This team and our chaps are pretty great!
Thursday, 30 March 2017
Tuesday, 21 March 2017
Split Week #1 | rachael
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
Tuesday, 14 March 2017
Ina's Village | lauren
Hello friends,
Writing a blog post was not something I was excited about because I did not think that I would be able to fully explain just how magical this place is and how beautiful each day has been. This was how I was feeling until this past Saturday when we went to Ina’s village. Don’t get me wrong, every single day of the last two weeks had been incredible, it’s just that my experience on Saturday was one that caused me to think and fall in love with this country a little bit more, and because of this I think I can do a decent job of writing about it. Some of this is taken from my journal and other parts are just thoughts from the day.
This past Saturday was the third one we have spent in the Dominican, and each one has been very different so far. We were supposed to have gone to Ina’s village on our second Saturday but plans changed so we explored in the city instead. I was really excited to go last week and because it was cancelled I think that made me even more excited to go this week. I really had no idea what to expect going in. All I really knew was that we would be playing games with kids and teaching them how to do crafts. This sounded exciting but didn’t honestly seem like it would be that different than teaching which I have already experienced a few times in the last two weeks. What I experienced on Saturday though, was much different and, in my opinion, better than teaching has been so far.
We got on the bus to leave at around 1:30 after we had finished eating lunch and it took about half an hour to get there. When we drove up to where we would be getting off the bus, we saw lots of kids playing which made me even more excited than I already was. When we got off the bus, a lady who I later realized was Ina, came up to us and asked us to walk up and down the road and ask other children to come play with us. As we started walking, the children who we saw as we drove up, came with us down the road and held our hands and were just generally adorable. After about ten minutes of walking and yelling in Spanish, we had about thirty kids with us so we decided to walk back. When we got back we started right away by playing basketball and ‘Stella-ella-olla’ with the kids. At first all the boys were playing basketball and all the girls were playing ‘Stella-ella-olla’, but slowly, with some encouragement from Ina and Rachael, some of the boys joined us playing ‘Stella-ella-olla’ and some of the girls joined the basketball game. I could tell right away how loved and respected Ina is by the kids and how much she loves what she does. There were two times throughout the afternoon when I could see this very clearly.
The first was when she encouraged to kids to mix up boys and girls. There was something about how she said this and how quickly and respectfully the kids listened that was really really cool. This was a really small thing but I could really tell that she loves the kids and their families a lot and that she puts a lot of thought and love into how she runs her programs.
I will talk about the second time later because I don’t want to ruin the magicalness of the rest of the story. So, eventually the kids started getting bored of ‘Stella-ella-olla’ so we started giving them piggybacks and having races. This lasted for awhile and then Rachael and Ina taught us and the kids a game to play. Each one of us was partnered with on of the kids and we would run in circles while Sarah would yell chair, horse, floor, monkey or piggyback and we would do these actions with our partners and try not to be last. My partner was a super adorable and shy little girl who I think was about 6 or 7. As soon as we started playing the game she took a rubber band that she had on her wrist and put it my arm. This might not seem like a big deal, but she had the biggest smile on her face when she gave it to me and it made my heart so so happy. She was very quiet throughout the whole afternoon and rarely talked but every time we made it through a round in the game by completing the action, she would give me the biggest smile and we would do our fabulous handshake that she taught me at the beginning of the game. Eventually we were eliminated from the game, so we sat off the side and took some super great pictures together and every time I showed her one of the pictures we had taken she looked so happy which made not being able to communicate with her very well suddenly not so bad. After this game ended it was time for the craft group to teach the kids their craft that they had prepared. Me and my partner stayed together for this and we worked on the craft together. Another thing about this magical afternoon that made me so so happy was, when we first started the craft and the kids were told to write their names on the paper plates, she wrote both of our names on ours. This really was just a simple little thing and she probably didn’t even think about it before she did it, but there was something about how innocently she did this and how big her smile was when she did it, made me the happiest person in the world in that magical moment.
This brings me to the point in the story where I will mention the second reason why I think Ina and her work is so so cool. While we were working on this craft it started raining pretty hard so Ina and Rachael decided that we should leave because the roads would be a mess for our bus to get through if we waited too long. So anyways, when Ina told the kids this, they obviously were not very happy about it, but they immediately listened to what she told them to do and started cleaning up what they were working on. This really wasn’t a big deal for either Ina or the kids but it really showed me again how good she is at what she does. So sadly, after saying goodbye and taking some last pictures with our beautiful new friends, we slowly got on the bus to go back to the base.
The whole ride home all I could think about was how much I loved that afternoon and how excited I am to go back. It wasn’t until the next day though, when talking with Rachael that I realized how much of a good thing Ina’s village is and how much Ina has given up so that she could give her love and life to that village. I will now tell you a bit about Ina and her village based on what I learned from talking with Rachael, so that you might possible be able to share in some of the magic.
