Pico Duarte and the HS Retreat

It has been a really fun last couple weeks.  This past Saturday myself and a friend had the opportunity to climb the tallest mountain in the country as fast as possible, the next day we had our last YL leader meeting for the year, and today we had our HS retreat.  Of everything I would definitely have to say that today was the most fun of all.
Shortly after school on Friday myself and my friend Daniel left school and headed for La Cienaga, base camp for Pico Duarte.  That night we ate at our local guides house and went to bed as early as possible.  The next morning at 4:30 am we woke up, packed up, and headed up the mountain.  Round trip the mountain is roughly 28 miles and 10,000 vertical feet, so needless to say we planned on taking a good chunk of time.  Daniel didn't feel the greatest that day and let me take off on my own after 6 or so miles.  I managed to make it up to the top of the mountain in right around 4 hours and 10 minutes, which was a bit faster than I expected.  Overall the trip took me 7 hours and 36 minutes, which as far as we know is the fastest anyone has ever done it.  It was a good day, and I barely made it past 8 pm that night before I passed out in my bed.
Today we had our end of the year HS retreat, and it was a blast.  We went to local resort that was a little ways out of town, we worshiped, ate, and played the day away with the students.  The highlight for myself and quite a few of the others was a game of wrestle the football away from whoever has it.  This just happened spontaneously when the football ended up in the pool somehow and we started wrestling over it.  Somehow this ended up turning into upwards of 15 people at a time fighting for a solitary football.  I got pretty good at acquiring the football, but maintaining it was almost impossible.  Sometime the best times are the least planned ones.  Today was a wonderful chance to spend time with our students, just letting everything go and enjoying each others company.

All retreat pics are courtesy of our PE teacher Heather Hamby

Hanging out at the retreat.

 When the boss lady has the ball, everyone listens, except the ornery student with the broken wrist that stole the ball seconds later. 

 Minutes before I was ruthlessly thrown in, luckily I had changed into shorts, but I still had the polo on.

 Battle royale.

 Early in the morning on Pico Duarte

 Sunrises hear are kind of awesome.

 2 hours in, still doing good.

 3 hours in and you can see the mountain haloed by a cloud in the distance.

 Ta da!

 What it looks like on top of the Caribbean when you are inside of a cloud.

 Sign at the beginning of the journey.

The End and Beginning

About a year ago I was discovering that a place called Doulos existed and needed a high school social studies teacher.  Here and now I have been here for the better part of 9 months.  After that much time in a place you generally develop some rhythm to life, and my time here has been no different.  There are certain days I go to the gym, certain things I do when I get to school everyday, certain places I enjoy on the weekends, all of this creating somewhat of a comfort zone.  A large part of my routine is rooted in what is happening at school and until recently it had a wonderful rhythm about it.  In the last couple weeks leading up to our Expedition Night and even continuing through now things went a little haywire.  Life has still been good, it just has felt a little more reckless.  The combination of missing school a few days to do some school trips with the students got us a little off track but we returned and started to get back in the rhythm only for everything to be blown apart the next week.  Part of this was do to the fact I had some wonderful friends visit, which was a lot of fun and a blessing to have them here.  This was the first time I had taken any days off and I took 2 off for it.  Expedition Day/Night also causes everything to be stirred up.  We then returned to school this week for two days before having standardized testing for 3 days.  All of this has been fine and it has been good for the most part but I am ready to return to the rhythm of day to day life.  I know times like these work for a reason and are generally good to get us out of bad habit, but I am ready for consistency.
The students that I worked with on their project was the 10th grade class.  The result of it is an attempt at bettering their community here in Jarabacoa by empowering them through knowledge and showing them the Love of Christ.  If you want to see some of what they have been doing visit the Deja Una Marca Facebook friend page or fan page and connect to any of their other links from their.
 
Some fun pictures have been taken out of the whirlwind of activity the last few weeks, so here ya go.

  

Expeditions, Friends, and Mountains

This weekend Ven and Michal Smith came to visit Jarabacoa and we had the opportunity to do a lot of fun adventuring.  We wen to a couple local waterfalls, hung out at Spirit Mountain for a day/night, and did some adventuring on motorcycles.  It was a fun time here in town and they have since made it safely to the beach.
Tomorrow is Expedition Day/Night, and it will be a wild one.  Expedition night is culmination of work that different class have been doing and are now sharing with the community.  It can be really fun, but it can also be a bit stressful for some.  My class is in a really good place right now and I am excited to wrap up all we have been working towards.  The reward for me will be a trip to the beach to catch up with Ven and Michal.
Recently myself and a friend (Daniel Gutierrez) have been attacking the local mountains to get some elevation and miles under our legs for our attempt on Pico in a few weekends.  Its fun to see how your muscles react to increased exertion.  Things that once were really difficult and energy sapping now are relaxed and easy.

Watching the students' videos (mustaches are so yesterday).

Students working on Expedition stuff. 

 This is what a our current schedule has become.

