttttt 6:30 this morning.

Sadly, we didn´t get to go to the barrios as planned today because of rain and because of a big leadership transition that´s ensuing right now but, ideally, we´ll be going tomorrow. Jenna and I flashed soe capoeira skills today en el segundo piso and also got to be a part of the Geography class a little bit too. It´s great to see that Accion is instituting a school-like agenda for the boys where they sign up to take ¨classes¨and then they even get their attendance taken at each class. Some of the other classes offered, today, were flauta (recorder), Geography, Capoeira, Pin Pon (Ping-Pong), Some sort of class Louisa was teaching that I didn´t understand and a computer class. Things are constantly progressing here and it leaves me not only feeling (hopeful) but like I need to catch up! I´m (afraid) to leave again not only because I´ll miss it here but because I feel like every time I come back my beginning time is spent catching up! (but I think that´s a better thing as opposed to the opposite possibility).

I don´t know that there´s much else to tell you all except that ALL of the niños keep asking where the other Americanos are and when you all are coming back. They remember all of your names and little things about you that I know would make me smile to hear, so I´ll have to tell you all when it wouldn´t be obscene to type so much more.

Te extraño y quiero mucho,
AnaMaria