Love spoken here

I spent the afternoon in the beginner's class at the deaf school. There is a student, Leslie, who has only been there a couple of months. She is in a wheelchair and has CP, in addition to being deaf. But the children treat her just as well as they would any other friend. They include her in everything. They fight over who can push her chair for her. Some of the older kids have to pick Leslie up and carry her when she needs to go up or down the stairs, and they help her willingly.

Leslie's teacher, Maria, told me of how she put the girl on the floor one day, during break, so she could stretch out after such a long time seated. Leslie started to roll around; she doesn't have the motor skills to crawl. All the other kids started to roll around too, and made a game of it!I know she feels loved and accepted, as do all the children in her classroom. School is a safe haven for her.

Maria has taught this love and acceptance to the children, for the most part not with signs, but by example. It is more important than all the reading, writing and arithmetic she can ever teach them.

I can't tell you how great it felt to see Engel doing his math. The first time I met him he threw a cup of water in my face, and punched me in the arm. He punched another teacher in the stomach. He was a little terror. Back then, if you put a puzzle on the table for him to do, he would shove it onto the floor. With patience and love, he has conquered a lot of his behavioral issues. He has come to love school. He has a new language, and can communicate well now. He has friends like he has never had before. He is a happy and confident child.

Telling the love of Jesus is important. But the deaf need visuals; showing it makes it so much clearer.

Looking for a place

Today the principals of both schools, and I, went out to look at a house, with the possibility of renting it for school next year. Both schools really need to move.

The Sabana Perdida school is located at a church which has built on classrooms for the school. The church has decided it doesn't want any classes in the afternoon next year. That means both deaf classes and three hearing classes will be displaced or closed down.

The Christian Deaf Education Center has needed to move for a couple of years, but now it is more critical than ever. The dept. of education insists that we have a separate room for a library. That's pretty unnecessary for three classrooms of kids who are all beginning readers--they will use the books much more if they remain in the classroom. (It isn't like in the US, where the kids can check out books. If we did that, then within a month, we wouldn't have any left!)

They also want us to have an office. Right now our office is a small part of a larger room that is sectioned off. And I think they are right that we need an office, because there is a lot of paperwork to be done.

But the biggest reason for the new place is that we cannot add another classroom.

Back to the house we looked at. It was in so-so shape. It needs a lot of work, and some amount of remodeling to make it work for us.

But I noticed next door on both sides, and another house down the street, all for rent or sale. Why was everyone leaving, I wanted to know. What was wrong? Oh nothing really...just that every time it rains, the whole street floods. But they are going to fix it. It's the government that would have to do that, and as elections aren't happening right now, the fixing may have to wait.

Well, we wouldn't be moving till July or August anyway, so perhaps they will fix it before then. I'm not holding my breath. The house next door was a palace! It had three or four large bedrooms with cedar lined closets, marble counter tops in the kitchen, beautiful tiling everywhere on the floors. All for less than $500US a month "negotiable." But in a flood zone.

I'm also continuing my search for a new apt. It's tricky to find one that meets my security requirements. It almost needs to be a second floor housetop apt., because then the people below naturally inhibit burglers from breaking in. If I have a ground floor house or apt., burglars can easily wait till I leave for school, and clear out the whole place. This is a city with more than its share of break-ins.

Please pray for a suitable place to be found for me, and for the schools. We could merge the schools if the place is in certain locations, or they can remain separate, in which case they'll need two locations. We need to consider location, security, safe neighborhood, price, and condition.

Blessings!

Where did the pics go?

Perhaps I should stick to text--my pics in the previous post have disappeared! Oh well, perhaps they will reappear later.

Yesterday I spent three hours standing in a line to get the required new ID card. Someone could've made some money renting out chairs. My reward was to get a piece of paper and to be told..."Maybe" in August, it will be ready, at which time I will have to go wait in another long line to pick it up. Long waits in lines are the norm, and everyone hates it, but no one does anything about it.

There will be something you have to do, and it will involve a long wait, and there is usually no way around it. Unless, of course, you have a friend or relative that works there...in which case they will get right in, and make everyone else wait longer. The only other way to get around it is to pay someone to go do your errands for you. There are even people who work as line place-holders, who will stand in line for you, and then call you when your place is close to the front.

(I just heard the children at a nearby school cheer. That means the electricity just came on!)

As soon as I arrived at Mi Esperanza yesterday, they wanted me to take a profile pic and send it off immediately. That meant a trip back home, and school was over for me for the day. It takes so long to get around that it isn't easy to get to the school twice in one day.

So yesterday I got some important things done, things that were necessary, it's true. But the day felt wasted, because everything took so long. I spent probably almost two hours of my time on public transportation. I was able to get several hours of computer work done, but any day I don't get to spend much time with the deaf students/teachers, feels like a day I didn't get much accomplished.

