¡Hemos Llegado!

Evan on the school´s new hoops court

 Here I am reporting from the DR for the first time in a couple of years. We arrived yesterday without incident, as they say. The DR is a wonderful place populated by caring and gregarious folk. I make that statement as a disclaimer because many of my observations may come out sounding more critical than intended. My intent really is to describe what I see from my own gringo sensibility and not to criticize. I hope I succeed in finding that balance.

So, where was I? Oh yeah, our arrival. Tanya always says to me that the DR tries so hard to be an accomodating tourist site, but doesn´t always get it right. Case in point. When we got off the plane we were greeted by a nicely dressed man, offering free cuba libres. I shant hesitate to report that Tanya and I enjoyed this ice cold welcome freely. Things were off to a great start. Then, when we got to security, we found out that the computers were down and they were having trouble issuing tourist cards. The line to enter the country quickly snaked through all of the turnstyle ropes, and drastically slowed down our entry. As much as I welcomed the cold libation, after 10 hours of travel, I would´ve preferred being welcomed by a functioning computer system I think. But that´s just me.

So, on to our project. This morning, Tanya, Carmen, Evan and myself walked over to the school to meet the principal and confirm the arrangements for the camp which is to start on Monday. When we arrived, we ran into our first stumbling block (is that a mixed metaphor I see?). The principal told us that they are holding national exams on Tuesday through Friday of next week and that the school would be completely occupied. Oops! Or in Spanish, ¡Oops! She did say that we could run the camp in the afternoon, but we´re not really sure the students are free in the afternoon. Best laid plans as they say. (I think that the expression ¨best laid plans¨ may be used quite a bit. So, I think an abbreviation is in order. How ´bout ¨BLP¨.)

The newly remodelled kindergarten building

The other thing that was striking about our visit is that the school has been completely remodelled since our first version of the camp two summers ago. They refurbished all the classrooms, built a kitchen and new bathrooms, installed a computer room (which necessitated the building of a barbed wire topped wall), refinished the basketball court and beautified the whole place. I´m really excited about the new facilities that we´ll be able to use at the camp. One thing though. See the building pictured to the left? That´s where we planted all of the plants two years ago. You remember those plants right? I guess they lay concrete all around and moved the plants somewhere. I have two hopeful thoughts here.
1.  I hope they donated the plants to local families and that they are thriving in their new homes and providing some beauty in which people can surround themselves.I have to believe that is what happened.
2.  I hope that the beautification project that we undertook two years ago had something to do with the inspiration that led to the remodelling of the school. I know this is hubris, and comes from the place inside me that hopes that we are making a difference here. It´s also a fool´s hope as I saw a plaque stating that the rennovations were funded by the government of Leonel Fernandez, the former president of the country. But, maybe I´ll hold on to that hope anyways.It makes me feel good.  That´s all for now.