What seemed to be just a week long trip with classmates to provide a new house and basketball court in Batey 50 turned into something so much more. Every single event that took place during this amazing trip was truly a once in a lifetime experience. Coming home, every single family member and friend asked me with tremendous excitement, “SO! How was the DR?” and I couldn’t help but stand there with the biggest smile on my face and say, “It was the most amazing adventure of my life thus far!”. Just one week is all it took for my perspective on life to change. The people that I met, the relationships that I made, the hugs and smiles that I shared, the warm welcomes, the manual labor, the exhaustion, the endless bug bites and sunburn; it was all worth it. There is not one moment that I would ever take back from this trip.
I think that truthfully, the biggest lesson that I learned was that even though people may have nothing from a materialistic point of view, they truly have everything. Each person that I came in contact with while in the DR and in the different Batey’s had the biggest hearts and most determination that I have ever seen in someone. There was so much love to be shared and so much thanks, it broke my heart leaving there thinking that I’m not going to feel that at home. Our job, as a team, was to arrive in Batey 50 and build a new house within the community and a basketball court, yet, the people living there felt that it was their job too. Every single child wanted to be a part of the process, whether that meant going to a ride in a wheel barrel, shoveling a few loads of sand or gravel, pouring cement, carrying cement blocks, helping carry buckets of water up from the river, or simply just painting. I never remember being as young as some of the kids in Batey 50 and feeling the responsibility of helping build something of pleasure for myself or in my neighborhood. Seeing this changed a lot in me. When I’m at home it’s easy to just sit around thinking that my mom is making dinner and that she will most likely clean up after it, and that my dad is going to shovel the driveway and the front walk after a big snow storm, and while he does that I can stay inside where it is warm, but those are truthfully just stupid things that I have never really taken a second look at. The kids in Batey 50 go above and beyond the measures any child in an industrialized nation would normally go through, and that makes me reevaluate many different aspects of my life. I’m more willing to help at home, in the kitchen, outside, with siblings; all things that I should never really take for granted. I think that every moment of this trip made me really think about life back at home and I really could not be any more thankful for that.
Every time that I get in my car, I envision myself sitting on a hot sticky bus with almost 40 other classmates and friends blasting Bruno Mars and watching all of the sugarcane pass by; and as memorable as that is and how I wish to still be living that, there were many moments from this trip that are just engraved in my mind that were truly a sight to see that one would never imagine. The last day we got off of the bus and immediately started by going to the river to fill buckets full of water to begin the cement process of the basketball court. As I began my walk to the river one of the first kids that I held grabbed for me, and as I pulled her into my arms, her older sister grabbed my hand and took the walk with me. As we were walking I realized that the younger girl had about half of a sip of juice left in a bottle, yet she only took half of that small sip and gave the rest to her older sister to finish. What I had just viewed was one of the most amazing, yet heart breaking things I had ever experienced. As I stated earlier in my post, these people with such little to their names truly have the biggest hearts, which is really everything that any one person needs in life. A story as small as that was life changing to me and is something that I will never forget. My trip to the Dominican Republic was, without a doubt, the most moving, fun, and rewarding experiences of my whole life and would recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat.
QU301 DR Fall 2014 