Santo Domingo Intern trip

Our trip to Santo Domingo ... Rachel, Shannon and Sara at a cafe for lunch

Bryan and I at the same cafe
The gaurded flame ...the gaud does not more except to change shifts every few hours

Luckily we were there for that ...Bryan with the gaurds

everyone else with the gaurds

climbing up the spiral staircase at the Fort Ozama ... Rachel

Jazmin ...

Me ...

Santos with some of the fancy looking weapons on the fort grounds ...

Jazmin and I

Santos' crazy pic ...

group pic

Hand made bracelets for sale on the main shopping street in Santo Domingo

Jazmin and I with our bracelets

Bryan and I ...Bryan with his newly purchased aviator sunglasses

Jazmin and her new American boyfriend

Jazmin, Sara and I in the taxi

Water park ...

our pretend enterance into the pool

a view of one of the pools at the water park

pic by the pools... Shannon, Sara, Rachel and I

T-Shirt painting

A favorite project at the orphanage- decorating T-Shirts.

Jennifer
Merry Risa

The Annual Easter Egg Hunt

The yearly Egg Hunt recently took place at the orphanage. About 150 plastic, candy-filled eggs were hidden for the younger half of kids, and then 150 more for the older kid group. It starts with all of the kids huddled in the doorway of their dining room ...they all got green easter bags with jellybeans and tootsie pops ...then we open the door and they head to the patio, basketball court, volleyball court and field for the hunt. Here they are waiting for us to open the door.

Stampedeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
Run!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jaury and Winston

Marianny, Raileni and Raisa

Rachel helping Luz Maria ...who found a few eggs, but did NOT want them going in her bag!

The older kids watching the little kids hunt

Hunting in the field

Luz Maria looking a little confussed about the whole thing

...enjoying both of her suckers at once

Jennifer eating M&Ms

Easter Events ...

After our Easter Egg hunt at the orphanage, volunteers paired up with a kid to participate in a few contests to win some extra Easter candy. Here is everyone starting to line up in the field for the 3 legged race.

pairing up for the 3 legged race

ready ... set ...
go!

GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

next event- wheel barrow race

the kids walked on their hands down, and switched with their volunteer partner for the way back.

A few pics from last week

Is it Christmas in March? Carmelo fashions this lovely winter sweater during arts and crafts time last week. He is holding up the frame of a kite he was building.

Luz Maria coloring
Domingo trying to get a pic with his older brother, Ariel

Jose Luis

Semana Santa Week

Last week for semana santa (holy week, when all kids in the DR are off from school) we went to a neighborhood about 45 minutes outside of Monte Cristi to put on a camp for the kids who live there, and normally don't have activities or much of anything going on in their area. We had 2 volunteer groups working with us- New York University and a high school from New York.

Here are some of the volunteers and kids cheering during the 3 legged race.

Parachutte
Bus ride on ther way there ...pasa la botella

More outdoor games

One of the little girls Jazmin wanted to take back with us ...

Face Painting

Sack Races

Richard, our bus driver, and Jazmin

Story time

some kids from the Green group