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Today some members of the D.R. team were blessed with the opportunity to travel to some of the Makarios students’ homes in Chichiga, a Haitian batay outside of Montellano. As the group headed away from the Makarios school, the ocean breeze swirled through the van in the afternoon heat.
After passing rows and rows of sugar cane, the “gua gua” turned down a dusty dirt road. The first image in sight upon arriving in Chichiga was the shining faces of the excited children ready to head off to preschool. When the van came to a stop, the group stepped out to tour the batay with Robin, a teacher at the Makarios school. As the group walked around the village, numerous smiling faces greeted Robin and welcomed the group with a friendly “hola.” The short tour around Chichiga ended within ten minutes and upon returning to the van we found it full of preschoolers ecstatic to journey to school.
The “gua gua” once again headed off down the road filled with bumps and turns. The tightly squeezed van ride did not end the preschoolers excitement for school, the entire “gua gua” ride the children sang to one another a song in Creole, the Haitian native language. Intially, I believed, because even Robin could not understand the Creole the children used as a first language, the linguistic differences would provide a division between Haitians and Dominicans at the Makarios school similar to that division present in the modern day Dominican Republic.
This division in the D.R. is especially prevalent in batays where towns divide themselves in half by nationality. However, the moment the “gua gua” arrived at the Makarios school the Haitian preschoolers, who had traveled with the group, became united with the rest of the school children. The occurrence of friendships amongst children without regard for nationality gave the whole group great hope in the promise of tomorrow for Dominican society. The possibility that one day all people living in the Dominican Republic can live together and regard one another just as the preschoolers do, without the influence of prejudice, provides a great chance for a future of peace.
(Madeline Baird)
On the rec team, we get a class everyday and divide them via wristbands into the red and blue teams. Once we divide, after the kids eat their snack, we all make the short walk from the school to the Play, which is what they call the baseball field in the center of the village. Usually the kids hold our hands and we walk and talk a little (generally they talk and we listen and don’t understand a word of what they say). Today we were making the walk, and my team (the red team) started gathering together and walking as a team with no encouragement from us. They started saying “Rojo va a ganar!” (red is going to win!) and they even did that football chant thing where they all put their hands in the middle and yelled “uno, dos, tres, ROJO!!!” then shot their hands straight into the air like they had exploded.
They were so excited to go out into the hot sun and play kickball. Their eyes gleamed and they smiled a lot. It was amazing to me. They joined together as a team and just wanted to play. I was so encouraged by their joy. We were walking on the street over a pretty gross sewer ditch, past shacks with 5 kids sitting out front and more inside who lived there, with some adults yelling angrily at the kids from their doorsteps, and here these kids were, just being kids. Even though I know they’re the same as kids in the US, it seems so often that they have much more responsibility to look out for themselves and their families. But they just want to play.
God’s been teaching me about joy throughout this trip, and it was amazing to see it so active and alive in the street! He doesn’t let His joy get buried under poverty or hardship. He keeps it alive! Sometimes, it shines through in crazy ways, like through a confident team of little Dominican children chanting that their team is going to win a kickball game facilitated by a group of gringos from the States.
And just for the record, ROJO did win. . . or it would have if we’d kept score.
(Samantha Greeson)
I can’t tell if it’s hotter here or in Texas. They’re probably about the same, but in Texas, I experience the summer heat in brief intervals when I’m en route from one air conditioned building to another…in my air conditioned car. In light of that, the biggest thing God has shown me this week is His mighty strength through His unending love. The staff and interns at Makarios are absolutely amazing to watch. The kids here are the same as kids in America; they have a seemingly endless amount of energy and they need God’s love. The staff and interns give plenty of both to these kids on a daily basis even though the novelty of being a missionary in a foreign country has probably long since worn off. We serve an amazing God, who truly does equip His people to do good works.
As a side note, we also serve a brilliant God. There two kids pictured above (Jacob and Isaac) understand English, Spanish, Creole and American Sign Language…and they’re three years old!
(Riley Dallas)