A brief overview of the week before last week (March 15-17):
Monday and Tuesday:
- a group of students taught at Nueva Creacion on Monday and were given the task of finding the place of the child sponsorship program, Compassion, while on their siesta. They found it and people spent the day at Compassion on Tuesday
- a group of students went to Magaly’s house to work on finishing details (forming and pouring two smaller, non-structural columns, working on levelling the floor and building rafters and strapping). The woodwork of the roof is complete, the steel is purchased and ready to be installed. This is our project for this week. We have hired a local pastor, Levy, to stucco the house (cover the brick and mortar with a smooth surface that becomes paintable). We are on our way to completion!
- We welcome our TA’s from back home, Emily and Maddy, to our base on Tuesday evening. They were driven by Pierre, who oversees our second base, as well as two of Pierre’s daughters (Rogelia who is 21 or so and Lisa who is 6 or 7). That dinner was a loud one!
- on Tuesday evening in circle time students found out where they would be going for the rest of the week and which group of students they would be with. Two groups were made: one group was heading to Monica and Mateo’s house to live with them and their family for four nights. These students would go to Monica and Mateo’s school to teach, go to their church to worship and shadow them and their four children (Marlenys, Mirka, Mayra and Misael). More details on this experience. I was not there so I am unable to give a first hand account. I do know they taught and that was ‘lit’, they danced a lot, had a conga line in church (led by Mateo) and learned how to make block for construction. The Monica and Mateo group was Britt, Ashley and Jesse as chaperones as well as Danielle, Nadine, Julianna, Chelsea, Maddy Zomer, Maddy our TA, Lauren, Brad and Eric.
Let me tell you about our week.
My group and I went to Guaymate. We will call this “the third base”. Guido runs
the Santo Domingo base, Pierre runs the Sabana Grande de Boya base and Mano
runs the Guaymate base. Both Santo and Sabana have facilities to house teams
(lodging areas, a kitchen etc…). Through the work of Guido, Mano, Max, work teams and various
generous individuals this Guaymate Ministry Centre is becoming more of a
‘base’. Laura, Lauren, Max, Guido and I went to Guaymate two weeks earlier and
it was a place of raw construction. There were rooms on a second flood that had
rough concrete floors and block and mortar walls. There were no doors, windows,
no electrical or plumbing. Max, Guido, Conroy and Kim (folks from Stratford who
are here in Max’ stead) headed out a week later and gave Mano some money to
continue working on turning the second floor into a dorm.
Background on Guaymate:
It is 2-2.5 hours East of Santo Domingo and is in the heart of cane fields. It is a small town and in each of the four directions you walk it does not take you long to hit sugar cane. When driving to Guaymate from Santo Domingo the closest settlement is La Romana which is a 15-20 minute drive away. Other than this you pass only cane fields and, once or twice, you come upon seemingly random rows of barracks. Then you hit Guaymate. The base in Guaymate services 30 different bateys – small cane-cutting communities. The poverty in this area is stark.
Sarah, Brian, Tim, Johnny, Harry, Olivia, Jessica, Kyanna, Christine, Laura, Megan, Emily, Conroy, Kim and I all boarded a bus on Wednesday morning and headed out on our drive. We arrived in time for lunch – which ended up being a simple snapshot into how our week was going to go. We entered the house that was holding three motorcycles on the front porch and fourteen mattresses in the family room (and this house is smaller than most of our Canadian homes). We sat down to a tray of fresh bananas, pineapple and papaya as well as bread, ham, cheese and some peanut butter that we brought. We crowded our group of 15 around the table and enjoyed a surprisingly quiet lunch.
After lunch we headed to the Guaymate base and enjoyed an afternoon of light construction work. There were three rooms that still looked like construction zones and needed to be cleaned out. The students set to work getting rid of debris, organizing and doing general construction clean up. By about 4 o’clock they were done. At this time Sarah, a chaperone, went outside the gates to the street to play with the local children. She started a game of tickle-tag with about 15 kids and there was running, giggling and smiles abounding. Brian and I saw this and wondered where the students were – Brian went in the gates and encouragingly commanded them to go out and play. Some went begrudgingly, others willingly and some not at all but regardless of the reactions, the fun in the streets continued until dinner.
