Dominican Republic - Part 1

I didn't take a lot of pictures in the DR with my phone this year and I haven't downloaded the ones from the camera yet, but here's a sneak peak from what I have and from ones I stole from Facebook from my photographer friend Tara.  Who, by the way, is pretty handy to have around on a trip so that you have professional pictures when you get home.

We had a great week in the DR.  Tara and I did two days of teacher training which I think went really, really well.  These ladies make $60-70 per month as a teacher and some spend all that on transportation just to get to work each day, so they have to have multiple jobs.  But, they love kids and they love teaching so it's worth it to them.

The other thing we did was to help add a second floor to a home that will be used for single mom's to live in.  We helped get the floor ready to pour concrete and by the time we left, walls were going up (these pictures are on the camera so I will share them later). 

I have to say, the people in this community are amazing.  They have nothing compared to how we live, but I have never felt such love and acceptance like I do when I'm there.  They invite you into their home, they rush out and buy a liter of soda even though it costs a days wages.  I love being there.

Our flight from DIA did not leave until 11:15pm.  Siahna was still going strong at midnight, but did sleep from Denver to Miami (3.5 hours) and then was up.  She did finally crash on my lap at lunch time in the DR for about 30 minutes.  It's hard traveling overnight with kids.

We had a 5 hour layover in Miami and Case crashed on the floor.

This is the view from the home we stayed in (ocean in the back).

At dinner one night, some people ordered fish and it came body and all.  Some of the kids thought it would be a good idea to eat the fish eyeball (including my son) since it's considered a delicacy in places.  So disgusting, but he did it.

Picture courtesy of Tara: these girls latched on to Siahna last year and the minute they saw us this year, they never put Siahna down.  "Sisi, Sisi," they would say all day as they passed her around from girl to girl.

Picture courtesy of Tara: this is our team from Denver standing in front of the single mother's home, although you can't see much of the home.  More pictures to come.

Picture courtesy of Tara: I love the color.  These are homes.  Can you imagine if you lived in one of these?  It's very humbling to see how they live, especially as we are preparing to move to a bigger house because ours is too small.

Picture courtesy of Tara: this is me inside the home we were working on.  The entire first floor was filled with broken concrete blocks that we had to shovel into buckets, and pass the buckets out the window down a line of people to dump into a trash pile.  It took hours and hours to clean up the floor.

Picture courtesy of Tara: I absolutely love this picture of Jeff holding a little boy's hand.

Picture courtesy of Tara: This is Sandra - the lady we work with in the DR.  There truly is no one like her.  It's hard to say goodbye.  I will find a better picture of her later.