ahora...

And once again, I have failed to update my blog in while. So sorry!

So one question that I have been getting a lot lately is "What exactly are you doing now that summer is over?!" So I figured, why not answer that on my blog :)

This week is kind of the transition week between the summer and fall program with OO. Almost all of the kids have started school (some kids in the Dominican decide they just don't want to go to school the first week or so... and that is deemed acceptable) so we are no longer doing summer camps. At the beginning of the week we took suitcases full of school supplies out to all of the local schools. I loved those days. It was extremely humbling to give these schools the only school supplies they will receive. Orphanage Outreach also started an English Institute in town several years ago where we offer free English classes to 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. Tomorrow is the beginning of registration for the Institute so we will be there all day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday registering both new and old students. Starting Monday, I will be teaching all day Monday-Friday... God has a sense of humor I guess :) Haha, but I am so excited! I will be teaching Level 2 kids so they have already had one year of English at the Institute. Today we spent the whole day cleaning out the Institute and setting up our classrooms. I had a ton of fun! It's neat seeing that I am now using my four years of college education in my very own classroom. But I must say, I will never again take laminators, copiers, printers, paper cutters, cork boards, or any other school supply for granted! So from now on I will be teaching 6th graders English!

I am still living at the orphanage, so some evenings we have activities for the kids and other evenings we have some free time to just hang out with them or plan our lessons for the Institute. However, this week we also are starting a program for the five oldest kids at the orphanage to help prepare them for college. Leonel and Carolina will be graduating at the end of this school year and Kelvin, Cristofer, and Nicol have two years left. By the time they are ready to go to college, they have to pass a GED-type test. We are working with them 4 nights a week so we are also pouring a lot of time into that. Each of the leaders have a night where we specifically are in charge of teaching a lesson on a specific subject area. My subject is math, so on Tuesday nights, I teach math in Spanish :) Ha, that's definitely a bit of a challenge! But I love it!

In addition, I am also starting a literacy program this year for OO! The rate of illiteracy in the Dominican Republic is extremely high, so my long term focus for this year is starting a literacy program where we promote reading, teach reading, and provide a place where people can have access to books. We will also be involving groups and teams in this program in the spring where we will put on reading weeks (at an unknown location at this point :) ). Yeah literacy!

So... English teacher to kids that speak only Spanish, Math teacher in Spanish, and Literacy Program Director... it's gonna be a busy and fun year :)

Adios from the island full of beautiful sunsets, priceless smiles, dirts roads, loud roosters, palm trees, tons of ants, and an orphanage full of kids who have stolen my heart :)