A First For Everything

The past two days have been incredibly productive, even for dominican standards! If you didn't know, Dominicans are very casual, go-with-the-flow, people. They are never really in a hurry. We joke around with the people we are staying with, Scott and Kelly Hampton (amazing people who have been a blessing to stay with), that if you accomplish one thing with your day in the DR, you have had a successful day. So to accomplish several things in a day tends to be quite the ordeal. Not only have we been getting stuff done, several of them have been the first for the ILB which has been great to be a part of.

On Wednes day we had a very busy day. We attended practice again in the morning. During that time, we conducted short interviews of each player for their player profiles. This was one of the items on our checklist that we needed to accomplish. In addition, we got some video of them for a short introduction which will hopfully be a fun short piece. All of the interviews were very simple, but we had to use a translator. Despite their simplicity, it was great that we were able to get them accomplished.

After practice we went and accomplished another first for ILB. All of the players get a lunch cooked for them as part of the ILB program. For some of the kids, the ones from the Batay's, this is the best meal they will get in a day. Seth tends to think it's the biggest meal they've had in their life, but i'm don't want to assume that. They do eat well though. It was great to see them eat it up. The coach, Carrion, wants to weigh them to see how much bigger they get from eating well. This simple meal, is a big thing for the program. It means that a cook has been hired, and the kids get at least one solid meal a day.

Although it may not seem like much, it really will make a difference. Like I said, the kids from the batay's do not eat very much as this is one of the bigger meals of their life (according to seth). When you have the kids throwing high 70's and low 80's when they are 13 and 14 is pretty imressive! Not to mention, they weigh very little. With this one meal a day, they will no doubt get bigger and have some more muscle to put behind the ball. It will be fun to see how they progress.

In the afternoon we had a chance to go into one of the batay's, Algadon. It is the village that I have spent the most time in. Our trip consisted of two primary objectives: 1, to deliver beds to several different houses and 2, to deliver metal-wood bats (a hybrid bat) to the coach of the little kids team in the village. Both deliveries went really well and they were extreamely excited to be recieving both.

Thursday was a fairly chill day. Part of the UPC team had arrived late on Wednesday night. We went to our final practice yesterday and the UPC team joined us. Seth and I got to run part of the practice. They wanted us to do strength and speed training for the players, but we only had time for the strength portion. We absolutely WORKED them! They have to be sore today. The exercises included: wall sits, sprinting against a wall, one legged squats, stair jumps, hamstring lifts, and lunges around the bases! I felt so bad for them, but it will for sure make them stronger if they keep doing it. After practice we had lunch and went to the beach again. It was a chill day.

Well, it's good Friday today, so... I'm gonna go be good.