Last week, we all headed down for an undetermined amount of time in Sabana Grande. Now, for those who don’t know, in the Dominican we have two main bases: the Santo Domingo base, which is where we teach and work in the shop, and the Sabana Grande base, which is where we do construction and play soccer with locals. At this point in the trip, we had only been in the Dominican for about 6 days, so when we were told that we had to pack our backpacks for a week to two weeks, I, at least, wasn’t sure what to expect. (Just a side note: when you’re told you’re going to be away for at least a week doing construction, three pairs of socks do not suffice.)
Sooo construction. Before launching into what we did and the feelings I had about it, I just want to explain a few things about myself. I am not a kinesthetic person. I cannot throw a ball with direction and force, I don’t (competitively) play sports and most of all I don’t know how to move my body in a useful manner (basically, I can pretty much always find a way to run into someone/thing.) Furthermore, I know all this stuff about myself, so I knew that doing construction would be a stretch for me.
The group arrived in Sabana on the Wednesday, half of us arriving on public transportation and half of us being driven by Max, I took public transport. That afternoon, Lara, Julianna and I were given our first ‘challenge’: build scaffolding. How? Well, we were told by Rachael that there were holes in the walls for 2x4s and that we could use them and then go from there. We grabbed the boards and stuck them through the holes...not the most stable thing in the world. From there we had various discussions on what to do. It was decided that we would put stacks of cinder blocks up under the boards in order to make them sturdy. (This sounds pretty simple, but cinder blocks are pretty heavy, and we had to make four towers that were like eight blocks high, two by two, so we ended up moving around 50 blocks...this seems excessive, but the math makes sense.) Anyways, after stacking all the blocks, we had to grab these long boards and put them on top of the 2x4s so that we could have a platform so that we could actually reach the top of the wall. This took all afternoon, and at the end of it we had the scaffolding up and were chipping concrete off razor wire and wrapping the razor wire up in spirals (which is rather satisfying actually, especially when you find the perfect angle at which to insert the chisel and the concrete comes off right away.)
Besides the scaffolding, in my time at Sabana Grande I laid block and shoveled concrete and scooped dirt to level out a classroom and tied rebar and walked into town and tried to speak Spanish to the men working in the hardware stores (which was quite funny because one day I went into a store and Sarah and I were buying this long, white, plastic tube and the guy went to the back to get us a more flexible type of tube, and it whipped up and broke his lightbulb. Sarah told me not to laugh. This was difficult.) The days were long, but enjoyable and the family who was hosting us was great. They had a 4 year old daughter named Lisa, who made rounds of the group and had, I think, a new best friend everyday.
We ended up being at Sabana for six days because Kina was having health problems and we needed to go back to the Santo base (I saw her his morning and I can’t tell you how great it was to see her up and smiling). But in those six days, I learned a lot about what I like to call the ‘Philosophy of Construction.’ Everyday of construction can suck if you want it to. I worked with people that I didn’t always see eye to eye with, I completed tedious tasks that sometimes seemed useless, I shoveled heavy concrete in pouring rain that always, always managed to splat onto my clothes and shoes, and most of all I started with the idea that I wasn’t going to be good at what I was doing. Once I got past myself, though, I realized that construction is more of mental challenge than a physical one. Every minute I spent working could be a party, with good conversation and singing in a downpour, it was just a matter of deciding that that’s what I wanted it to be.
So that’s my blog post and my musings about the one week I had at Sabana Grande (I know you guys are just checking the blog everyday to see if I’ve written yet, so I’m happy to end the suspense. Love you, Dad :)) Underneath are some pictures of the things we did in Sabana.
(Rachael here - we're having some computer issues…pics are coming)
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