These past two week I have been working with kids from the Down Syndrome School here in Santo Domingo. The moment I walked in the door my first day the secretary asked me if I could take a group of the kids with me to Feria del Libros and have the kids work on the computers there. Well sure...let me just jump into a new job by being completely uncomfortable in a place I don´t know with 5 kids with Down Syndrome. I would like to file that under the ´not smart´category...just for future reference.

Feria del Libros...just to clear that up, is a book fair with books from all over the Latin world plus 1 or two shops from the USA - South America, Central America, etc...and there are tons of shops and tons of people. There is an area for the kids with puppet shows and book readings, places for ice cream, places for pizza and other food, and tons and tons of book shops. My job with the kids for one whole week was to meet them (thank God not take them) to Feria del Libros and work at this place with computers from 2-4 pm so that the more high functioning down´s kids could get computer exposure. The school had nothing planned for them so they ended up typing brochures for the place where the computers were. At least it was easy enough. The next day, the kids were a good 30 minutes late but they made it. Come Wednesday, no kids. The program is supposed to extend from Monday - Thursday...where are my kids? Knowing full well Dominican time...I waited. Finally after 1 1/2 hours of waiting, I got a phone call from the Director saying that they weren´t coming today. Awesome. Thursday...oh yeah. The same without the call. But I digress...

Yesterday, I got to the school and we worked with beads. At least for the girls. We have one kid, Luis Miguel who sits there, stares at the ceiling and spits through his tongue most of the day. We have other kids who make jokes and are on a very high functioning level. After beads we painted...thankfully with washable paints. I turned around for 5 seconds and Juan Miguel had painted his face a beautiful shade of red...and his hands a nice tint of yellow. Awesome. They really are a joy to work with and I am definitely learning my commands with them in spanish. So, welcome to an update of a few events at the moment. Pictures to follow.