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| Suzanne Loveland hanging out in Macao |
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| Aly Cutlip with a girl in Domingo Maiz |
This morning was very interesting learning about the
Peace Corp and its goals as well as Kayla’s experiences in the Peace Corp. Admittedly, it is a slow process to implement
changes, but it is so important for our youth to see the opportunities that
exist for them as well as the importance of service to community and the
world.
Kayla lives with a host family in
her own small one room apartment with a bathroom off of it. She lives like all
the other Dominicans in her neighborhood and writes grants as well as runs
programs assigned to her.
The trash
pickup this morning is part of her project for waste management. I was
amazed at the enthusiasm of the youth and somewhat discouraged with some of the
Dominican adults. However their
frustrations run deep with promises of trash pick-up and other services that we
take for granted rarely occurring.
Apparently money is collected is collected for trash pick-up and then no
one shows up….so everything piles up. I was most proud of our teens and their
willingness to help and get our task done.
The meal afterwards was an awesome opportunity for us all to be a part
of the village for a while - taking in how the meal was prepared, watching the
children play, seeing the poor looking dogs wandering, hearing music playing
somewhere, seeing meat hanging for drying……… just taking it all in.
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| Dogs were wandering in the streets |
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| Old water bottle functions as a basketball goal in Veron |
At Veron, we dropped off school supplies. I noticed that they had done some remodeling
to the school which gave each classroom more privacy. Although the school was not in session, one
of the teachers met us there to receive the school supplies. Of course, the local kids showed up and our
teens played basketball with them, shooting
a ball into a plastic water container that had been nailed to the top of a
pole. The teacher pointed out a deaf
child that was very smart and she had high hopes for him. She introduced us to 2 children who had
developmental delays that included speech difficulties. She recognized that they had special needs
and was doing the best that she could to try to help them. In the USA the opportunities to help these
children is much greater, but thank God for this teacher who at least knew that
she had children with special needs.
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| Carol Nansel, Elizabeth (teacher at Collegio Elizabeth, Christine Hodges |
Heading to Macao, the poorest village that we have seen, it
was so “cool” to see the new bright green school that replaced the tin shack we
saw last year. The leader of the
neighborhood met us as well as the teacher.
They both said that they remembered me from last year! Wow! Although no program was planned, the whole
village showed up and all of the kids came to see us. This teacher is the one who just decided she
needed to do something for her community and quit her job at the resort to open
this school. The local Rotary built this
school and obtained 3 toilets for the school.
The leaders of the community decided to use only two of the toilets and
surprised the teacher by giving her a toilet for her home. The teacher commented that she never thought
she would ever own her own toilet……Can you imagine your home without a toilet?
The sincerity of these teachers was heartwarming and
provoked some tears from several of us.  |
| Children in Macao who welcomed us |
I would like to thank all of my family, patients, friends,
coworkers, and St. Paul’s UCC for all of their support for Bobby and me. We have been learning so much and are so proud to be a part
of this service.
Contributed by: Suzanne
Loveland, Shenandoah County
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| Teacher in Macao, Carol Nansel, President of the Macao Neighborhood Assoc., Christine Hodges |
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