 One of the trails up at Spirit Mountain.

Revolutionary Leaders Expedition!

This semester I have had the opportunity to lead an Expedition with the Sophomore class on Revolutionary Leaders.  We have looked at all sorts of leaders throughout the last couple hundred years and used the Sermon on the Mount to see who really is a "good" leader.  From Mao Zedong to Mother Theresa the students assessed all sorts of different leaders to see what it is like to be revolutionary leader in a Biblical way.
Over the last few weeks we have had some really neat opportunities to further that learning both with an Expert guest and with some field work.  Our guest which I think I have mentioned before was Shane Claiborne.  The conversation that we had with Shane revolved around the idea of what we could do to make positive/revolutionary changes within our community hear in Jarabacoa.  I think the thing that shocked the students and myself the most was how much he stressed internal change within our own lives before we can ever look to help anyone else.  The idea of taking the log out of your own eye before trying to take a splinter out of your neighbors eye.
The conversation with Shane was followed up by trips to New Hope Girls Academy and The Ark.  Both of these trips were based around the idea of seeing revolution in work and giving them our service however we can.  At New Hope we met the girls that were learning and living there and heard all about the ministry to one of the poorest barrios in the Dominican Republic.  The students also had the opportunity to serve by interviewing and translating their interviews so that the girls can communicate with New Hope donors in the States.  The last thing we saw at New Hope was their workshop where they make really cool bags and flip flops.  This workshop employs 7 women and allows them to provide for their families.  The trip to New Hope was a really cool experience.  The day after we went to New Hope we found ourselves at the Ark.  The Ark is a orphanage here in Jarabacoa.  The revolutionary thing about the Ark is that they have around 10 houses and in each house there is a set of parents that have their own kids.  This existing family becomes the family of the orphans that end up in the Ark.  A normal house their has a mother and father and around 10 kids living in it.  As much as I could talk about both of these experiences more, I hope the pictures do a better job.

Playing with the Girls at New Hope

 Joel and New Hope Girls

 The view from New Hope

 More playing at New Hope

 After the Interviews were done balloons came out of nowhere.

 The way up to New Hope

 Cleaning gutters at the Ark

 At the New Hope workshop

 Class pic at New Hope

 Raking Leaves at the Ark

 Moving cinder blocks at the Ark

Estancia Natura

Yesterday we got back from a fun time camping up in the mountains.  We spent two nights in the mountains above Manabao and filled the days with hiking, board games, and slacklining.  I only ended up taking a few pictures because one of our new staff members John took a lot.  Here are a couple of mine and I will try to add more later.

Our home for the time in Manabao.  All seven of us had hammocks and it became a rather amusing site when they were set up all over the place.

Looking down on our campground from the rappelling rocks.

The views don't disappoint.

It was a very fun trip and I was blessed to go with some great friends.  I may have left a little blood in the mouths of magis (worst bugs ever) but I killed many of their friends and even they couldn't stop us from having a blast.

Spring Break and Fire.

Today is officially the first full day of Spring Break.  Today was also the day I was supposed to be climbing Pico Duarte as fast as possible.  Unfortunately there are fires in the park where Duarte is, so we postponed.  Instead of going to Duarte we went up a different mountain today.  Myself and another teacher led one of our students,Yeudi, up in what was some of the best weather of ever.  It was Yeudi's first time on Megote and we had a good time, this was the beginning of his training for accompanying me up Duarte when I am able to go next time.
Last weekend the 9th and 10th grade classes put on a dance which was a smashing success.  I worked the school entrance to make sure everyone had tickets and didn't have alcohol.  It was a lot of fun to be there and great to see the students succeed in something they put on to raise money for Expeditions.
Most people end up going to the beach for Semana Santa (Spring Break) but myself and a few friends are going to a place called Estancia Natura.  Estancia Natural is on the Spirit Mountain property which is owned and operated by Chad Wallace, who is also one of the founders of Doulos.  Hopefully I will return from the trip with lots of pics.

Hyper Speed

Life has been flying by here in Jarabacoa.  The weeks are packed with school and other wonderful stuff while the weekends give some nice down time and more time for fun with friends.  Lately I have been getting back into running a lot and basically just ignoring the pain in my knee as long as it doesn't feel damaging.  This has led to want to do something crazy.  Next weekend I am going to go to the highest mountain in the Caribbean and along with one of my students we are going to try and make it up and down faster than has been recorded before.  It will be a nice round trip of 28 miles with somewhere around 10k feet of vertical in it.  It is gonna hurt a lot, but it should be really fun as well.  The good news is that we will get to use Semana Santa (Holy Week/Spring Break) to recover from the brutally crushed quads, calves, and hamstrings.
Its crazy to be less than 3 months away from Graduation and the end of the semester, and I feel like if I blink it will be summer.  I guess these are signs of enjoying life and living into the moment.
Tonight's agenda has me as a chaperon at a dance, I really don't even know what that means here, but it should be fun.