iBlock: La Case de Abraham

It was day 23 in the Dominican Republic and the group of 21 students had just finished three weeks of hard labour from teaching and construction (Okay the labour wasn’t too hard ;)). But, it was time they needed a little extra fun in their lives, so they decided to go to a youth retreat! The week before this weekend, half of the group stayed at the base doing normal rotations while the other half of the group (my half) were sent on a trip to a couple’s house named Monica and Matteo. At Monica and Matteo’s, the 8 of us girls shared one room with three beds and the 5 guys shared one room with two beds. It was a fun time. While at their house, everyday we would go to the school there and teach the kids till 12. (Siesta.) After a relaxing siesta, we would go to the school to play games with the kids. We did this for the whole week, so by the end of the week our half of the group knew the kids really well. So on friday, all of the kids from the school with our group of 21 students were sent on this Youth Retreat. It was called an Intercultural camp because there were a bunch of Dominicans and then a bunch of us white people.

From the minute we first pulled up to the camp we were all tossed into the interculturalness real fast. Our group hadn’t really been interacting with many Dominicans as much in the first couple of weeks, but this retreat turned that fact right around. When we first got there, a couple of us decided to go and explore the camp. Of course, the first thing we wanted to check out was the pool. When we got to the pool there was a Dominican guy named Roberto standing there and he started talking to us. He was 18 years old and was really good at English. We had a long conversation with him using Spanish and English which was really cool. He told us about how he wants to become a pilot and get better at his English so that he can get a good job. He was also really sweet and told us that if we ever needed help with talking to the other Dominicans who don’t know English, that he would help us by being a translator. After our conversation with Roberto we were sent to go find our rooms. It was the first of many awesome Dominican encounters on this retreat.

After we explored the camp, we realized how awesome it was. The camp was called La Casa de Abraham (The House of Abraham). There was a pool with two fast waterslides, a zip-line, a sketchy roller coaster, a giant fire pit, two massive swing boats (called Tortugas, which means turtle in Spanish), tire swings, a basketball court, a baseball diamond, a trampoline, a dining hall, a big field, a pond with a bridge and more. It was funny because all of the places in the camp were named after places in the Bible. The pool was called “the Jordan River”, there was the Garden of Eden, the Mount of Olives and many more areas that were named after places in the Bible. It was a really cute idea for a Bible camp. In Canada, I have been going to summer camps every year since grade 2 so this place made it feel a lot like home for me.

After lunch, it was time for swimming. Everyone was so excited because it was the first time in three weeks in the heat that we could go swimming in nice, crisp, cold water!! The pool was full of Dominicans and us Canadians. There were pretty much no rules for the water slide so people were going down all kinds of crazy ways. Especially the Dominicans. We made massive trains going down the waterslide with at least ten people in them, they were so big that the trains started halfway down the waterslide. Dominican’s and Canadians in one. We did chicken wars, had water fights and handstand competitions. After an hour of having fun in the deep end, a couple of friends and I decided to go to the shallow end to play with the little Dominican kids. We swam them around in our arms and on our backs. We threw them in the water and had a line of kids that we all jumped into the pool together with. It was so awesome and cool because I was recognized by the kids from teaching the previous week.

At this camp, there was a lot of free time. When not in the pool you could often find me in the Tortuga, which is this big boat swing thing that when squished you could fit about fifteen kids in it and it went really high. One time when I was in the tortuga, there was this 17 year old Dominican teenager from the school that I was teaching at. We had a pretty long conversation using his little English and my little Spanish. We talked about many things and he thought it was pretty crazy that I was only 16 years old and teaching. I made another relationship with an older Dominican. Later on in the Tortuga, the little Dominican girls wanted me to sing and give them a concert. So I stood up at the head of the Tortuga and started to sing them Justin Bieber and One Direction because those are the only songs that both they and I knew. They sang along with me and it was really cool how two groups of people who have a language barrier and cultural barriers could still bond over a couple songs that both parties knew. I had some awesome times in that Tortuga. Surprisingly, one of the kids told me that she liked my voice. Wowzers!

Many times at meals I would always see this one Dominican girl sitting all by herself at a table eating her food. So I would always go and eat with her and we formed a cute little relationship. It was so cute because everywhere I went, even just walking around all the kids would start calling my name and asking me to come over to play with them. “Dora! Dora!” (I go by Dora when teaching because Marieke is too hard to say or remember.) They all knew me from my week of teaching them before. I made a lot of relationships with the little Dominican kids who were my students. Even in the bathroom this one time, I walked in and then there were two girls in there. I heard one of them ask the other (in Spanish) “Who is it?” and then the other girl said “An Americano, I mean Dora!” I think that it is so cool that I and others could cross the language and culture barrier to make friends with people from a different country. That is one of the main reasons why this weekend was my favourite part of this trip. I just hung out with Dominicans the whole time and it was a blast.

That night at church, we sang Spanish songs and then did a dance with some Dominicans in front of the whole church. The Dominican dancing was so much fun even though we all sucked at it and looked really funny, that was the fun part. I did so many things in the span of three short days. We had a scavenger hunt, a giant bonfire, a giant bonfire tip over, a fashion show, I went down the sketchy zip-line, the sketchy roller coaster, ripped a big hole in my swim shorts on the waterslide, participated in two relay races (which we WON), and even sang Karaoke with Jesse and Alexa. It was such a fun retreat!!

By the time the weekend was over, I was really sad to leave. I had just made a ton of new friendships with a bunch of my Dominican friends/students and now I would probably never see them again. I think it was really easy for me to do this because I was in my element. Others in our group had never ever been to a camp before. But for me, camps are like my second homes. I was right in my element so it was so easy for me just to fit in and have fun with everything there. That is why this camp has been one of the highlights of my trip. I love camps and I thrive in camps. The other half of the group had the whole next week to strengthen their relationships with the kids as it was their turn to go to Monica and Mateo’s. It was my favourite weekend and time in the DR so far just because of interacting with all of the Dominicans at this very Intercultural camp. I am so glad that we could go to this camp and I hope that all of my Dominican friends will remember their friend Dora for a long time, because she will remember them.