Ina is originally from Missouri but then worked in Boston (United States) and she used to have a very high up job in the public education system. Around ten years ago, she sold everything and moved to Cercadillo (which we call Ina’s village). She decided to move here because she had visited the area on a short term missions trip and fell in love with the village. The village is mostly made up of Haitian families or descendants of Haitian families who most likely used to be cane cutters. Even though the majority of these families live with very little money, Ina never gives anything out for free as a way to make sure that these families can begin to feel like they are supporting themselves.
Our afternoon spent in Ina’s village is my favourite thing that has happened on our trip so far, which is saying quite a lot considering how many wonderful things have happened each and every day. I didn’t realize it until the afternoon was over, but that place and those people are a fantastic example of why I signed up for this trip. I have so much respect for Ina and all that she does to bring the love of Jesus to the people of the Dominican Republic. She has done this is a huge way and has been able to reach a whole village and if I am able to at all come close to bringing this same selfless love to even one person throughout the next six weeks then I will have done what I have come to do. My goal is not to come in as a rich Canadian and save people, my goal is to bring Jesus to people by showing happiness in everything I am asked to do. I think I knew that this was my goal before I came here, but it has suddenly become much more clear after my experience on Saturday.
Thanks for reading :)
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| Fish craft led by the craft group |
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| One girl, Alina, (who has hung out with iBlock groups since the first one in 2010) asked repeatedly for, "Head and Shoulders" (she said it in English). She is the one in the pink shirt. Juliana was the top choice to lead it! |
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| "Floor!" |
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| Ina. Classic Ina. Caught in the middle as the game begins. |
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| The beginning of the piggyback race. Might Laura be cheating? |
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| Piggyback race! |
Sunday, 12 March 2017
Canadian and Dominican Differences | laura
Hey everybody,
So I’m Laura aka Dora and I was told in order to receive a co-op credit I need to write this, SOO here we go :) I’m currently listening to Jon Pardi (shout out to Monica, Rebecca and Allyson miss ya’ll), and I have been thinking about what to write my blog about all week. My blog is going to be a squish between two different but yet the same things. The ideas I wanna talk about is how the Dominican idolizes the US which ties into the huge differences between home and here.
I want to write this kind of chronologically, so I will start with the minute we walked off the airplane. I was one of the last people off our little plane so I got to see a group of predominately white teenagers with grey shirts reading “Dominican Republic 2017” walk down between two yellow lines on the tarmac. I passed by a man working at the airport said hello and instantly felt guilt. I had no idea where this guilt was coming from at first, but it was from the simple thought that the second we left the plane we had a superiority over them. The “Americans” were here to save the day.
After trying to get the airport workers to let us carry our own bags, we grouped into a bus waiting to bring us to the base. While sitting on the bus beside Nadine taking it all in, there was this house that caught my eye. It was this little cabin-like, probably two bedroom house which was so insanely nice, but I didn't think much of it. A few minutes later I had this crazy realization, my worldview had changed in a matter of just one hour. At home in Canada that house would have been rundown and trashy, but here it was just the top of the top. That was the first of my many big realizations.
As we continued to drive to the base we were told we could wave out the windows, so obviously that’s what we did as we sang along to camp songs. People would wave and smile the biggest smiles back to us. My heart was so full! Then the second realization of superiority hit, we were a big fancy bus in the middle of an old dirt road throwing ourselves out the window yelling “Hola!”. What must these people be thinking? That we were tourists making a joke of their everyday lives? Personally I know that if I saw a big bus of tourists with “Canada 2017” on their shirts yelling and waving, I’d think they were all insane! Dominican is such a warm country in the way they treat each other and outsiders. They most likely aren't thinking that way. They are just happy and welcoming to everyone all the time, which sadly is very different from the typical Canadian way of life.
My next little wow moment happened the first Monday in the Dominican. We were split into groups to go on a scavenger hunt which allowed us to leave the base for the first time. Rach put one boy in each group, and to be honest I was kind of cheesed. Like come on, we girls are quite independent, there’s no way anything could go wrong. At 4:15, only fifteen minutes before we had to go back to the base, I had as Liv called it, “The most innocent moment ever” I mentioned how I thought it was so polite that the cars honked before they passed one another, as they honk ALL THE TIME, which is so different than at home. Liv looked at me then said laughing and borderline sarcastically, “Laura, no ones passing each other, they’re honking at us.” It was in that moment I understood why we needed a guy with us. It was a symbol that we were virtually untouchable. This showed me that the Dominican is a male dominated society, and just having a boy with us made the rest of us three girls less of a target. Thanks Johnny you did great.
