This last week I've had some new experiences here--
Last weekend I attended a Women's Retreat in Jarabacoa with the theme "Letting Go."

The women from the retreat were from missionary organizations across the Dominican Republic-- There were approximately 75 women in attendance, with both Spanish and English speakers. Saturday afternoon we had some free time, and I was able to visit an orphanage called Kids Alive. The location has several houses where kids from preschool to high school age live with house parent's. Some of the children have no family to take them, while others have been taken out of the home for various reasons. Each home home has approximately 7 children, along with biological children.

The Monday we got back I went with Michelle to PriceMart to help her buy food for a Haitian School that she helps support. The school was started about three years ago by a former SCS teacher (who is Haitian), who taught French there. His last name is "Eves," but I'm not sure of the correct spelling. As soon as we got out of the car, we were greeted by many children that lived near the school (there was no school that day due to the holiday).

The children started helping us unload the food, wanting to carry whatever they could into the school. I got my phone out to take a few pictures, and immediately they "swarmed me," wanting to pose for the camera, and for me to take pictures of them! It was so sweet! The building is a school during the week, and then a church on Sundays. 

Yesterday (Saturday), the other SST teacher Arianny, invited me with her to Santo Domingo to the college class that she teaches there (I was up at 5:15 on a Saturday!). She teaches at an English University where it is a private (I think) school during the week, and then there are college classes on the weekends. The class that she teaches is called "Online Learning." It is designed for students to become familiar with using Moodle (similar to Blackboard) platform. That day they were discussing Blended Learning-- their class meets part face-to-face time-- and the rest of the time using the Moodle platform. There were about 40 students in the class-- Freshman/Sophomores. (all speaking in English) It was interesting to hear the discussion-- it seems like such a simple concept-- but for them, this was something new-- most likely with the lack of technology they had in school (though the majority of them had cellphones and tablets/computers there). 

We were going to go to the mall afterwards, but b/c of the massive traffic jams, we drove back to Santiago. Arianny's husband drove us, and he is a pastor of a church in Santiago. He doesn't speak English, so Arianny interpreted for us. Araianny also teaches a class in San Pedro, which is about an hour further from Santo Domingo, and she invited me to that class as well-- it's an Early Childhood Language Development class, all in Spanish. I'm not sure if I'm going to go or not. We would have to leave even earlier!

I've been working on interventions for a couple of possible SST students-- I have meetings with their parent's on Wednesday to get permission to do the standardized testing with them. After that I will do standardized testing to see if they would qualify for SST services. I've always been one who likes the challenge of "problem-solving," so I have enjoyed coming up with strategies/plans to do for the students, as well as being able to help the classroom teachers.