La Ceiba gets a basketball/volleyball court!

I remember around December of 2013, I was on my way to the school and took a shortcut through a large piece of empty land. I thought to myself, “hmm this would be a really good spot to build a court- it’s central to the busy part of the campo, tons of kids live around it, it’s right next to the park, and the school is down the street.” Not too long ago before this, someone had said something about this organization called Courts for Kids who work with Peace Corps to build basketball/volleyball courts, which is what provoked this thought. I was a brand new volunteer at the time, so I didn’t make too many plans for it then, and I didn’t really know anything about the organization. But now, here I am, a seasoned PCV about to build a court on that same land I walked through almost a year and a half ago! Now that I know everything about the process, I’d like to briefly share what is going to happen next week.

First, Courts for Kids is an organization who connect young groups of people in the United States who have an interest in fundraising and doing a service trip with people like me, who live and work in a high-need community. In my case, there is a CFK director in the DR who used to be a PCV, and she reviewed my application and came to visit me a couple times to decide if my site was a candidate for a court. Soon after, I was accepted and started working on a grant (the online portal in which you wonderful people donated to). I was also paired with a group of high school students in Washington State, and their job was to fundraise $5,000 dollars, which would be to pay for half of the court. A court costs about $10,000, and my community and I were responsible to raise the other $5,000 through the online portal, fundraising events and donations from DR politicians, organizations, etc. For the last 5 months or so, we’ve been sending out letters, talking to many important people, sending out multiple emails…and finally, we have enough money to build!

Ok, so what’s going to happen next week- a group of 18 high school students and some chaperones will be coming to La Ceiba all the way from Washington for about 10 days to build the court and experience campo life, exchanging cultures with the people of my community.

April 4^th- Arrive to La Ceiba late at night and go to bed after a long day of traveling.

April 5^th – This day will be Easter, so we will split them into 3 separate groups to go to 3 different churches: Catholic, Evangelical, and Jehovah. After church, we will reconvene, eat lunch and talk about their experiences. I’m excited about this day, church here is always an experience, especially on Easter. In the afternoon, we will have a welcome party where they will dance and mingle with the community members, introducing themselves and what they’re going to do that week.

April 6^th- We will start construction! This will last probably until about April 9^th or so.

April 10^th- The day after the court is done, we will have an inauguration party, where we install the final part- the basketball rims. Then a celebration!

April 11^th­- Fun day! We’ve got some activities for the group, such as a scavenger hunt and a day at the national park. We will swim in the lakes and rivers, play volleyball, cook some rice and beans, and relax.

April 12^th- Head out to the beach! I don’t live too far from a beach in the east called Juan Dolio. We will spend the day and night there.

April 13^th- The group goes back home.

It has been a whirlwind past month or more getting everything straightened out for the group to come. As many people know, the attitude here is very “cojelo suave”, or “take it easy”, which I have been told many times by Dominicans lately when we didn’t have enough money or were late on deadlines. A little difficult to deal with, but we’re on track! We’ve been back and forth and back and forth to the hardware store, working with the construction team here to prep the land (pictures below), buying groceries to cook for 20+ people for 10 days, buying foam beds for them to sleep in, cleaning and preparing the empty houses they will stay in, setting up the activities, etc. It has been extremely busy lately, but I absolutely LOVE it! It’s been so fun managing this project, it has inspired me to possibly look into this type of work when I get back to the states soon. Fingers crossed everything goes smoothly, and I hope everyone is just as excited as I am to see this project come to fruition! Keep an eye out for the final product, and thank you for all your support.