the beauty of rain

A friend and I were talking before I left on this adventure. I expressed to her how I find it bizarre that I am one of the biggest worryworts on earth yet I seem to crave adventure, living on the edge, and pushing my limits. Today I realized why. Today I tasted the fruit of my ambitions. Today all of my worries faded away.
I cant express the gratitude and passion that I feel for the organization I work for. I feel I have fallen in love with the cause we are fighting for. To think that I could be happy, ecstatic, and inspired while living in this city blows my mind away. My first night in Santo Domingo, looking back, gave me the instinct to run. Run away as fast as I could. Everything felt wrong. Filthy streets, rundown buildings, the intensity of the city...I had to get out.
I feel now that I am part of the craziness of this city. I feel I am living on the edge of things, I´m flying, I´m doing it.
Yesterday I was sitting with two of the street boys we work with making paper airplanes. One of the boys pulled out a picture of some of their friends who also live on the streets. I asked who the boys in the photo were, as I didn´t recognize them. I quickly realized why I had not yet met them, ¨theyre dead,¨was the response I got. Killed. They casually explained the story to me as if we were talking about the weather.
Today I met up with them again, and a new boy I had not yet met. Juan, who we picked up walking down the street without shoes, limping from sores on the soles of his feet. Appearing a little child, I couldn´t believe he, too, has become a product of society´s cruelty. Within his eyes, somewhere, you can see glimpses of his youth, his sweetness, and his innocence. The streets have taken over him, though. The roughness this child possesses is stunning. I held out my hand to introduce myself, yet he is so hardened that even human contact is not within his capability. He shows no fear, he immediately began fighting with anyone and everyone regardless of their age or status. His prey became another one of the street boys we were with, who sat quietly as Juan aggresively made fun of him. Upon recieving no response, Juan continued to become infuriated, threatening to split the street boy´s head open with a rock.
Its hard to imagine an 11 year old with such hatred for the world. Such aggressiveness when appearingly so innocent. He, too, is on his way to becoming a drug addict, left alone to fend for himself. Same story, over and over again.
My first impression was, ¨get me the hell away from this kid.¨ Its hard to picture being scared of a little boy, but I stood clear from him and his whirl of anger. More about Juan later...
Next stop of the day was the futbol tournament we were hosting in my favorite neighborhood we work in, la Laura Flores. Next month, I will be in charge of this neighborhood, more later on that too. We spent all morning getting the field ready. The whole neighborhood community helped as we shovelled shit, trash, and dirt off of the field. The field is a sacred space within the community, the kids know that.
The afternoon was dedicated to the tournament itself. We stayed for hours playing soccer, I had kids clinging to me, begging me to put them into the game. These kids live, breathe, and dream futbol. Their skills prove it. I wish I could take them all to the US, put them in some fancy soccer training camp and watch them become professionals one day. After a couple of hours of playing the rains came. Now, yes, I am from Seattle and, yes, I love the rain. The rain here is a complete different story.
Needless to say, the floods came. A complete downpour, flooding the field within minutes and only increasing the intensity of the game. As usual I didnt bring my camera for fear of it being stolen but the photos of this day wouldve been incredible. Mixture of rain, the rich, dark bare skin of these beautiful children was mesmorizing to watch. I fell in love with the moment, standing on a tiny rock as the ground flooded around me, creating rivers of water with nowhere to go. Left only to watch the beauty occuring around me.
In this moment I realized there is nothing better. Knowing other cultures, living a life so simple, but so rich. Not making big changes in peoples lives, not lifting them out of poverty, but just BEING present with them brings life to everyone.
The mixture of rain,lightening, and thunder coming down directly upon us would have normally filled me with fear. Not today. A little girl clung to me as lightening struck, telling me she was afraid. I hugged her, smiled, and responded ¨No pasa nada!! No worries!¨ In that moment I thought, if lightening strikes us down (we were holding onto a metal sheet used for a roof) in this moment, I would die completely happy.
When it was time to leave the neighborhood, my energy and passion was still running high so I offered to sit in the back of the pickup truck the whole ride home, with the storm still raging on. My coworkers politely suggested that ¨I am a lady and please, stay inside of the truck Mia.¨ ¨One of the kids will sit in the back, its cold! Its raining!¨ I politely responded, ¨why would they sit in the back, get soaking wet, when I have a warm shower to go home to and they have the freezing bus terminal to sleep in?¨ We carried on this way for awhile, until finally I said, ¨you know...I just really love the rain.¨ There was no argument there, so off we went. Good decision, bad decision, I´m not sure. It was much less adventuresome that I thought it would be and more, just down right freezing, but I continued smiling the whole way home.
In this moment I only thought of my dad. It was definately a move he wouldve made, and I felt like a true Preble living on the edge of things. I felt so much like a Preble, in fact, that I decided to run the rest of the way home in the downpouring rain, about a mile or so from my house.
To end the day, I turned to my coworker and said, ¨Wow, our job is really insane.¨ She replied, ¨You just wait, this is nothing. Things are going to get alot crazier.¨
Bring it on I say.

P.S. Juan went home to his family at the end of the day. He stayed the night, then went back to the streets the following day. If it it was for only one night, for us this is a small success.