Ah, but that's American thinking. If I go into Dominican mode, I can be much more relaxed about a day like today. Because here we are not obsessed with time.

A girl's 15th birthday is very important. She has a big party, and she is dressed up like a princess, with crown and all. She has a cake that would rival a wedding cake. Her friends, relatives, and neighbors all come.

These days, one of the biggest features of the party is the picture taking. The birthday girl must pose with almost everyone there!

Usually a meal is provided. In this case a plate of various delights, among them empanada (dough wrapped around a filling and fried), spaghetti, potato salad, chips, and an apple slice.

And then there is next year

There is lots to do for next year. Most critical:

CCES school: Find a new place that will allow space for an office and additional classrooms. This is critical to government demands.

My Hope (Sabana Perdida School): The church is having some conflicts with the school. (Not the deaf classes, but the school as a whole.) They want to shut down the afternoon session next year. Both deaf classes and three hearing classes meet in the afternoon, and the morning session has no open classroom space. The church board is meeting on this issue today. They could decide to rent additional space elsewhere, or just eliminate the afternoon classes.

The director resigned this week. She has been a strong advocate for the deaf classes. We aren't sure how this will impact us.

another little one's story

One of our younger students frequently came in with painfully infected earlobes from cheap earrings that she reacted to. Her aunt says she insists on wearing them. But no one at home teaches her anything about removing and cleaning them, and when she has an infection, they don't do anything for it.

I took her old earrings off, and told her to please not wear them, that I would bring her some that would not infect her ears. I bought the better quality earrings at about four dollars. I gave them to her, knowing that there was a good possibility they would be taken away, but hoping they wouldn't.

Sure enough, she is now without them. When asked where they are, she just tells me she lost them. And that is what she thinks. She doesn't know how it works. Often when we give an item to a child, the parent or other relative will take the item and either keep it for herself, or sell it. I can still remember when I bought a little 3 years old boy, his first underwear. I gave him 5 pairs. By the next week his brothers had stolen and sold all but one, and that was only because he was wearing it.

Then there was the teen who received a new bed after the floods ruined his. His step father, tied him up in a chair and beat him because he wouldn't let him have it.

This just shows how we absolutely must be able to interact with the family as well as the child. The family needs the Lord too.

A home visit

Today the director (principal) of the Sabana Perdida school, and I, went to visit one of our students. This young man is 13 years old, and in his second year of school. He is a hard worker. His mom came to the school one time to complain to his teacher, that he was studying too much math at home. His mom is poor and doesn't really see the value of education.

At any rate, the mom was asleep when we arrived, late afternoon. She doesn't work, because she "cannot find a job."

We found Fredery skinny and depressed. I was surprised to see the boy who was always so excited and happy, now with no enthusiasm for life. His mom said she can hardly feed him. I think he has lost several pounds since I saw him just before the Christmas break.

Why am I telling you this? Well, this is the sort of situation I find myself faced with frequently. This mom is doing nothing to help herself or her son. She hasn't lost any weight, however, so obviously she is getting the food she needs. She isn't out looking for a job. She is at home waiting for one to come knock on her door and fix all her problems. She has the victim mentality. Meanwhile, her son cannot go to school, because she will not or cannot pay his tuition.

The director, however, says that the neighbors told her that the woman is not, in fact, the child's mother, that his mother is in the US working, and that she sends support to this woman to take care of the child; that the woman chooses to spend the support on the medical costs of her own aged mom, instead of providing food for the child who lives in her house. It's obviously a difficult situation. We have no CPS to send to find out what's really going on.

I don't know who is telling the truth. I only know that I cannot fix it.

The director upon seeing how bad the situation is, has invited him back to school. She is even talking about making sure he gets a good meal from the school kitchen before he starts each day. Since lunch is the main meal of the day, that might actually work.

For about three years I've been pondering and praying over one thing. We need the finances for the children to go to school. The teachers must be paid. But I don't like to make the school dependent on others for everything. I have often thought if we could have something the students could make and sell as a fundraiser, it would be perfect.

Everyone here sells things. Even people who have full time jobs, sell things to their neighbors on the side. The tuition costs for a child who is unsponsored right now, are about $35-40 a month. This means that with only $10 a week in profits, a student could basically pay his/her own way. Not only that, he/she would be developing small business skills, that are practically a necessity of life here.

What could we make?

It needs to be something:

• the teens can learn to make
• of good quality
• useful or decorative
  
• not something everyone would be able to make, so it couldn't be easily copied (as in the process/recipe is secret, or requires tools not readily available)
• made in a reasonable amount of time

Inexpensive jewelry is a favorite here, so that would be a possibility, although I rather favor something that would be useful to make the lives of poor people a bit easier. Any ideas?

We also need someone who can teach them how to make their product.

It's the teach a man to fish plan. One of our students cleans house just once a month, to earn her tuition for the month. But I cannot hire all the kids! :)