Finnish line

2009 has been an exciting year. I made my first visit to the Dominican Republic and Uganda, completely fell in love with both. I learned so much more about poverty and charity work, the great to the ugly. I've been able to seperate those two and form strong opinions. I really defined what I want to do, as I was all over the place at one time. Learned I didn't want to be a nurse in Uganda, as I could barely stand taking off a bandaid from a boy who cut his legs. I was a mess, "are you okay. Okay close your eyes. Okay let's breath together. Gimme a sec." I think I made him 100% more nervouse. I would be one slow nurse holding up the hospital and on all sorts of anxiety pills! I taught some basic lessons to some of the kids in Uganda, and got so much pleasure out of that.
In Dubai, on my way to Uganda with best friend Kayla! I learned I am not fond of Dubai's airport or New York. Much prefer smaller ones. It was like worlds apart.. In Dubai we couldn't find out way around and no one would help us. When we landed in Uganda we miscommunicated and had no one to pick us up. First lady we asked, gave us her cell phone to use and refused money for it. I really think Ugandans are the kindest people on the planet. Another highlight is how they use the word sorry. One example- I had some dirt on my leg and was in the car with our driver and Hellen. They continued to appologize and made it into a HUGE DEAL. Stopped the car, pulled over and cleaned my leg with bottled water. Then at Didi's world, I had a tiny cut from scratching a mosquito bite. We were on the boat ride, and when the girls saw my little cut the "sorry's" poured out. I kept explaining it wasn't them that cut me and I am the stupid one for itching it until it bleeds but they explained how it was there fault because it was a Ugandan mosquito!

I've been babysitting twin boys since they were two months old, and they are now over a year. I have found a new found "love" for babies. I always thought they were cute but rather not really needing much more than food, sleep, diaper changing, etc. (Dumb I know. I don't really know how I thought babies learned things like walking, but it just happened?) Wow I was proven wrong. I've watched their first crawls, first steps, and now they are running all over the place. They respond to love and it never gets old. My heart really breaks thinking about the babies in orphanages all over the world who get little attention and stimulation. Milestones don't happen, they have to be encouraged and taught.

Top: Me with baby Jamima in Uganda, Bottom: Me with a little girl in Dominican Republic. Babies like my face:)

Staying with the topics of babies, my best friend's sister had her first baby, a boy named Dylan. I really got hit that, wow times flies. It seemed like just yesterday I was at their house playing with a Ouijji board and she conviced me she was not moving the little triangle piece. Meanwhile, my other friend ran out crying. Anyways, isn't he a cutie??

I realise that there were highlights, but an entire side of rather boring too that I won't go through.

A HUGE highlight is being able to buy land for an orphanage in Uganda. In October it went for sale, we didn't think we could get it. Now we are mising $235. Pretty incredible! I am hoping that we will be able to buy the land in less than 2 days, before the new year! We need $535 to purchase it, $300 of which I will be donating and $235 left to raise. That $13 from only 18 people, or $18 from only 13 people!! Please help us start 2010 in an amazing way, being able to tell many orphan children that they are one huge step closer to having a home. Please make a donation on the website at www.christianupliftmentschool.com/donate

Finally, I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year and may it bring you only all the good things life has to offer!!

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone is having a great Christmas, surrounded by the ones you love. I just finnished opening some gifts with my family and i'm about to eat breakfast. But before that, I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and let you know that as planned, the raffle winners will be announced today!

So if you get a chance in your busy day to stop by around 5pm, the raffle winners should be up and you may even get another gift! There's also still time to buy a raffle ticket for $2 at http://www.apacschool.blogspot.com/ (Winners will be announced from a video which I will post on this blog and the Apac blog).

Once again, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

The Power of Education. Focus on The Dominican Republic

I can't beleive I leave in 23 days for the Dominican Republic! I am so excited, yet feel so unprepared.

My schedual is all up in the air and i'm just going to go with the flow when I get there, but I know what i'll be doing and where. I'm very excited to be going to the capital, Santo Domingo, for the first time. My plan is to take the bus out of Puerto Plata in the morning. I should arrive by 12:00 noon. We're going to check into a hotel and then go from there and explore as much as we can. If anyone has any suggestions of places to visit, please let me know. The following day, I will be meeting with my sponsor child Nelanda and spending the day with her.

The rest of my time will be spent in Puerto Plata where i'll be volunteering and visiting with my other sponsor children. I will also be visiting some grassroot schools, which serve in predominently Haitian communities known as bateys. I visited a classroom in Agua Negras(a Dominican/Haitian community),where I volunteered last March. This classroom was one room and very tiny. It taught the children how to speak and write in Spanish, a mandatory skill to live and get by in the Dominican Republic. It did not however(from what I remember) follow a school curriculum with math, social studies, geography, etc. I really don't see how much brighter these children's futures can get with just Spanish.. It's been something that been on my mind(education in general) but just how far can education can really bring a child? Do I beleive it is the awnser to extreme poverty, yes. Do I beleive it is the awnser to poverty, no. Did I just confuse you, yes. ;)

The world bank defines poverty as living on less than $1.25 a day, and poverty or "moderate poverty" as living on less than $2 a day. A picture image of extreme poverty could be a child malnourished living in a mud hut. A child living in poverty could live in a corrugated metal house, not reaching growth milestones and lacking a good diet, but not suffering from severe malnourishment. It's deffinetly not this black and white, and every home has their own situation but that's just to show the slight difference.