The Dominican people are an extraordinarily giving people. This base was so excited to host us that they went into, “all hands on deck” mode. For the record we were told, and were expecting, simple living conditions – we were expecting to sleep on mattresses on the floor in rooms with rough block, unfinished floors, no plumbing or electrical and no windows or doors. We were more than ready for it, but this did not happen. The folks at this base worked until 9pm to ensure each of our three rooms had electricity, working bathrooms, painted walls and tiled floors. We still slept in mattresses on the floor, but given what we were prepared for, we felt like we had accommodations reserved for royals. Kim and Conroy stayed in a hotel, the boys had their own room for the four of them, Emily, Sarah and I shared a room, and the 6 girls had their own room. We greatly appreciated the work of our Guaymate friends!
This base was almost a vacation as we got to sleep in for an extra half an hour as we didn’t have breakfast until 8. I took the opportunity on two of the three mornings to watch the town wake up as the rest of the crew slept. On Thursday morning I went to the roof of the base and on Friday I went to the edge of the cane field and watched. A neighbouring church played loud Christian music but the rest of the town was quiet. It was great to watch doors open to the sunrise, moms completing their first sweep of the house of the day, people heading off to work and others singing away. Children began running through the streets even if still groggy-eyed. The scene reminded me of the opening song in, “Beauty and the Beast”.
On Thursday and Friday Laura, Christine, Kyanna, Megan, Olivia and Jessica were with Kim. Earlier in the week they spent time learning how to sew bibs, headbands, blanket and cloth diapers. Their task now was to work with some local ladies and teach them how to sew these things. They patiently taught the ladies to slow down on their sewing machines, they used new Spanish words and worked one on one (or one on four) alongside them. It was especially neat to see those who couldn’t sew before Tuesday (Olivia, Megan and Kyanna) teach others soon after they had learned.
In addition to sewing, there were many other tasks going on: making and pouring some forms, making balusters and working with Conroy to make some bunk beds for the Centre. More people learned how to use power tools which is always exciting. At one point on Thursday morning Kyanna came out to find me, “Rachael! I learned how to cut wood and I’m good at it!” Patience, teaching and power tools can create affirming moments. Conroy apologized after Thursday that none of the beds had actually been assembled (all the pieces for all 9 beds had been cut, though) but no one in the group seemed phased by it. Actually, some even mentioned that they were happy about it because they enjoyed sleeping on the floor!
Outside the gates some mixing of concrete was going on. Thankfully, we were a bit understaffed for the jobs we needed to do so I was able to do some work. I was able to mix all afternoon. Originally, I was out there with Tim and Johnny. Tim had spent time watching ChiChi when working at Magaly’s house so he took the lead on the composition. Johnny and I helped mix and get water etc…It didn’t take long before we had little willing helpers – local children who wanted to work. I figured extra help is usually never a bad thing and we had extra shovels and plenty of mixing to do so, they joined us. There were a couple of boys and one girl who were workers that even my dad would be proud of! They hauled buckets and consistently gave it their all; they were diligent, hard-working and insistent that they could do things. One boy, Yerico (like Jericho but with a Spanish “J”), quickly won our hearts over. He was fired up and wanted to work (and show off his muscles). He had a long-handled shovel and approached the pile of caliche (gravel) with vigour and force – like he was about to launch a javelin. In terms of productivity his shovel wasn’t overly full, but if you combine spirit, attitude, determination and productivity, he was a great worker.
After a bit of having the local children working with us I asked Sarah to buy cookies for the whole gang at the base, well, I asked her to buy cookies for those who were working. She handed them out to over 20 people, including the children who were helping us but she made sure she only gave cookies to the children who had helped us work. There was one boy who wanted cookies but hadn’t worked. I said no. He yapped at me in Spanish for a while but, clearly, I didn’t budge. As my dad says, “if you don’t work, you don’t eat”. This boy was not overly impressed. I did not waver in my stance but I did explain to him that we still had cookies so if he chose to work and help out, he, too, could get some cookies. He yapped some more. I told him he had to work hard for the next 30 minutes and then he could get cookies. He’d take one bucket and ask if that was enough. No, he had 29.5 minutes left. He started off so lazy. He’d haul a bucket of concrete and hide, he’d take a nearly empty bucket, he yapped instead of working and kept trying to get away with doing little, so I told him the deal was off. He instantly seemed bothered by this decision and shaped up. I honestly can’t tell you what happened but Olivia, Harry, Sarah and I all saw it. Something changed and he became a diligent and hard worker. He didn’t talk, he just worked. He hauled. He was hot and tired and dirty but kept at it. Within 30 minutes of work he got his cookies but he put them in his pocket and kept working. I told him we didn’t have any more so we can’t give him more cookies for more work, but he kept working. When we were done mixing and hauling, he stuck around to help us clean the buckets. He and a number of other helpers of ours stuck around and persistently worked on cleaning the buckets. They used rocks, fingernails and vigour to get the dried crud out of there. They would scrub and then look up to any of us for approval. We’d get super excited and appreciative and they’d get right back at it. When we tried to take one away and clean it on our own, they insisted on continuing the work. It was just beautiful.
