Hi Friends, That there is Quiet as usual Ben here. Sorry we’ve been out of touch. With our car problems we’ve been busy behind us filmmakers – scouting new players, editing video for a chance to appear on Snag Films, learning how to dance merengue and bachata, getting our hair braided, and so on. I know, I know, some of these things may seem less important than others, but as they say, when in Rome … and when in the DR and get your Merengue hairbraiding on. In the following post, you’ll get a chance to see members of our crew cut a rug to some latin music, and you’ll also get tosee a picture of my brother with an embarrassingly bad hairdo, but first work people! Given a chance to appear on the front page of Snag Films, we’ve been hard at work at editing, cutting together a 7 minute clip about one of the players we’re following to present to the powers that be.Our subject was Yheraldy Medo-17 years old, 6’3, 185 lbs, a monster of a boy with an intense work ethic and some unusual practice techniques. Check out our film, in two parts: http://www.vimeo.com/3394554 http://www.vimeo.com/3399431 No word yet from Snag, but when we hear back, we promise to let you know. In other exciting news, we’ve found a 4th player to follow in our documentary, Junior Rosario, a 17 year old pitcher from an incredibly poor background with a longshot at being signed. Junior lives in a small sugar mill (slum) outside of San Pedro called Angelina. It is surrounded by picturesque sugar cane fields and built around the oldest sugar refinery in the DR. Houses are built from pieces of corrugated iron that used to be the roof of the now defunct sugar refinery. Clothes lines are made from barbed wire scavenger.The local baseball field is little more than a grassy field with a couple dirt lines etched into it for basepaths. Pigs and goats wander aimlessly about, and it is not unusual for practice to be halted due to a man riding a horse bareback across the field, full gallop. In spite of the immense poverty, Angelina is perhaps the most striking place we’ve encountered. As we walked through the narrow dirt roads, we could not help but notice the stunning beauty and vibrancy of the community. In every nook and cranny of the town something noteworthy is taking place – 3 men cooking over an open fire on the dirt, 20 people dancing and talking at the local grocer (Cornerstore) as if it were a barbershop in the 50s, a man sitting in the middle of the street getting his afro picked out. Everywhere you look there are bright paints, action everywhere you look. As filmmakers we could not have possibly asked for a more perfect place to shoot. I apologize that we have no pictures to show, the first few times there we were just scouting, but in the future we promise some beautiful photos from this stunning location. Ok, now that we’ve gotten all the important stuff out of the way, let’s get to the stuff you’ve all been waiting for, and by that I mean, embarrassing photos and videos of our crew members. Last Friday, we were invited by Yheraldy to hang out with him and his family for Carnival. While we did not get much filming done and while we missed many of the Carnival festivities, we still had a delightful day. Yheraldy’s cousin used to be a dance teacher at one of the all-inclusive resorts and we took advantage of the opportunity to learn a few Latin moves. Check it out below.