Ashley has been calling us daily (or more often) as Noel has wreaked havoc in the Dominican Republic. Tonight she called to say that the proper humidity, clear skies, available electricity, and spare time have converged to equal Internet access. I have mail!
Hey Dad. I am doing well. We survived the Storm. It continued until late this morning when they decided to hold school but only for an hour and a half. Two of the teachers completely lost their homes. Others had feet and feet of water, and animals floating through their homes. The death count is 127 children, 60 women, and 30 men. Another storm is coming from the north and is expected to last two weeks. Keep us in your prayers. We are supposed to have school tomorrow but it will be a tough day. These kids have been cooped up inside for a week. Anyways, I am doing well, I’ll call later, but here are some blogs concerning the storm and one from before. Love you all!
Ashley
I’ve published the posts on Ashley’s blog. You can find them at the following links.
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For Halloween, I provide this special audio Quote of the Day featuring Hillary Clinton.
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Hat tips: Radio Blogger and Wizbang.
Ashley called again today. We had a little more time to talk this morning (and maybe we’re better able to talk, having already processed that our daughter is in a flood in a distant country).
Although the weather maps show tropical storm Noel as having moved away north and west, the orphanage is still getting heavy rain. Ashley says the water continues to rise, with ten inches of water in the front yard now. The raised sidewalk around the house and out to the front remains above water, though. Once again, they won’t have school today.
Ashley assumed flooding is a regular event near the orphanage since heavy rain is so common but was told that they’ve never had flash flooding in that area before.
The power came on for about five hours last night so Ashley was able to charge her cell phone. They were probably able to run the well pumps to refill the fresh water tanks on top of the houses. Internet access via satellite is still blocked by the rain.
When I told Ashley that the news had reported 6-8 deaths in the Dominican Republic from Noel, she said shacks housing around 60 people across the road from the orphanage had been washed away in the middle of the night. The status of the people is unknown.
Please keep the Dominican Republic in your prayers.
My dad ran the Lake Natoma Four Bridges half marathon this last Sunday. According to the posted results, he ran in about 2.5 hours with an 11:12 pace.
Congratulations, dad!
The ringing of the telephone woke me this morning. It was Ashley, “Just in case the Dominican Republic is in your news today, I wanted you to know I’m okay.”
The National Hurricane Center in Miami called Noel, which formed Sunday, “a major flood threat.” The storm could dump 8 to 12 inches of rain on the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, with totals as high as 20 inches in some areas. (Source.)
The rain is flooding in and around the orphanage where Ashley is working. One of the homes has a foot of water in it. The back of Ashley’s home has three inches of water against its foundation. Although they have no power, this is a common occurrence and may not be related to the storm.
There have been no injuries at the orphanage, but the status of some students who live off-campus was not yet known.
Ashley asked that the orphanage be remembered in our prayers.
Children need sleep. Who would argue with it? But how many parents act as though the believe it? “Snooze or Lose,” an article at the online site for New York Magazine, reports how less sleep affects our kids:
Dr. Avi Sadeh of Tel Aviv University is one of the authorities in the field. A couple of years ago, Sadeh sent 77 fourth-graders and sixth-graders home with randomly drawn instructions to either go to bed earlier or stay up later for three nights. Each child was given an actigraph (a wristwatchlike device that’s equivalent to a seismograph for sleep activity), which enabled Sadeh’s team to learn that the first group managed to get 30 minutes more sleep per night. The latter got 31 minutes less sleep.
After the third night’s sleep, a researcher went to the school in the morning to test the children’s neurobiological functioning. The test they used is highly predictive of both achievement-test scores and how teachers will rate a child’s ability to maintain attention in class.
[...] The effect was indeed measurable—and sizable. The performance gap caused by an hour’s difference in sleep was bigger than the normal gap between a fourth-grader and a sixth-grader. Which is another way of saying that a slightly sleepy sixth-grader will perform in class like a mere fourth-grader. “A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to [the loss of] two years of cognitive maturation and development,†Sadeh explains. [emphasis added]
Wow! Go read “Snooze or Lose.”
Hat tip: Guy Kawasaki.
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