The Uptons in the Dominican Republic

This summer, before the new staff arrived, the last few groups that were here did a lot of work getting the school ready. One group repainted our front building, which REALLY needed it. We also updated our logo on the front of the building, so we no longer have the strange little i in MAKARiOS, but our new logo with the leaves. Others in that group worked hard to get the grounds together.

Scrubbing down walls.	A fresh coat of paint.	Paint.
About to repaint the logo.		Finished logo.
Prepping to paint the kitchen at the school.	The new paint in the kitchen	Raking the yard.
Lots of smoke.	Burning the pile of leaves.	A nice clean play area for the kids.

Andy braved the tinaco to get in and clean out the hard water deposits from the side, and we had a wonderful group of men from Water Missions International that installed a chlorinator so that the water in the school would be safe to drink, and so that we can provide clean water to the community around us.

Tight squeeze.	Cleaning out the tinaco (roof water tank)	Just a tiny bit of all the calcium that was lining the inside of the tinaco.
Friends from Water Missions Internation came to set a chlorinator at the school.	Final installation.	Julio ( on the left) and his assistant from Water Missions International based in Haiti.

The last group that was here from Pennsylvania and Texas built new desks for the second grade classrooms, repainted all our old tables and bookshelves, and pretty much got the school ready to go, so the teachers could come in and have classrooms ready to go! Thanks so much to all the groups who came down this summer to bless us with your hard work! We really appreciated it!

Beautiful work, guys.

New cafeteria tables too.

Made set of new desks for the second grade class.

After the new staff get here, we did a week of intro to the country stuff, and then started with Staff Training at the school. This consisted of some sitting and talking about the school year, some cleaning, and lots of prepping the rooms and lesson plans and such for the new year. Each teacher started from scratch putting things on their walls. To break up the days, we also learned some fun games to play with the kids and to get to know each other.

Teacher training with Jenni and Pat.	Learning games to play with the kids.	Honestly, we’re working!
Miranda in the library, showing off our fabulous new bookshelves.	Yosmery and Narolin next to the first day of school message for the PK3 class.	Empty PK3 classroom.
Marnelia and Bella are excited to start PreK 4.	A table and chairs made for 4 year olds. Sponsor one!	Dena and Nicole ready to start Kindergarten!
Belizeur, Sarah and Kelvin with a fun wall in the First grade class.	Johan and Genesis in front of the Second grade classroom.	Empty Second grade classroom.

Finally, one of the last things we had to do was talk to the parents before school started. We had a Parent-Teacher meeting about the expectations for the year, rules, how we are different from other schools in the DR, etc. It is always fun to talk to the parents, and to get them on board with our manner of teaching. They also got to meet their child’s teacher, meet our new Director Pat, and get any questions answered that they had.

Pat telling the parents about school policies.

The parents were very interested in what we are doing at Makarios.

And so, with all the prep done, the teachers trained, and the classrooms prepared, we were able to start school on September 21st! Stay tuned tomorrow for first day of school craziness!

So, I am VERY behind in my blogs. I blog once or twice a week for the Makarios website, so if you are looking for up to date stuff, look over there. I’ve made it my goal to post a blog a day this week with all the fun info from the past month. So someone keep me accountable for that.

Things that have happened in the last month and a half:

New Staff!
Staff training/School Prep! Blog coming Monday
Start of School! Blog coming Tuesday
New Students! Blog coming Wednesday
New Uniforms! Blog coming Thursday
Second Grade Olympics! Blog coming Friday

Josh and Jen Menold are our new Director of Operations/Host Couple here in the DR. They are in charge of all things Makarios here, along with being in charge of hosting groups when they come down. They have five children Tate, Belle, Ollie, Finley and Parlyn, who are all precious.

Patrick and Jenni are our new Principal and Curriculum Coordinators, respectively. Patrick is in charge of everything at the school, including discipline and expense reports, which used to be my job and I am SO glad to have passed off. Jenni makes sure the kids are learning what they should. They have three children, Gabe, Addie and Asher, with a little one on the way.

We have four new single gringa girls as well!
-Miranda is our new librarian/afterschool program/tutoring person
-Dena is our new Kindergarten Teacher
-Imani is teaching ESL in the villages and is the Outreach coordinator
-Sarah is teaching First grade!

Miranda and Dena moved in next door to us, and are fun neighbors to have. Sarah and Imani live one street over. We have had a lot of fun introducing them to the culture here, with trips on public transportation into Puerto Plata, Sosua and Cabarete to get to grocery stores, chuch, and the beach. I’ve also gotten them lost a time or two traipsing through the maze of the neighborhoods our students live in.

For our Dominican staff, we have Yosmery, Bella, Marnelia, Nicole and Johan staying on as teaching staff from last year, and Odilcia and Monica as our wonderful cocineras. We have four other new local staff members, Kelvin, Belizeur, Narolin and Genesis. It is so awesome to be able to have more local staff than gringo staff at the school, and it is great to see how the kids respond to the strong Christian male and female role models set in front of them.

It is so wonderful to have our new staff here! Since we have a Principal and no longer need the leadership team, I have taken a new role this year as Sponsorship Coordinator, which involves contacting sponsors with updates about their children, taking photos, blogging for the Mak webpage, and other fun stuff. We still need 18 sponsors for our kids, so if you are interested, send me an email at sponsorship.makarios@gmail.com I am also still the Health Care Administrator, taking care of the daily and long term medical care for our kids. We have a medical team coming next week, and a possible cholera outbreak in the area, so please keep the health care needs of our kids in your prayers.

