28/07/2001:
From the www.dr1.com message board I know many people I always wanted to meet in person. So I invited all to a party at our house.
I asked everybody not to bring any gifts but give some money to help support children at the local school.
My plan was to buy school uniforms for those who need it most, as I think that education is one of the most important keys to the future of the children.
Uniforms are required for all going to school.

Sufficient food and drinks for everybody: Puerco asado (Grilled pork), boiled banana, fried rulo, rice with coconut and mixed salad.

Important ingredients for a real fogata: Camp-fire and live-music.

Our DR1-guests:
Above: PiB, “Mrs. DR1”: Dolores, “Sofy´s B&B”: Noelle
Below: “Mrs. und Mr. Hillbilly”: Asuncion and Luis, Mr. DR1: Jaime

This evening I could rise RD$1000, in addition to another RD$1000 from Jack Wampler, who visited me before, and RD$1000 from the Orchid Bay project in Cabrera.
So all together I had RD$3000 to buy school uniforms. Together with the principal of the local school we selected 12 kids and I measured their sizes.
In Santiago we encountered some unexpected difficulties. It was still quite early to buy uniforms and there haven´t been any in the store. Together with a supervisor from La Sirena we arranged for somebody who would get some uniforms from the stockroom. We then tried to find the correct numbers from the measurements I had. All this took more than two hours. The jeans-pants turned out to be of very good quality but more expensive than expected. At least we received a discount of about 25%, so I only had to add a few pesos.

To be on the safe side we purchased all jeans larger than necessary. Some turned out to be very large, but not all as large as in the case of Juan (above).
In any case, all of the pants can be modified to fit this year and at least another year.

Above: Big smiles!
Below: With principal, mothers and friends.
Sad: The mother of three of these kids died two weeks later from AIDS.