Updates

OK, as you can see I have not posted anything in a while...my apologies. However, I will tell you about some highlights since my last post.

So last Monday was my last post, and here are some things that have happened since then. Since it was Sam's last week, we wanted to spend some time with the boys.
One day we took them to eat, and then to the Melacon, which ended up being a fiasco.
At first, it started out like a regular trip to the Melacon, the boys running around having fun, and p.s. they really find it funny to beat me up for some reason.




There is one little boy in Puerto Plata who we see on the streets all of the time...Liz knows who he is, and from what she has told us, he is a problem child, with some mental issues. However, anytime that we have had an encounter with him, it has been pleasant, and we normally give him something to eat and he goes on his way. However, on this day, he seemed to hang around us some more, which was fine. He was getting involved, and being a great kid. However, somewhere along the way, he said something that the boys didn't like, apparently something crude, and that's when he started fighting with them. So we decided that it was best to leave...the boys thought this was best as well. Well the kid followed us, and our boys were getting upset again because this kid kept saying rude things. So this kid flipped out on us, and started going after us with huge rocks...we kept walking away and he just followed. Finally, he jumped one of our boys, Alberto, and when Alberto started to defend himself, is when the police walked up. Since Alberto is older and bigger than this kid, it looked like he was just beating up a little kid. The police arrested both boys. So we called Cathy, and she came and picked all of us up, and we went to get Alberto. Since Cathy is fluent in Spanish and lives here, she knew how to handle the police, and ended up getting Alberto out. Although it turned out okay, we still felt really bad. Here we were trying to keep the kids out of trouble, and then one of them gets arrested.
On another day, we held a boys club, and played some games, including "Follow the Leader", which the kids LOVED by the way...and since I was the leader, I probably looked like a crazy hopping on one foot down the road. It was a really fun, and spontanious boys club, because we had only mentioned to our English students that we would be meeting this day...so we only expected to do an English class...however word spread, and all of the kids showed up. So we improvised, and played charades in English, listened to some of the English songs, and played some fun games.