A couple of days after, a group of us were talking with Rachael and the chaps about why we need to be with a boy at all times when outside the base. As Canadian females (and males) we represent the “American dream” as seen in movies. You know the ones, the white picket fence, perfect family, dream jobs, and happiness with money in abundance. If a Dominican man could somehow marry one of us, he could achieve this standard of living, that little do they know as humans in a sinful world, even us as North Americans cannot achieve. Even the youth in this culture understand this mindset early on. On Tuesday, Chelsea went to teach and came to the dinner table with a story. That day, she had a grade eight boy boldly ask her to marry him and fly with her back to Canada. This is just a small taste of the so called “cat calling” us twelve girls have received.
Last Wednesday when driving to our third base of Guaymate, I got the opportunity to talk with the wise owl that is Max. I asked him how come so many of the store names were in English. His answer was a simple four word answer, America rules the world. Everywhere are signs of American power. We are not recognized as Canadian, but ‘Americanos’. American cartoons represent the lottery which is understandable as if they win, there’s the opportunity to leave the Dominican in a hurry. Another prime example is the Paso sign which is actually an American dollar. Believe me, the first breakfast noticing we were eating a $145 loaf cake was pretty crazy, then I learned, in reality it was only three dollars American. Again, America in itself represents a life of bliss.
Please don't get me wrong, the Canadian to the Dominican ways of life are also so very similar, Canada is in no way a better country than the Dominican Republic. Both societies on one hand have an abundance of wealth, but also experience great poverty which have their own pluses and minuses. After being here for fifteen days, I have learnt so much about cultural differences and how to attempt to fit in as a sixteen year old Canadian girl. The way to do so is to show love, interest, and mercy. We are here to serve and be blended into their culture by leaving ours back in Canada. What I have noticed and learned may have been shockers in the moment but they are just prime learning opportunities to reflect on and push us out of our comfort zones. The Dominican is a beautiful country with culture bursting out the seams, I think them idolizing the United States is such a shame. A life full of wanting can’t be the life they are meant to live. I hope in the next six weeks our little group of twenty-three has plenty of these little wow moments to share during circle time. Seems to be that wow moments are the best way to learn. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my about thoughts and experiences. :)
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| View from the roof |
Saturday, 11 March 2017
Construction Overview | rachael
In the absence of an iBlock team that year, a short-term March break team was formed. We came with some money and a willingness to work. While we were there we were able to tell Magaly that we had money to buy a plot of land and build a house: her reaction was beyond exciting. She was pumped – she even joined us in digging and preparing the foundation.
This year our job is to finish this house, which is quite the task. Last week we arrived to 6 courses of block laid on the foundation that we had dug and poured last year; that’s a good start!
Last Thursday Jonathan, Olivia, Megan, Christine and Jesse were the first of our group to hit up the construction site; they needed to move 550 blocks from the road up into the house. The next day I was there with Brian, Tim, Nadine, Danielle, Laura, Maddy, Chelsea, Jessica and Laura. We worked on forming rebar columns, mixing cement with ChiChi (a local who is a tank) and making sure the block layers had what they needed. Our goal was to make the block layers’ work as efficient as possible. Danielle, Maddy. Chelsea and Jessica became especially good at anticipating what the block layer would need.
We got back to work in construction on Monday. There has been very little teaching for us this week – we’ve gone full-on in house-building mode. A couple of days this week we’ve had 4-6 students teach but for two days we have had the whole team of 23 at the construction site and the other 3 days we’ve had the majority of the team there. The students might not know this yet but this is their intense construction week. There will not be as much construction as there has been this week.
By last Monday all the block for all the walls were laid. This meant we could focus on laying the columns and lentils. At each intersecting corner we needed a rebar tower of appropriate lengths installed (four pieces of rebar with rings every 8-10 inches and each ring is tied to each of the four corners of the tower). Then we have to form around each rebar column; we need to get pieces of wood around the edge of the tower and attach it to the existing block wall. This sounds simple and, in theory, it is, but it is time consuming. Very time consuming. There were at least 15 or so columns to make, form and pour.
In addition to vertical columns we also need to have enough rebar towers for the top of each existing wall; the perimeter and the main inside dividing wall as this will support the peak of the roof. The entire perimeter of the house is only 20 x 30 but, again, forming all the beams for this is a lot of finicky, time-consuming work.