Andy is still in charge of construction, maintenance, and doing whatever needs to be done to keep the school up and running. He has been pretty busy with school starting, and we’re hoping to get a new building at some point in the near future, so I imagine he will stay pretty busy.

OK, that’s enough for one day. Tune in tomorrow for the Staff Training/School Prep blog!

Well, school is going to start again in a few weeks, so I guess I should blog about the fun stuff at the end of last year… silly me.

Rewind time back to the last week of school in May. Profe Lara’s class had been working really hard, and filled up a jar with marbles. Their prize? A fun water day! The rest of the school wanted to join in, so they all enjoyed the labors of Lara’s class being good.

First came a relay race. Run a circle around the tree, and end up sliding on the makeshift slip-n-slide we made. Then, use a sponge ball to squeeze water onto your head.

Woohoo! Water day!	Ismael, Wiltono, Merili, Erickson, Manuel and Vanessa watching the water race.
Slip-n-slide!	Antony sliding to a finish.
Squeeze a sponge ball of water on your head!

Next came some time just to play in the water and have fun.

Kristen sacrificed her dryness for the pleasure of the kids!	Buckets of water… hours of fun!
No water slide? No problem!	Manuel cooling off with his bucket of water.
Yasmaidi and Benllina enjoying their cups of water.	Alex cooling his feet in a puddle

What would a water day be without water balloons? Kristen and Lara demonstrated, and then the kids tried their best.

Kristen and Lara demonstrating how to throw a water balloon.	Lara catching her water balloon.
Splash!	Paola, Emely, Yunairis, Lucia, Nayelis, Ana Wendy and Nelisa preparing to toss their balloons.
Willy, Merili, Vanessa and Ruth caught their balloons!	Alex, David, Alexander and the rest of PreK 4 starting the water balloon toss.
They weren’t very successful. Water balloons are slippery things!	Water balloon fight!

Water balloons plus parachutes = tons of laughs and fun!

Profe Lara’s PreK4 class trying to keep the water balloon in the parachute.

Eligio, Yosmery, Darling FridRuth, Merili, Peter and Vanessa bouncing balloons on the parachute.

And one of the most fun games? Let a kid sit in a chair so the others can throw cups of water on him!

Throw water on Ricardo!	Throw water on Nayelis!
PreK 3 kids excited about being wet!

Lauren’s Kindergarten class came out in the afternoon. They ran relay races with a cup full of water.

Lauren’s kindergarten class preparing for their relay race.

Andy running with his full cup of water.

Watching their friends carry water cups to the other bucket.

Johan and Kendall’s class started with tossing water balloons back and forth.

Yulena and Neifi tossing their balloon.

Carlos carefully catching his balloon.

Jeson valiantly trying to catch his balloon.

Then a race around the tree, with the only catch being you had to hold a water balloon between you and your partner’s back.

Johan and Kendall demonstrating how to walk with a water balloon between your back.	Escarlet and Yulena walking with a balloon between their backs.
Neifi is focused on the win.	And the race is on!

Finally, with all that water came a bit of mud. And who can resist mud?

Bernito is proud of his muddy state.	Regina is proud to be a mud monster!
Mudmonsters rising from the ground.	Excited to be muddy!

Happy water day!

Back in May we had a work come from North Carolina to build a playground at the school. This is something we’ve been praying about for a long time and it is a huge blessing to have an area where the students can play during recess.

Since we cleared out the garden a while back we had room to build fairly large series of towers the kids can climb on and crawl under. We were unable to find any pre-fab playground kits in the country, so we constructed ours out of treated wood. We now have 6 towers, ladders and ramp to get up and down into the playground, and a small rock wall providing access to the monkey bars!

As you can see, the kids absolutely LOVE the playground. They are able to go back and forth on the monkey bars, run races in and over the towers, and bounce on the bridge to their heart’s content. The only thing now missing are plastic tubes to connect the towers and slides to get down. We are currently raising money for the slides and tubes, and if you would like to give, please use this ChipIn link to give directly to the slides.

Enjoy the pictures!

Playground

A bunch of lumber that would become the playground.	Chris moving some 4x4s	The plans and cut lists.
We did most the cutting at the Mak House.	Assembling a ladder.	Testing the ladder.
Chris and I were charged with leveling out the area where plaground would sit.	It looks like an archeology dig, but it’s not.	Pieces that are ready for transport to the school.
Loading the trucks.	Two trucks ready to go.	The women of the group spent hours sanding every board some the entire playground smooth.
The first of six towers is up!	Two are up (and it is raining).	Four towers.
All six are up!	The decking goes on next.	A ramp was built.
Railings for saftey.	Monkey bars!	Making of a climbing wall.
Knotting on the suspension bridge.	View from the tall tower down at the others.	Chuck multi-taks.
Climbing wall in place.	Finishing touches done in the morning.	The last board.
Kids lined up ready to go.	The building team.	"Can we play on it yet?"
Finally!	And good times were had by all.	Some many things to climb.
The bridge was a big hit.	Wilner and Doctora check out the monkey bars.	Ruth atop of it all.
Vanessa makes it across.	The bigger kids don’t need much help.