How does this tie into education? There seems to be a huge focus on primary school education. This for the most part is happening, and it is good. But is it great? Nope. It would be great if the child could continue and then go on to high school, college and then university, that would be great. But the system in developing nations is being cut off at primary school. It is set up to get the kids out of extreme poverty and keep them in poverty. I don't mean big brother is doing it or a government conspiracy(who knows ..) but "that's just the way it is." And why is that? I have been speaking to some people on the topic of Haitians in the Dominican and how I think too much time and money is being spent in the wrong areas in terms of development, and how WAY more needs to go into QUALITY education. And finding reasons and then solutions to the fact that the Dominican Republic ranks as one of the worst education systems in the Carribean, right after Haiti.

There are laws that Haitians without papers(birth certificates/passports) can go to school up until a certain grade and then it's aurevoir and adios. I'm not sure the complete law so don't quote me there as I don't even know if this is applicable in all parts of the country. But talking to a certain individual, I was told "well it's better than Haiti." I think this is the mentality that is keeping the world's poor from not just escaping extreme poverty, but really succeeding. 40% of Dominicans live in poverty, 70% of Haitians and Haitian descendents live in poverty. So while it is a step up from Haiti, it is no where near a huge leap.

A child will stay in the free government enrolled primary school or NGO school, learning basic math and they may even get a good grasp on English. These are tools that can help provide them with the basic needs of life. The Dominican Republic is a tourist destination but there are only so many hotel workers each place needs. There is also the horrible problem of child prostitution which is booming in the DR, I wonder if basic skills push children into this direction?

In school, I was always taught that when you're writting about a problem, to write about possible solution. The solution is definetly complex but here's my take at it. Sticking with education and correcting the system. I have found a few good NGOs running schools for mostly Dominican children, while the schools targeting the Haitian population seem to be running on quantity over quality. Some NGO have built schools in the area(very nice ones too) but the curriculums are always similar and are focused at just teaching Spanish. Like I mentioned before this is a necesary skill to have, but how far will it take the children? Maybe they can sell more hard boiled eggs are shine more shoes because they feel more comfortable talking to customers? The grassroot schools I plan on visiting are not considered schools in the sense that they are not registered, but they do try and teach the kids a number of lessons. They are generally run out of small rooms in the community or church houses, over packed and understaffed. Where is the happy medium?

Note on the comparison to Uganda..

There are some differences to schools in Uganda and many similarities. The biggest difference that comes to mind is the hours the children are in school. In Uganda, schools starts at 7:00am sharp and ends at 1:00 for the nursery kids. That's a 6 hour day for children as young as 3. From P.1-P.7 school runs from 7:00Am until 5:00Pm. That's a 10 hour day! In the Dominican Republic however, school is usally half days with with children either morning or afternoon students. There is no doubt that there are many schools in Uganda who are poor and suffering many of the same social problems as schools in the DR. In Uganda, they know some children will drop out unfortunetly but the ones who stay and continue into the higher grades are pushed to do better, better, and even better. They are always preparing them for the next level of school, even if they have do not know how they will pay for it they're praying and studying even harder. It's very competitive. Where as the system in poor schools in the Dominican is setting the children up so they will learn what they need to learn to work in the tourist industry.

Thoughts, opinions? Would love to hear them! Leave a comment or e-mail me.

Haitian kids learning Spanish in a Agua Negra classroom.

My first Kiva loan

Today I made my first Kiva loan, or rather bought a gift certificate for someone's birthday. I am soo bad with remembering birthdays(you don't even want to know how many birthdays I have forgotten) and have no time to get a gift so I thought this would be a good option.

I also received a corrected information sheet on Nelanda, correcting her gender(they marked her as male) and her hobbie is now playing with dolls. Well, she would of received a cute ballerina Barbie if it's arm didn't happen to not be chewed up by a dog I was watching! I watch dogs and pets part time in my home as a pet-sitter to save up for Uganda! Needless to say, the one day I left my mom alone with a dog for half an hour(she's scared of dogs and dosn't like the big dogs) She locked the poor puppy in my room, and it chewed through my wall...

Can you really stay mad at this face

Oh, and in other exciting news the olympic torch passed by my window. Best part was, I didn't even have to open the front door!

Christmas Certificates!

Just in time for Christmas, we have these great certificates to support The Apac School Project, as well as one to support the CUS land fund!

What exactely are they?

Well this Christmas, instead of going out and buying something, you can support the building of the school by purchasing a certificate. I really can't think of a better Christmas gift than bringing education to children who other wise would not be able to attend school. Not only the person you purchase it for will be recieving a certificate, but their name will be added to the school's entrance! They will also receive a photo once the school has been built of the plaque with their name on it.

