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.

Don't go chasing waterfalls...

One of the most fun places to go here in Jarabacoa is a waterfall that takes a fun hike up a river to get to.  I've talked about this waterfall and river hike before but I have been back twice in the last couple weeks and it really never gets old.  A friend of mine took a couple pics of me up on the rocks next to the falls, so here is me getting ready to jump.

Today's the new day.

So after the last couple weeks and realizing that Monday is really busy first day of the school week I am now bumping my blog day to today (Wednesday).
This past week has been a blast.  It really has been one of my favorite weeks of the year, and I came into most of the events with a rather bad attitude.  This past weekend I was the work crew boss for a Wyldlife camp here.  I originally thought I wouldn't have the energy for it and I would be super drained to start school back up on Monday.  What really happened is that I had a blast and ran myself ragged cleaning dishes, tearing down county fairs, and whatever else random was needed.  At the end of the weekend I was totally drained but by Monday morning I was ready to go again.  Really glad I had the opportunity to serve God and the kids this weekend.
This week we also had a strength finders workshop that I was really dreading, but was really fun.  In case you were wondering... here are my strengths.
1. Adaptability
2. Consistency
3. Strategic
4. Input
5. Comman