February 20th

Salud todos! This picture above is my family from the campo of Sabana de San Isidro where I had been living for the last week and a half. Meet my family starting on the right with my mom (Dulce), to the left of me my sister (Rubia), brother (Harrison) in the back, dad (Polo) on the far left, and little brother (Luis) down in front. The campo that we stayed at was about 2 hours away from Santiago in the mountains, in just a beautiful countryside of the Dominican Republic. The experience was amazing to say the least! The whole time is really quite unexplainable, and so I will do my best to give you a glimpse at what happened these last couple of weeks. The life was simple, they had sporatic electricity, no running water or plumbing, but I've never felt so much love and hospitality from people in my life. My family and the people of the community truly showed us God's love, loving freely without any bounds. My family actually has a pretty amazing story. When my campo mom and dad were first married they lived on the finca, or farm, in basically a shack with no money. The worked hard and saved money in order to move off of the finca, however one day my dad was cutting barbed wire and a piece tore his eye. They had to spend 8,000 with three surgeries to try to fix his eye, which only left him without sight in that eye, and a huge financial burden. My mom's brother, who lives in NYC gave them money to build a house in the community, and it was so nice - they are still currently paying off that debt to him.



My dad worked every day with us digging trenches - which put him a week behind in his own job of picking cacao. He said he only has God, his wife and his community to be thankful for, for pulling him through those hard times. Of the many things this community taught me, one thing I learned from my family and the community was their faith - they truly live by faith and not by sight. In times when they might not know where their next meal will come from or where they can get water, they truly rely on God's hand and have trust in Him that he will provide.












We spent most of our days working alongside of other Dominicans in the community in building an aqueduct so that the people of the community could have running water. The picture above is of the type of ditch that we would dig. The whole aqueduct ditch was about 2.5 miles long, and I can't say that I've really used a pick or a shovel before, so it was some physically challenging work - but it was really so much fun. The idea of 'machismo' is big in the culture where men are the ones who do physical labor and the women stay in the house, cooking and cleaning and such. So when our group shows up - 13 gringos where 10 are all female with picks and shovels, it was a little hard holding on to our tools with the Dominican men trying to do the work for us. Of course they were quicker and more efficient with the tools, but with some convincing and many "esta bien..yo puedo hacerlo"s, by the end of the 10 days an older man actually handed me a shovel to work when he was tired, which I thought was pretty amazing. Also, other women from the community came to help us work on the aqueduct, which was very neat to see - and also that the Dominican men would let them help also.



The food was delicious, many rice and beans which is perfectly okay with me! They also have a lot of yucca - which is just like a root, similar to a potato that is a staple in their daily lives. The coffee is just amazing, I think we had coffee every lunch and dinner! However the coffee is really concentrated, more like espresso, and is served with little cups and lots of sugar - yum! My mom in the campo also made me this delicious 'dulce de coco' which was a cooked coconut, sugar, cinnamon mixture that was just so delicious AKA: Coco crack... I asked her to teach me so I can make it when I get back to the states :).




It really was just so incredible to live the lifestyle of these people - I found myself having no personal space, taking showers with a 5 gallon bucket and old empty tomato paste jar, often times not understanding my family and what they were trying to say to me in Spanish, taking work breaks and eating any type of fruit off the trees - oranges, coconut, guayava, or bananas - and i loved every moment! I will never forget my family in the campo and I am planning on visiting again before I leave for the States, and the experience has really changed my views and priorities in life.

Now coming back to ILAC our Spring Break is this next week. Mackenzie and my mom are coming down to visit tomorrow which I am really looking forward to! I think we might do some whale watching, maybe travel down to the capital, and just spend some time on the beach! These last pictures below the one on the left is one night where we were just hanging out playing games and the other was taken right after we finished the aqueduct. Hope you all are doing well - I've really been thinking about friends and family, especially when I was in the campo! I'd love to hear from you all... Take care and as my campo mom would say... Venga con Dios!