For Apac, we have a whole shopping list of items we need to buy to be able to build the school. When you purchase the item(s) completely, like I mentioned abouve your name(certificate-receivers name) will be be added to the front entrace of the school!

The certificate above is to purchase building tools to build the school in Apac and says:

In honor of_______$112 has been donated to The Apac School Project, to purchase building tools to build the school. In recognition and appreciation of this donation, your name will be added to the front entrace of the school.


The ones for the land fund are for $25 and $75. If we can get 120 people to donate $25 we will be able to purchase the land, or $75 from only 40 people!! We are so close..

To order a certificate. First choose the project, Apac or the CUS land fund. If it's for Apac, please visit www.apacschool.blogspot.com for the complete list of needed items. For CUS it will be up on the blog tommorow. www.cuschool.blogspot.com

Secondly, decide if you would like me to send you the certificate, which will be printed on high quality laser paper and filled out. I will need the name of who it is in honor of. Deadline is December 19th for USA/Canada residents. If you would like to print it, I will send you the certificate via e-mail.

Please send me an e-mail at apacschool@hotmail.com for orders !

First letter from Nelanda.

Dear Miss Bateman,
I am very grateful of you choosing Nelanda your sponsor child. She has a good father and a very hard worker mother. She likes to go to church and she has many friends. She likes pink color and she likes to eat rice and to hand out to people. She likes to share with her friends. With love says goodbye of you Nelanda and her cousin.

We share a favorite color and favorite food!

Missing Uganda

It's been a really busy week. I have been working overtime, have a ton of papers due and finally booked my tickets to the DR(which I am so happy about.) As I started working on my paper tonight..finally.. I 'managed' to get distracted and go on my youtube account. I have been watching my videos in Uganda and just balling my eyes out. Not because they are sad, in most of the videos the kids are laughing and smiling those big beautiful smiles(like always) but because I miss that so much, I miss them SO much. I also got a message from Hellen, the term is ending and the children are not looking forward to going on holiday. Sometimes with the long break children, especially orphaned children are sent back to Northern Uganda to other relatives to work. Most go to Apac where we are starting The Apac School project(apacschool.blogspot.com) but rite now there is little opportunity for them. Life if much rougher in the bush as they call it, and droughts are frequent and there are no social services or schools. We need to get the school in Apac open for not just the children in Apac, but the ones who have to return.

We have also been talking about an after school and weekend program for CUS and really starting up the school's music program. This would only happen much later on as we have so many projects which need to be completed(first two being the land and office.) Of course Christmas is also coming up, and we would like to raise $500 to be able to throw a Christmas party for the entire community. Not sure if this will happen, but it would really be "a Christmas miracle. "

The need can get overwhelming at times. There are so many projects that would benefit the kids so much, it's hard to decided which ones to start first and not put all of them at once. We have to look at all out the amazing things the school has done in the past, that I thought were difficult or impossible to accomplish. This includes, buying a piece of land where the school is now located on(so no more rent). Having a sponsorship program running and people going above and beyond in caring for their sponsor child. My trip in June confirmed how important the sponsorship program is for the school. It really is it's back bone, and the kids gain confidence and motivation to do well in school. From this, the school is able to feed the children breakfast and lunch and not only posho or porridge but often times fruits, vegetables, meat, nuts, etc. The washrooms have just recently been completed- and not only does the school now have safe and sanitary toilet facilities, but also a bathing area.

We are always in need of more people to partner with us, which can be done in so many different ways. From being a sponsor, making donations for the school and its extra projects and programs, praying and thinking about them, spreading the word, collecting item donations, taking on a specific project, etc etc. Mhmm anyone interested in going to Uganda, now would be the time!! :)

If you would like to support CUS and Apac, here are the 3 current projects we would like to accomplish asap!

1)Right now, the school's priority is to completely buy off the land. I know i've been stressing it out, but being able to fully purchase it and call it OURS will be incredible. We have some 'gift certificates' which are being made and are perfect to give as Christmas gifts. I'll post them up once they have been made with more information on how to get one. Please do feel free to share the land fund's page!http://www.christianupliftmentschool.com/land_fund

2)Please visit www.apacschool.blogspot.com and enter our raffle! It is only $2.00 for one ticket or $5.00 for 3. The prizes have all been donated by a family friend(Thank you Dave!) and more are on the way! All proceeds will go to building the school. Winners will be announced on Christmas by video blog.

3)If you would like to help the school throw a Christmas party for the students and community, please consider making a donation of any amount on our website. Please specify for the Christmas party! With all donations of $10.00+ you will receive a photograph of your sponsor child(ren) on Christmas.


**Christmas Reminder ---> If you are planning on sending Christmas cards to your sponsor children, remember to do so ASAP so that they will arrive in time. Also, somewhere on the envelope mark CHRISTMAS and Hellen will save the package/letter and give it to your child on Christmas day.