Zerotohero

And Poof… It Is Over

/ Marlo / Leave a comment

It is not a magic thing, but it all happened so fast it felt like magic. Will there be a grand ending? We know the answer will not have any magic. I am writing this post to officially say goodbye to the people we didn’t have a real chance to say goodbye to. We just up and left- like radical. Although most of the boys will never even see the post I am writing it anyway for closure.

We left the Dominican 6 days ago and I feel like I have a hole inside. Rio maybe feels something but he is so 14, in his mind, he is elsewhere. Me, I am stuck with all these faces and relationships that we were building with coaches, trainers, trainees, baseball loving youth, apartment mates, new friends and some family who live in the city of Santo Domingo.

Rio catching.

In the photo above, Ramon Delgado, the trainer and Pedro his assistant along with the boys watch Rio. So about 25 days with these guys, one can’t deny a relationship forming. We intended to be in DR for 3 months or more.

Genaro, an American Dominican kid training like Rio and Rio.

Remember when I had said Rio hadn’t even seen the ocean. That weekend with Genaro he had gone to a dance party for kids, then next day they went to a private club by the ocean. So yes he did in fact see the ocean before we left.

Rio as catcher and Pedro giving advice.

Our roommates, Katy and her helper Altagracia, helped us figure out the city. Katy helped me learn how to be on my toes and be safe. Our cousin Mariel helped us too. I was looking forward to being able to say that I lived in the city, and we survived! It has been many years since I had a roommate and certainly a new experience for Rio.

Alta and Katy.

And with this I say goodbye, con Dios. I really hope that we will see everyone again. The latest I have read about COVID-19 is that we will be looking at months-many months before we even see something called normal again. There is no magic in that.

Rio arriving at practice with a kid who shows up every morning just to hang out and get things for people if needed. Sweet kid.

Hard week, soul searching.

/ Marlo / Leave a comment

Can a 14 year old go deep, know his reasons for doing things, feel passionate? How do we as his parents help keep him motivated and do the thing he said he wants to do? Is it really our job? How do we help him to not throw in the towel because this thing called baseball training is super hard? And let me remind you we are on a tropical island a couple of blocks away from the ocean. He hasn’t even seen it yet since our arrival 3 weeks ago.

We have a cousin who is one of Rio’s biggest fans, his name is Checo, he is in his 40’s. He is pretty persistent with his feelings about Rio and baseball. This is what he said, in Spanish of course but I will translate. Rio is tall, elegant and beautiful. He has the capacity to play baseball therefore he should play. Not everyone has that opportunity or is gifted the ability. Rio is loved by everyone here in Los Dajaos, DR ( where Rio’s dad is from) and Rio loves everyone back. His ability to love the children here is felt by everyone. Checo said a reason for Rio to play, his motivation should be to give something back to the community of Los Dajaos, do it for the children.

Rio in 2017 playing with one of our cousins.

All in all, my thoughts over the course of this week can’t be jotted down in a blog and maybe should be left right where they are- in my head. Rio said he had a tough week but in the end he is happy. We slept in today and went to the gym. He is currently playing Fortnite online with his brother in USA. Rio will finish his weekend by hanging out with a new friend tonight, a Dominican American kid who is here doing the same thing as Rio.

The First Day

/ Marlo / Leave a comment

As it is normal to me that things work when they want to here in Dominican Republic, we did not get to take the Metro yesterday because there was no power in that part of the city. The reason for wanting to do it yesterday was for us to know the route we need to take to get to the Estadio Olímpico where Rio is training. This morning, in order to make things easier we took a taxi, not an Uber because it would cost more money during traffic time, and we did not take a chance with the metro as we didn’t have time for mistakes. We left at 8:15 maybe 8:20 and arrived at 9:10. Clearly taking the Metro makes more sense as it is a 15 minute ride. Rio needs to be at practice by 9:00am. For the kid that doesn’t like to be late, we arrived late, still he was in good spirits.
His practice was exactly that, practice, nothing particularly special. However, listening to “everything baseball” in Spanish had to have had an impact. Lots of young men were there. This had an impact on me. Everyone was nice and even shy. Boys this age are still so vulnerable. More about the kids in another blog post.
Can we admit that in moments like this, the first day, people can be nervous, I was. Rio in his cool, 14 year old self, was more excited than nervous. Even though Rio was stung by a bee, he survived his first practice. After practice we took the Metro home, a 15 minute ride, easy.