Moving

Friends,

You haven't heard from me in a while because I've been in the process of moving.

I haven't had internet for close to three weeks, and probably won't have it for another couple of weeks at least, despite the fact that I'm told "3-5 working days" each time I go to the phone company. :( Please pray that I'll be able to get that soon. I have a friend who has been waiting two months for hers!

The apt. I moved into had some major problems upon my arrival. During the first week, as the landlord was putting finishing touches on the plumbing, he managed to cause a major water leak which caused water damage to every single room--ruining the recent paint job. So the whole place needs repainting! It took about a week for the walls to be mostly dry. During that time, every door in the house, and the refrigerator grew a fine dust of mold over them. But thankfully, the walls didn't. So a little lysol did the trick, getting them back to normal.

Next there was a power surge that burned up my refrigerator motor. That took three days to repair, because the electricity must be on when the technician comes. The electricity is very unpredictable. Unfortunately, he would come, and it would go off. He would leave, and it would come on again!

Then came dealing with the rats, cockroaches, and the swarms of mosquitoes with bug spray and rat poison. The rats are still there, and they are big ones. I have found that they like spaghetti, crackers, and pretzels, because that is what they opened in my closet.

After that, the pump that pumps the water up to the rooftop tank needed fixing...I was using buckets meanwhile, in place of running water.

All of my plumbing had to be pretty much redone, with external tubes running around the outside of the house, and the plumber is only a part-timer, so he could only work on weekends. So every weekend he comes over and does a little more. Most of it is done, although dripping pipes and faucets remain.

And so it has gone, on and on.

In school news...

School is over at the Ozama campus, and on its last week, doing final exams at the Sabana Perdida school.

The kids are very excited about their week of camp coming up the 15th through 19th.

One of the children came to school with welts across his back from being beaten by his dad. There isn't much you can do about that here, except talk to the parents.

Another child was in an automobile accident in which his eye was injured, but I understand that he will not lose the vision in that eye, thankfully.

Our current biggest prayer request is for a new location (or locations) for the two schools. We definitely will need to leave both places. Sabana Perdida is no longer going to offer afternoon classes, and their mornings are full. The school in Ozama has needed to move for a couple of years. The Secretary of Education insists that we have more space, in order to have an office and a library. That's not possible where we are at.

We've been offered some space at two different small private schools, which the public school would pay for. Maria went and looked them both over, and said they were not adequate to the needs of the school. One was located in a high drug area. The other was simply too small.

Dominican schools generally pack kids in with large numbers in small spaces. You cannot do that with deaf children, because each has to be able to see the other children, as well as the teacher. (Imagine this: the teacher asks a question. A student in the back row answers it, but those in the rows in front of him/her are unaware of the answer.) So classrooms for deaf children must be larger, to allow more of a semicircular seating.

Prices for renting have skyrocketed, but parents have less money than ever, because of the tremendous inflation going on here. Many of our students have a partial scholarship through Vision Trust. This is a tremendous help, but for deaf students this does not pay the entire cost. Deaf students are much more expensive to educate, both because they need smaller class size, and because they need much more visual materials, as opposed to the normal chalk and chalkboard method used here. Specially trained teachers must be paid reasonably or they will move on to the public school. The parents pay an additional supplement to tuition as they are able. Many pay nothing at all. It is hard to raise the payments when most cannot even afford the minimal charges. This very much factors into finding a new location.

Eventually, we will either need to get our own classrooms, or we may end up having to close the schools, as the economy worsens. All these are in our thoughts.

I'll try to get another blog post up in the next month. :)

Thanks for your prayers.