paint

We had a group from Westlake come in early November, they painted the alphabet on the classroom walls, other need to know information on the classroom tables, a mural on one of the walls, the name on the outside of the building, and so much more.

Shelves were also built and grass was laid in the back to provide a better area for the PE classes.

The kids walked in the next day mesmerized by all the things that they saw.

Pictured is the new and improved school with "Makarios" painted on the front.

Fake Coffee

Hi Makarios Blog Land! I've been living here for almost three months with nothing written on the blog. I am so sorry. For those who have no idea who this is, my name is Kate. I'm a teacher here and I'm also very nice.

I wanted to share my favorite thing from class last week. My morning kids and I were sitting in the corner for story time, when I had a craving for coffee and voiced it to the kiddos. Then I just felt like taking a few minutes to be silly, so before the story started, we pretended to make coffee for everyone. They all handed me their mugs and passed around the cream and sugar (so so cute). The best part, I think, was when they were ALL silent while the fake coffee brewed. They just sat around grinning and waiting for the coffee to be ready. We smelled it and listened for the drip of the coffee machine. Then they waited for me to pour it--watch out it's hot! THEN, we blew off the steam and drank. Oh it was so sweet. I'm told and have seen that kids in our villages are rarely creative. They're not really taught to think. So I considered these few moments priceless. It was fun to do something different and silly--especially fun to see their faces. I think we'll have coffee break from now on and work on those imaginations!

It's not a big deal. But it was sweet. More to come.

diori's abscess

During the last week of October, we had a medical group come down. They checked out a few of our students and were able to provide medicine and other treatments for the kids that needed it. During their time here they also taught the Makarios staff specific medical and first aid information and tactics. This included things from how to treat a burn to dealing with seizures and infections. They spent their last day with us teaching us this basic must know information before their beach day.

The very next day when we were at the school, we found a large abscess on Diori, one of the neighborhood kids who is always hanging around the school. Though this medical group had already left Puerto Plata, we were able to help Diori because just the day before they taught us the exact procedures for getting rid of an abscess.

An abscess looks like a giant pimple on the skin. It's middle is filled with puss and debris and apparently is very painful. It cannot be cured by antibiotics alone, but must be opened and drained.

Elizabeth and I popped his abscess. Sorry if this is a little grotesque, I just wanted to share with y’all the neat story of being able to use what we had learned from this group just the day before.
And, I will have y’all know that Diori’s arm is no longer big and swollen and is healing rather nicely. Elizabeth and I have given each other several high fives since that day.

On a side note, for those of you that have been here and know Diori, he is now enrolled in our classes and comes every afternoon to our program. On another side note, there was a little girl the very next day who abscess I was able to pop.

Pictured is Diori's abscess before it was popped.