Why is this? Love and attention;
it really is that simple and clean. They want love and attention. They want
approval. They’re human and at our cores that’s what we’re all striving for. I
firmly believe that once they saw that they got excitement, approval and
attention from us, they wanted to keep working. They were never forced to do anything,
in fact, we often insisted otherwise. We tried to take shovels and buckets but
they wanted to work or, at least, they wanted to work because of how we reacted
to their work.
Life is really quite simple. Maslow wrote about this in the early 1940s in his paper, “A Theory of Human Motivation” – humans need and want love and belonging and esteem, even if that is received through slugging buckets of concrete.
Background on Guaymate:
It is 2-2.5 hours East of Santo Domingo and is in the heart of cane fields. It is a small town and in each of the four directions you walk it does not take you long to hit sugar cane. When driving to Guaymate from Santo Domingo the closest settlement is La Romana which is a 15-20 minute drive away. Other than this you pass only cane fields and, once or twice, you come upon seemingly random rows of barracks. Then you hit Guaymate. The base in Guaymate services 30 different bateys – small cane-cutting communities. The poverty in this area is stark.
Sarah, Brian, Tim, Johnny, Harry, Olivia, Jessica, Kyanna, Christine, Laura, Megan, Emily, Conroy, Kim and I all boarded a bus on Wednesday morning and headed out on our drive. We arrived in time for lunch – which ended up being a simple snapshot into how our week was going to go. We entered the house that was holding three motorcycles on the front porch and fourteen mattresses in the family room (and this house is smaller than most of our Canadian homes). We sat down to a tray of fresh bananas, pineapple and papaya as well as bread, ham, cheese and some peanut butter that we brought. We crowded our group of 15 around the table and enjoyed a surprisingly quiet lunch.
After lunch we headed to the Guaymate base and enjoyed an afternoon of light construction work. There were three rooms that still looked like construction zones and needed to be cleaned out. The students set to work getting rid of debris, organizing and doing general construction clean up. By about 4 o’clock they were done. At this time Sarah, a chaperone, went outside the gates to the street to play with the local children. She started a game of tickle-tag with about 15 kids and there was running, giggling and smiles abounding. Brian and I saw this and wondered where the students were – Brian went in the gates and encouragingly commanded them to go out and play. Some went begrudgingly, others willingly and some not at all but regardless of the reactions, the fun in the streets continued until dinner.
The Dominican people are an extraordinarily giving people. This base was so excited to host us that they went into, “all hands on deck” mode. For the record we were told, and were expecting, simple living conditions – we were expecting to sleep on mattresses on the floor in rooms with rough block, unfinished floors, no plumbing or electrical and no windows or doors. We were more than ready for it, but this did not happen. The folks at this base worked until 9pm to ensure each of our three rooms had electricity, working bathrooms, painted walls and tiled floors. We still slept in mattresses on the floor, but given what we were prepared for, we felt like we had accommodations reserved for royals. Kim and Conroy stayed in a hotel, the boys had their own room for the four of them, Emily, Sarah and I shared a room, and the 6 girls had their own room. We greatly appreciated the work of our Guaymate friends!
This base was almost a vacation as we got to sleep in for an extra half an hour as we didn’t have breakfast until 8. I took the opportunity on two of the three mornings to watch the town wake up as the rest of the crew slept. On Thursday morning I went to the roof of the base and on Friday I went to the edge of the cane field and watched. A neighbouring church played loud Christian music but the rest of the town was quiet. It was great to watch doors open to the sunrise, moms completing their first sweep of the house of the day, people heading off to work and others singing away. Children began running through the streets even if still groggy-eyed. The scene reminded me of the opening song in, “Beauty and the Beast”.
