A Very Dominican Day

Sunday - Tuesday at about 5:30pm are the craziest days in Banica. I feel like I am up super duper early and get to bed super duper late and it is filled with running around, work, beautiful things, wonderful people, and a whole lot of noise and heart. Wowzers! Today was no different. This is the first time that I have really been able to sit down since 6am on Sunday morning so this really is a gift. The days are just because because of the masses, formation, classes, youth groups, and meetings that are scheduled in those three days. Crazy! Crazy!

Today was a great example of how that craziness becomes "Dominican" in the most loving way possible haha. So let's start off in Hato Viejo. I teach classes these every Tuesday from 9am until noon. It's hot and sticky and the classes are big so I have to use my "loud voice" sometimes. After the classes in Hato Viejo we (the college students who help out and I) plan games or activities with the kids because they do not have PE or any kind of physical activities for the students. It's not that they do not want to...but they just do not have the money or resources for it. Four of us decided to go to a different community to visit the kids who lived there and could not go to school. The road was so horrible that we could not use the pick up truck to make it up the hill. We did not know exactly where we were going but we had a general idea. In flip flops and my teaching clothes I trekked down a big dirt hill, crossed two rivers, and trekked up another dirt hill before reaching this little community. Cars cannot even get to them! We brought soccer balls and jump ropes and lollipops for the little kids to play with in the community and they loved it. One of the most beautiful moments for me was meeting a little girl named Maria. When we were playing with the little kids, some of them mentioned that their friend Maria could not come out and play because she could not walk. I did not quite understand what they meant by that so I found out where her house was and stopped by before leaving the community to head back down to Hato Viejo. Maria is a beautiful girl was a gorgeous smile and lots of love who has braces on her legs and is confined to a wheel chair for the rest of her life. The other day I met a boy in who is paralyzed from the neck down, named Miguel Angel (Michael the Angel hehehe like the Archangel), and was really moved by his happiness and love. Father O'Hare reminded me that it's people like Maria and Miguel that show love in its purest form and the human capacity to "look down" on people who are disabled is a spiritual incapacity (it sounds better in Spanish haha). I told Maria that the next time we come up to play with the community in two weeks, that I would bring her in her wheelchair to play too, and her mom loved the idea. At the end of the visit we trekked back own that hill, across two rivers (and encountered 4 cows blocking our way) and back up another dirt hill. Ohh the life in the Dominican Republic!