Protection

Getting to the project has become a lot easier since we found the right place to catch the express bus (25 minutes rather than 1hr and a half), and the football has become a lot easier after a little trip to buy footballs, keepers' gloves, kit bag and some plastic bowls as we couldn't find proper cones. The kids still play like they're in the playground, with everyone chasing the one ball, I'd love to help them take more time over the game and play more tactically, but only time will tell. At present, our time is spread so thinly that we don't really have the chance to develop proper teaching strategies with any one group, and the fact that volunteers are only around for 4-8 weeks means that there is a real lack of consistency there.

In addition, the children aren't really learning that much English from their current teacher, who doesn't know enough of the language and teaches from a book in a way that makes it easy for them to guess answers rather than really know what it is they're saying. I really want to see if this can be changed, but without permanent staff that can teach English well, it seems a little doomed. I've already had one offer of donation, so if anyone would like to give, please email me with ideas and I can buy things for the kids out here on your behalf.

If the forms of transport in SD are unreliable and unsafe - mostly private bus operators that cram barely working Toyota mini-vans full of people and stop on every street corner - then its grocery stores are the most well protected I've seen. Our local one makes you check your bags with a security guard, who is a nice enough chap... he doesn't say much but I try to stay on his good side, mainly because he's armed with a shotgun. In fact there are a lot of guns in the country, in the club that we went to in Jarabacoa, they guy who went ahead of us in the line had to leave his gun at the door, a little offputting, but better than having them handed out with the cover charge.