On Thursday and Friday Laura, Christine, Kyanna, Megan, Olivia and Jessica were with Kim. Earlier in the week they spent time learning how to sew bibs, headbands, blanket and cloth diapers. Their task now was to work with some local ladies and teach them how to sew these things. They patiently taught the ladies to slow down on their sewing machines, they used new Spanish words and worked one on one (or one on four) alongside them. It was especially neat to see those who couldn’t sew before Tuesday (Olivia, Megan and Kyanna) teach others soon after they had learned.
In addition to sewing, there were many other tasks going on: making and pouring some forms, making balusters and working with Conroy to make some bunk beds for the Centre. More people learned how to use power tools which is always exciting. At one point on Thursday morning Kyanna came out to find me, “Rachael! I learned how to cut wood and I’m good at it!” Patience, teaching and power tools can create affirming moments. Conroy apologized after Thursday that none of the beds had actually been assembled (all the pieces for all 9 beds had been cut, though) but no one in the group seemed phased by it. Actually, some even mentioned that they were happy about it because they enjoyed sleeping on the floor!
Outside the gates some mixing of concrete was going on. Thankfully, we were a bit understaffed for the jobs we needed to do so I was able to do some work. I was able to mix all afternoon. Originally, I was out there with Tim and Johnny. Tim had spent time watching ChiChi when working at Magaly’s house so he took the lead on the composition. Johnny and I helped mix and get water etc…It didn’t take long before we had little willing helpers – local children who wanted to work. I figured extra help is usually never a bad thing and we had extra shovels and plenty of mixing to do so, they joined us. There were a couple of boys and one girl who were workers that even my dad would be proud of! They hauled buckets and consistently gave it their all; they were diligent, hard-working and insistent that they could do things. One boy, Yerico (like Jericho but with a Spanish “J”), quickly won our hearts over. He was fired up and wanted to work (and show off his muscles). He had a long-handled shovel and approached the pile of caliche (gravel) with vigour and force – like he was about to launch a javelin. In terms of productivity his shovel wasn’t overly full, but if you combine spirit, attitude, determination and productivity, he was a great worker.
 | |
| Yerico |
After a bit of having the local children working with us I asked Sarah to buy cookies for the whole gang at the base, well, I asked her to buy cookies for those who were working. She handed them out to over 20 people, including the children who were helping us but she made sure she only gave cookies to the children who had helped us work. There was one boy who wanted cookies but hadn’t worked. I said no. He yapped at me in Spanish for a while but, clearly, I didn’t budge. As my dad says, “if you don’t work, you don’t eat”. This boy was not overly impressed. I did not waver in my stance but I did explain to him that we still had cookies so if he chose to work and help out, he, too, could get some cookies. He yapped some more. I told him he had to work hard for the next 30 minutes and then he could get cookies. He’d take one bucket and ask if that was enough. No, he had 29.5 minutes left. He started off so lazy. He’d haul a bucket of concrete and hide, he’d take a nearly empty bucket, he yapped instead of working and kept trying to get away with doing little, so I told him the deal was off. He instantly seemed bothered by this decision and shaped up. I honestly can’t tell you what happened but Olivia, Harry, Sarah and I all saw it. Something changed and he became a diligent and hard worker. He didn’t talk, he just worked. He hauled. He was hot and tired and dirty but kept at it. Within 30 minutes of work he got his cookies but he put them in his pocket and kept working. I told him we didn’t have any more so we can’t give him more cookies for more work, but he kept working. When we were done mixing and hauling, he stuck around to help us clean the buckets. He and a number of other helpers of ours stuck around and persistently worked on cleaning the buckets. They used rocks, fingernails and vigour to get the dried crud out of there. They would scrub and then look up to any of us for approval. We’d get super excited and appreciative and they’d get right back at it. When we tried to take one away and clean it on our own, they insisted on continuing the work. It was just beautiful.
 |
| Cleaning buckets. The boy in the green shirt is the one who didn't want to work but then ended up being the last one to leave; he wanted to see the work until the end. |
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| Yerico cleaning the buckets. |
Life is really quite simple. Maslow wrote about this in the early 1940s in his paper, “A Theory of Human Motivation” – humans need and want love and belonging and esteem, even if that is received through slugging buckets of concrete.
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