I'm back! Part:1

I returned home from the DR a week later than planned, as my passport and camera were stolen. I'm more upset about the camera as it had all the picture I took from the two weeks I was there, including all the amazing friends I made! Let me tell you about them.

We arrived in the DR to rain. The following day, we were lucky to get a bit of sunshine so my friend and I decided to have a beach day and prepare for the rest of the two weeks. As we were on the beach we noticed three young boys, two 9 years old and a 12 year old selling shells. They were very shy and we walked over to them. They looked Haitian so I asked them if they were and if they spoke Creole. 12 year old Peter(Baby) and 9 year old TiRonal arrived from Haiti 3 years ago while 9 year old Ramoun was born in the Dominican Republic to Haitian parents.
We went to get them some food from the hotel and then two more 15 year old boys showed up. They are Daniel(Jesnel) and Yamaica. We soon learned that the boys loovee to sing and dance, so we played around taking videos and letting them watch. It was getting late by now so we parted ways, and they gave us all the seashells they collected that day.(I have a suitcase just from shells..)They asked to come see us tommorow for lunch and we agreed for 12.

The next morning when we woke up, it was pouring! It continued like that all throughout the day and we planned to go visit a school but were informed the kids wouldn't be in school because of the heavy rain. We decided to check to see if the boys came at 12:00, but figured they would be at home because of the rain. To our suprise they were all waiting there right near the bottom of the beach. They asked if we wanted to play baseball, and we agreed. We walked all the way down the beach completely soaked. We then crossed a river that went to my chest to get to the other side. Wet, wet, wet. Neither me or Cat(friend) could even complain the boys smiles wouldn't leave their faces and everyone was just so happy despite the miserable weather. We played baseball with a plank of wood and seaweed for bases. Cat hit home runs and I couldn't even hit the ball. The cutest thing was they would tell me to run to home base and convince me that I hit it all by myself :) That day we met some more boys, all Haitian who have been in the DR for different amounts of time. One boy that stands out is Alexis. He is 14 years old and always tried his best to speak in english and talk about school. If he didn't know a word in english he had to figure it out. He attends a local school on Mondays were he is learning to read and write. If given the opportunity, I bet Alexis would become top in his class in a real school, he is just soo bright. Alexis is like many of the boys, from Haiti searching for a better life with no family. After spending 3 weeks it was obviouse that the boys have created their own family with eachother. The same day on the beach we bought some "kokoye e pistache" coconut and pistachio candies from a boy selling it on the beach. I split half with Cat, and bought four for the boys that were with us. They immedietly started cracking them up into dozens of pieces and shared it with other friends. They didn't have to do this as the other boys weren't even close but one boy named Jhonny told me " he is my brother, everything that is mine is his and everything that is his is mine." And for the rest of my time there, that saying was true everytime.