Oye como va....

Hear how [my rhythm] goes.

Key word: hear.

This blog is brought to you today by a group of doctors, plastic surgeons, from the US of A, who have volunteered their time and talent (and money) in the DR, helping construct ears for those born without them (or born with ear defects). And I'm super excited because out of the four people from my town who went, 3 are getting helped! This is wonderful!

In other news...well, frankly, there is not that much other news right now. My wonderful sisters made an emergency "cheer alicia up" trip to the DR and have left me with enough food to enable me to hibernate, if I choose, until the winter. My attendance at the school has so far been sporadic this year given visits and official duties and other things, but my roster of students has grown steadily, despite this. Also in other news, my office received a filing cabinet, which is wonderful. It's pretty much full now, a big one. Imagine, before the filing cabinet, all that stuff was on top of, in, around, and under my desk. I know, hard to imagine Alicia working in a disorganized office. haha. hem.

In other other news, we have finally purchased the bulk of materials needed for the construction of the house for a family who are friends of mine. These materials have been purchased thanks to an american friend who came and visited (a baltimorean). I have decided to put off any sort of celebration until the whole house is built and the family has been moved in, but it is still nice to have some of the groundwork covered.

Do you all remember the poem Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes? Anyways, I feel like a lot of the youth here feel like that. Maybe the adults too.
Here it is, before you go google it (if you were about to, just to make it easier):

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

I'm going to continue on with the teaching others to read. If I were a better volunteer, I'd have found some way to motivate others to volunteer to help me teach. I keep putting the idea out there, but noone's really keen on working for nothing. Turns out the gift of giving isn't really a gift from many people's perspectives. It's really exciting that the teachers are using books we got for the school with grant money, and that many of the kids are so excited to get to borrow the books and read them. Most of them have never read a story book before, and the fact that there is almost one book for every older student is really amazing.

The exciting news for this week is the operations which will take place! In about a month, I'll have some more volunteers working close to me, which is also exciting, but we'll get excited about that later.

until we meet again,
alicia