Sabana Round Two | Shane

This blog will be about, well...if you didn't see the title, Sabana Grande. We had been to Sabana once before this, about five days into the trip and we stayed for a week. The first time we went, a lot of people did not like it much at all. We were fresh, North American teenagers who were ignorant to some of the problems of the majority world countries. A sudden change that early in the trip did sit easily with the majority of us, but we sucked it up.

We left in the morning of March 30 to go to Sabana. When we all got there, we relaxed until it was lunch time. I personally like most of the meals there more than in Santo Domingo...I'm not sure why. After lunch, Rach assigned us jobs and we worked for about five hours. I was put on a job laying block and mortar on a wall with Alexa. It was pretty fun to lay block and mortar, that is, until Alexa decided it would be funny to throw a blob of mortar at me! I retaliated and threw it at her face; Shane 1, Alexa 0. We worked on that wall all afternoon up till 5:30. Usually after work is all done, a few people will go out to the store and buy some snacks, usually consisting of: Tostitos, Tostito dip, coke, and various chocolate bars.

Throughout the eleven days we were there, I think more and more of us started to really enjoy construction. We all have found our niche in construction, be it mixing, laying block, painting, making forms, putting razor wire up while trees try to make your day of laying wire horrible, etc. One day Sarah and I were put on forms and wire. The job was to take down some forms that were put up the previous days and then lay some razor wire on top of the wall. See, it was all fun and enjoyable until the trees decided to hate me. Some trees sort of hung over the top of the wall, so the leaves and branches would be in our way, which was fine because I can just push them out of the way but when you've got a coil of wire that is sharp and pointy, it tends to hook onto leaves and branches like Velcro. Except unlike the convenience of Velcro, razor doesn't let go as easily. So trees and I didn't get along very much that day...I even started a group called S.A.T (Shane Against Trees)(I know, Freeman, it's against what you've taught me in E-Block).

One day, after working at a small village to build a church, we went to a village called “Alta Gracia”. We had a baseball game planned against the Dominicans...so basically we were going to lose. We actually didn't do that bad! After the first few innings we started to pick up the pace a little. It got pretty competitive and our team had their moments of awesome. We lost in the end but I think everyone enjoyed it. I personally loved it because I love baseball. We had many fun stories that day to share at circle time.

Working hard has it's rewards. One of the days in Sabana we were just doing normal construction, when at lunch, we found out that we were going to go swimming in some waterfalls and that we were leaving in nine minutes! We all rushed around to get our stuff ready and left. When we got there, we hiked a little but it was worth it. Coming down the path to hear the roar of the falls and seeing the brilliant blue water was breath taking. We were literally in some hole in the forest. The river continued on with many of us exploring down stream. With trees high on either side of the river and cool little caves that could be discovered in some rocks, a few of us went a good half hour down stream. We stayed there for a few hours before leaving back for the base. We were sad to leave but we were still quite happy and excited to have been there.

The last day of work, we had to finish the rest of the desks and clean up the property, so everyone boosted into high gear. We worked hard, but in the end we got everything done and we were happy. At 4:00 we went to a soccer game and played against the Dominicans. We played a great game and ended up winning with Jason as our goalie. Later that night, some teachers came from the school on the property and thanked us for our work around there. They sang for us and thanked Max for his work.

After coming back to Santo Domingo and looking back, we all had an amazing time in Sabana. We got work done while still having fun and enjoying the experience. I am sad to leave but what's up next is another whole new adventure to had to our story.