Day 2 Those Smiles on their Faces

Day 2

So after an amazing day yesterday, we all knew that this trip would be one in a life time. After a late night we rose the next morning to the sunshine of the Dominican. Bit of a transition from rainy Vancouver, I tell you. On the agenda for today was we were going to return the La Union, the first village we visited, and have a sports day with all the kids there. We were all really excited to see the kids again. When we arrived we all were bombarded with kids again and they were all so excited to see us again. It was like we had been gone for ages. As we travelled down a dirt hill, I looked around to see so much garbage and waste. I found my self thinking why they didn't just get rid of it. But then I thought again. Where would they put it? I realized they don't have garbage trucks that come around and get there waste. They aren't able to throw things away and just forget about it and not know where it goes. They have to watch it pile up in their own home. Their own village. We finally reached the field where we would be saying. I have to say, it was really beautiful. The field was a huge open wide green garden and surrounding it were forests of lush trees. It was a gorgeous day and everyone was eager to get started with our sports day. We had brought lots of tennis balls, soccer balls, skipping ropes, baseball bats, and we just handed them out to everyone. All the children loved the day. We all just had such a great time. There was this one little girl who could speak perfect English which was surprising and she came up to me with this baby who was really chubby and adorable and said " Do you want to hold him?" I immediately said of course and carried him around for a bit. I was really surprised that I was trusted with this baby that was about a year old. Thinking about life in Vancouver, no women would ever give a complete stranger her young baby and then just walk away. Eventually the young little man started wailing and I had to go and find his sister. She took him and then said " My other brother wants to have a piggy back." and she ran off. I had been given this little boy who was about 4 with little curls. He was so sweet that I just picked him off and ran off. She had just kept bringing me back her brothers and had no worry that I would do anything wrong or lose him or not treat right. There was so much trust within all the people in the village. I am being serious when I say there were one big family. Everyone looked out for everyone. Nettie, our leader said that the if a child is misbehaving any adult even if it is not his parents is allowed to spank him/her. I thought of that as such an amazing thing. I barely even know my neighbours, let alone everyone on my street. I loved the feeling of family there and how welcome they make us feel. We played soccer, jump rope, baseball and catch, and had a great day. Before we left, we handed out pencils, tennis balls, and stickers to everyone. It was really interesting when some boy tapped me on the shoulder and motioned to me that he didn't know what the pencil was for. I then took one out of the pile I had and pretended to write, using my hand as some paper. He then realized it was for writing and went about his way. How did he not know was a pencil was? I thought then that there was a chance he doesn't know how to write.

After saying farewell the everyone we then had lunch at the hotel and set off to Chicigua to start our first work day. The job we had to do was clear all the dirt that the contractors had dug from a hole the week before we got there. We had to level it and there were 4 great piles of dirt. It was hard. It was 25 degrees, no shelter and we were sore and tired after 10 minutes. There are people who do this as a living and only getting paid minimun amounts for doing this for 10 hours each day. We were so tired after a few shovels that it showed me how hard this work is. But there was this little voice saying that it is for such a good cause so who cares that your back hurts a little? These people need your help. It was so motivating. Just that idea and through out this whole trip thats what kept us all going I suppose.

After a great day, I really got to learn a little bit more about this countries struggles. I got to see how happy they are though. In La Union, you see these kids that will probably live and die in this community and never have real jobs or do anything real. That is really sad for me but they manage to cope each day with a smiles on their faces which makes all of them such powerful beings and my heroes.

Day 1 in Dominican

Hello all! So as you all know I have just completed the humanitarian trip to the Dominican Republic and now I am going to be sharing with you my experience there day by day. Here is day one in the Dominican. Enjoy!!

DAY 1

We arrived yesterday in the Dominican Republic. It was a whole new world driving here. The sweltering heat is a slap in the face compared to dreary Vancouver and the scenery is astounding. You look either side of the road and you see green landscape of rolling hills,trees and beautiful lush forests of green. You have to stop and realize that this is real. It was amazing having the breeze blowing through my hair and just being so engaged in that one moment. It was heaven. Our first task of the day was to travel to La Union, a small village in the hills that we were going to visiting later on in the trip. We had to drive along this long dusty road to get to the top of the village and as we drove along you could see house of tin on your right hand side, chickens running wildley about and young children screaming "GRINGOS!!" ( Spanish for white person) as they saw us on the buses. We reached the top of the village and climbed out, into the hot air already perspiring. We stood in a circle and Nettie ( our leader for the trip) was explaining to us all the details of the village we had just arrived in and our translator was talking to the leader of the village for us and asking some questions. It was about 5 minutes into our little talk, when I felt a tugging on my shorts and little brush against my leg. It was a little boy looking at me. Personally, at that moment I didn't really know what to do. I felt already awkward being in a foreign country and a new village and suddenly there is this boy who I can't communicate to and is just looking at me. So I just held out my hand and he took it. It was magical I must say. I had never meet this boy before yet he comes out of nowhere and holds my hand. It was a way of greeting that in Vancouver, was unknown and wasn't how you said hello. But here in this village, thats how it was. We had a tour of the village, and everyone had a little child that had become theirs for the day. Already then I knew it was going to be an amazing experience. As we left the village, the kids chased after our buses down the dirt road many with no shoes, with the happiest smile one could see.
    Then after a short bus ride, we arrived at a school/community centre where we stopped for a tour. When I got there, I managed to get two girls claim me and we had a fun time. We sat down at the basketball court with everyone and watched the Dominican versus Canada basketball game. Then the communication started. Ursula, a friend of mine, and I started asking both the girls their names. Como te llamas? and they would reply. It was shortly after that they started asking us questions but of course the Spanish was too complexed that we simply would reply No hablo espangol ( I don't speak Spanish). Of course this was terribly disapointing because we didn't get to know all about these girls and the only thing that we would have to remember is there names. So we pulled out sheet with translations on it. The two girls grabbed the sheet and started teaching us how to say things in Spanish. It was lovely for them to show us that they can read where as we take reading as a skill everyone has, and in that moment, I was reminded that reading and writing is not something everyone can do. Eventually, we had to say goodbye, and ventured on to our last destination.
    Next stop, Chicigua. This was probably the most important stop of the whole day because this is where we would be building the washroom and showers, so therefore spending most of our time. We arrived and Nettie had previously said that this village is a lot more relaxed energy wise and is a very different environment. And it was amazing how different it was. Firstly to get there, you had to drive up this winding road and the village was located right in the hills. Surrounding the village were huge sugar cane fields that were once a resource they depended on for money but after one bad year, it was impossible to get back on track. The Heffey, the leader of the village, told us all about how excited they were to have us there. The most amazing thing to hear was about his daughter. Her name was Yanella, and she was mentally and physically disabled. She could not talk and was in a wheel chair. It was heart warming to see that her father had raised her and kept her in his life where as in many other cases, children born with disabilities would be given to an orphanage and raised by the people there. He loved he so much and it made me smile to know she had a family and was being loved just as much as any other child in good health would be. We stayed there for an hour or two, but the heat was energy sucking so we just sat in the shade and played with the kids. After the whole day was over and we headed back to the resort, I felt this incredible sense of warmth and happiness to see all these people and to be that much closer to understanding their situation and being able to do something about that. It was the most incredible feeling and I was so excited to see what tommorow would bring.