Dads vs Maggots... aready hosed with water, sprayted with bleach..now thinking about gasoline!






Our third day and immediately when we stepped off the bus our kids were swallowed up in the greeting from El Arca kids. The boys ran down the hill to play ball and the girls sang songs and played games. The group picture is Aoife, Danica and Ellen with Inidana and Winifer. Aoife gave them the notes she made for them last night and they were delighted. The smallest of gestures of love mean so much to the children here.

We accomplished more shoe fitting this morning which by the way may sound easy but it is really hard when you are constantly bending down/standing up. My challenge is speaking Spanish, and then the taking off of shoes and socks, putting on the school socks and the trying on of shoes. I feel it is so important to give the kids the feeling of “choosing” the right shoe so, many many fittings take place to find just the right one! The kids are just so excited, this is the one time during the year that they get a new pair of shoes (if they have enough to go around). I think of how many times my kids get new shoes throughout one year and how we really don’t buy them based on absolute need.Things are about to change for the Tejada kids!!

Today we were invited to join a family for lunch. We were assigned to Heidi and Marianno. They have a total of 9 children in their house, 2 of their own and 7 orphan teenagers...al boys! The calm and happiness is the first thing that struck me when we came into the home. I'm not sure what we ate but it was delicious. Eric got was amazing at translating and we learned all about how they gave up their comfortable lives to come live at El Arca to be house parents. They, like all the house parents are devout christians. They are provided a small stipend for the work they do, Hilda runs the home while Marianno does maintenance around the compound. There are 10 homes here and all teh house parents work in El Arca.

After lunch we had our meeting with the house mothers. The purpose of this is basically to show our support for them, listen to their stories of their day to day life and the challenges they routinely face. There is one house here with kids from Haiti and both house parents are also from Haiti. The father speaks Spanish but, Violina the mother, only speaks Creole. When we met with the other house mothers yesterday, I learned that Violine is a little isolated primarily because she doesn’t speak Spanish and they don’t speak Creole. There is also a cultural barrier and traditionally, the people of Dominican Republic are not welcoming of Haitians and she has not had much opportunity to join in the activitites of the other house mothers, nor does she enjoy the support they offer each other. I speak some French which has some commonality with Creole so last night I logged on to Google translator and I wrote down several sentences in Creole so that we could visit her today and invite her to join us when we were meeting with the other house mothers. She greeted us with her infectious smile, (like Julia Roberts' smile!) and was so happy to join us! We brought pizza supplies and showed the moms how to make pizza. It was a ton of fun, we laughed so much and of course, Arhalia brought us her special coffee. She is the only single mom and she has 7 children, 1 of her own and 6 others...she has the 5 Delgado children mentioned earlier. Arhalia is known for her coffee and singing..thats her in the red shirt! Meanwhile, the rest of the Tejadas were working hard!

Today Tighe was assigned staining benches and digging the road that runs through the Arc.
Aoife was also staining and of course,Indi and Daiety glued to her side. Eric helped fix some electrical issues this morning and then it was back to basketball and soccer. He said it feels like he has been sent to "Fat Camp"!

I already emntioned the power outage and the maggots...the dads finally won after several attempts..see picture of the dads trying to come up with an attack plan. The kids had lots of fun playing the dark with flashlights. It was pouring rain and dark and Giovanni came on his motorcycle (no helmet or any kind of protective clothing) to see how we were doing..this is an example of the selfless caring nature we are seeing in these children. His home is 3 miles away along dirt roads filled with potholes and it was raining with thunder and lightening! The day ended with all of us feeling so thankful for this experience..the kids are saying "it's the best vacation ever"...that makes it worth all the sacrifice for us! XOXO