I left my heart in the Dominican Republic
I've been home for a week now and have thought a lot about my trip to the Dominican Republic. I'm going to try my best to put into words what I learned and experienced while in the Dominican Republic.
On Saturday, March 3rd I flew to JFK with 14 other individuals that I barely knew by name. From there we flew to Santiago and then rode in an oversized van with the windows open and loud Spanish music playing to the orphanage. The new sights and smells excited us as we drove down the bumpy roads for two hours to the orphanage in Monte Cristi. We arrived around 6am to the orphanage and started the day at 7am with breakfast followed by a full day of orientation. I hadn't slept since Friday night so going through an entire day of sitting and listening to people speak was rough. In the afternoon I actually fell asleep sitting up. We were all exhausted come Sunday night and we passed out by 9pm I think.
We worked with an organization called Orphanage Outreach. This program was started by a man in 1993 who visited the orphanage. We he arrived it was in shambles. He started Orphanage Outreach and after the program built up the orphanage he began to look outside of the orphanage and into the community. Monte Cristi is in the most rural part of the Dominican Republic and the Dominican Republic as a whole is the least educated country within all of the Latin American countries. Although we didn't work as much with the actual orphanage children as I thought we would, it was ok because we fell in love with the students we taught and were able to play with the orphans a little bit on the side as well. There were 230 volunteers total, the largest group ever at one time to volunteer with OO, which consisted mostly of college spring break trips and a few high school groups. All together we reached over 2,500 kids in schools in Monte Cristi.
We lived in a make-shift Ramada. Since there aren’t normally 200+ volunteers, they threw together a few extra sleeping tents. Basically, I slept on the top bunk under a mosquito net covered only by a tarp. I’ve never had to rough it this much in my life! There were 2 bathrooms for each gender, which meant 10 toilets and 10 showers for over 150 girls. We took navy showers, meaning we had to turn on the water quickly to get wet, turn it off and soap up, turn it back on to rinse off, and then we were finished! The water was cold of course, but it was actually very refreshing.The motto of the week was “if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.” There was a no flushing the toilet paper rule and if we forgot we had to fish out the tp with a stick. We drank bottled water only and brushed our teeth with bottled water as well. I was constantly sweaty, dirty, smelly, sticky, itchy, and absolutely gross. I got over that very quickly though and thought it was a blast.
From Monday to Thursday our days looked like this: The chickens, goats, and dogs would effectively wake us up between 6 and 7 each morning. After breakfast we would begin the mile and a half trek through Monte Cristi to the Methodist school. Our group of 15 broke into 3 smaller teaching groups with at least one fluent Spanish speaker and one Education major in each group. My group taught fourth grade for the first hour and first grade for the second hour. We would then walk back to the orphanage for lunch and siesta time. After our break we would again walk to our afternoon school which was Jonny's English School. There we taught an hour of middle school aged kids and then an hour of high school to twentyish year olds. After we finished teaching we would go back to the orphanage and have dinner, plan our lessons for the next day, hang out for a little bit, have our team reflection time, and then get to bed. We were exhausted at the end of each day and we usually went to sleep around 10 or 11pm.
On Friday we drove to Dajabon, a city on the boarder between the Dominican and Haiti. Every Friday and Monday Dominicans and Haitians are allowed to cross over the boarder and trade with each other. We walked through a market which definitely ranks as one of the coolest things I've ever done in my life. We didn't buy anything, our soul purpose was to walk through and make it out alive. haha Just kidding. We were there to experience the culture. It was unlike anything I've ever done before. As we walked through there were people everywhere! Women were balancing 10 or 12 large cartons of eggs on their heads; men were pushing HUGE carts full of whatever they were trying to sell. French speaking Haitians and Spanish speaking Dominicans were intermingling and working together. We stood on the bridge over the Masacre river which separates the two countries but we didn't step into Haiti. On our way out of the market we were stopped many times by the UN boarder patrols to make sure we weren't smuggling any Haitians back to the Dominican. There really aren't words to describe my experience in the market. It was so cool. In the afternoon we headed to the beach. It was amazing! The water was so warm and I really enjoyed the downtime with my team.
This trip was huge for me in so many ways. It was a big step out in faith and of course, God provided. I was SO nervous before the trip because I've never gone away, especially to a 3rd world country, without a close friend or family member. I also didn't know many specifics about what we would actually be doing before I left. I knew the basics but I am a planner. I make lists constantly and I plan weeks in advance. It stresses me out to not know what is going on all of the time. I learned to be flexible or "gumby" as the orphanage liked to call it. Things didn't always go as planned. The power went out numerous times throughout the week which messed up plans, but it was ok. I read Hebrews 11 a lot throughout the week. "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive his inheritance OBEYED and WENT even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs withh im of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." -Hebrews 11:8-10.
The only bad part of the trip was losing Ali for 2.5 days. On Tuesday at lunch she began feeling really sick. They took her to the clinic at lunch time on Wednesday and she came back on Thursday night. She had contracted three bad bacteria including salmonella. She was such a trooper though. Her attitude was incredible. I was really sad though that she had to miss out on the majority of our teaching days. Her kids made her cards though, which was so sweet.
I learned A LOT while I was there:
- It’s ok to take a break! The entire community takes a break every day around lunch time! Siesta time is used to get out of the sun during the hottest part of the day, relax, and get ready for the afternoon. Everyone shuts down their shops and RESTS. I THRIVE off of being constantly busy. I don’t let myself take a break, but I learned that it’s ok to rest.
- Americans have so much to learn! Dominicans have NOTHING compared to us. They live in what our society considers shacks. Somehow though, every single Dominican that I talked to or even just passed on the road seemed very happy and satisfied with their lives. Why is it that Americans, who are materialistically wealthy, are never satisfied? It seems as if every other person is depressed! Everyone in the DR was SO friendly to our group. There were 230 AMERICANS that invaded the small town of Monte Cristi for the week. We talked to one Dominican who was so shocked that a group of American college kids were down serving instead of hitting up the resorts. He said that Americans are not looked upon fondly in most Latin American countries, yet everyone was still very friendly to us. As we walked down the streets every day the kids would come running up to us and their parents would smile and wave. I don’t see many Americans smiling or waving at Hispanics who walk down our streets. My views have changed a lot towards foreigners this semester. I’m taking an immigration class and I’ve learned so much about their lives and the choices that they have to make in order to come here. They are real people with real stories. My heart has completely been softened and broken for them. Going to the DR made me realize how horrible we are to people who don’t look or speak like us. The Dominicans were so nice and inviting. One of guys on my team made the comment that so many Americans pitty people in lesser developed countries because they don’t have the “things” that we do. Our world wouldn’t be able to hold 6.5 billion ipods. We don’t need to be making more Americas. That’s the last thing this world needs.
- Dominicans work SO hard. I really realized this when I was walking through the market. Even very pregnant women were working extremely hard. Their lives aren’t easy, but they don’t complain. Very different from America.
My views and my heart were completely changed. I would love to go back and serve one day, hopefully for a summer or something. I am also thinking about adding a Spanish minor which would help me teach English as a Second Language one day. It was so hard to come back home. I fell in love with my students and I left my heart in the Dominican Republic.
This entry really doesn’t do justice but I wanted to put my thoughts into words for when I look back in the future and reflect on my trip. I could go on and on forever about our nightly team reflection time under the stars, or all of the times we played Bingo with the kids, or the vegetable song that is now stuck in my head, or my 14 new best friends. It was an incredible trip. My life has been changed.