It took 4.5 days to complete this all - on three of the days 8-10 students and Brian, Jesse and I were there but on Wednesday and Thursday we had the entire crew of 23 diligently working on this house (plus Conroy - one of Max’ friends from Stratford, a former contractor and roofer and his wife, Kim). Many students spent many hours forming columns and beams, making a plethora of rebar towers, hauling water, mixing concrete, setting and cleaning up and, pouring columns and what seemed to be the most fun: bucket lines. You see, ChiChi would mix the concrete. One or two students would be assigned to help shovel and fill up the buckets and most of the rest of the students would be in the bucket line - they would pass the buckets with concrete to the people pouring the beams/columns and pass the empty buckets back. Kyanna, Chelsea, Juliana and Danielle always made this a good time. The chaps and I are continually amazed at how many lyrics they know! Lots of singing is always done in the bucket lines and it is just plain hard to not smile as they make their work fun. And, for those who are curious, most of the time this singing fun did not detract from productivity! Juliana started a ‘thing’ where any time an empty bucket was coming she’d sing (in a tune she made up herself), “Oh, throw it back!” as a warning to the folks that an empty bucket was incoming. You know it is catchy and works when that line is sung even in her absence!
While the concrete is being passed, there were students forming the columns/beams. Their job was to hoist buckets up to the columns and pour the concrete in, get rid of any really big rocks and use rebar to force the concrete down the columns/beams were as solid as possible and use a trowel (or, as many students refer to it, the ‘pie scoop thing’) to smooth out the top. They then need to put smaller rebar pieces in the top so we can affix lumber for the roof or further block on it.
The overall philosophy behind our construction project is a balance between learning and productivity. The students were told back in Canada already that my goal is to get as many students to learn as many construction skills as possible, but, at times, that is sacrificed for productivity. My terms are that I have “democracy” mode where we have time to learn and experience and “dictator” mode where I’ll pull people off jobs and put others on for the sake of productivity.
Overall most students hauled buckets, learned how to tie rebar and form and remove columns. Most students have now used a hammer drill, a regular drill, a skill saw and a hacksaw. Many students have worked on levelling the floor, hauled water and been sent on trips to the hardware store to use their minimal Spanish to communicate and get various supplies (rebar, nails, rebar ties, wall sockets so we could try to fix our extension cord). All students have experienced multiple new things over the past week. It almost seems trite to summarize our week in such few tasks, however, that is just how it is. It is hard to describe the time involved in getting the house ready for its roof but, as mentioned previously, this took many student-hours. On Thursday Max, Conroy and Kim all went to Guaymate for the day so it was just our entire group at the construction site. The chaps and I ran a good show that day. I had already decided the night before that Thursday was going to be a long day: the kids needed to be pushed a bit and we had to have the forms all poured by Saturday so block could be laid so we could put the roof up on Monday. Anyhow, we worked with rebar, buckets, concrete, forms, tools and pouring from 8:30 - 6:30 on Thursday and again until 6 on Friday. We have put in long days to get this house to where it needs to be and, so far, it has paid off!
Here are specific observations for each student from our construction week:
Kyanna: diligently used mortar to patch holes in the block and beam work, diligently worked on rebar
Christine: on the day she spent moving block she carried one in each hand all day! Overall, a willing workhorse!
Danielle: a great water hauler, but, somehow, she always found a way to cool her legs down :D. A diligent worker on rebar and pushed herself to use electrical tools for forms.
Jessica: a fantastic shoveler - she has the technique down! She also learned how to anticipate what the block layers needed and did a fine job helping them be efficient.
Maddy: continually pushed herself to carry and do more - on Saturday, even though it was exhausting, she challenged herself to keep carrying two block at a time
Juliana: the rebar maestra (boss/expert) - she oversaw the creation of rebar towers. She made the measurements on the house and ensured each tower of appropriate length was being made. She learned how to anticipate and prioritize so the columns were created in an efficient order.
Nadine: a fabulous pick-axer as she worked on levelling the floor, a great hauler and shoveler and worked well with Johnny to build forms
Olivia: wanted to try to do everything! She became comfortable with power tools, especially when removing forms, poured a beam and was diligent in all other tasks
Lauren: a great pick-axer as she levelled the floor, worked well on forming, consistently helped on rebar and is great at shovelling
Chelsea: also wanted to try everything but she stands out as cutting a lot of rebar with a hacksaw (not an easy task), and boldly communicating at the hardware store
Megan: worked on everything: forming, removing forms, hauling, rebar. I think this is a good thing that she doesn’t stand out on one thing as she consistently worked hard at, almost, everything
Laura: diligently worked on making good forms, cutting rebar, made bucket lines fun, helped block layers, shovelled...similar to Megan. Worked well at a plethora of tasks.
Harry: spent a lot of time making and pouring some forms but was also willing to do anything else required
Brad: also spent a great deal of time making forms. There was a corner form that he worked on with Laura which was a tricky task but they persevered and #figureditout
Jon: worked very well with a local as they oversaw the levelling of the floor in a couple of the rooms! (this included tamping the room by hand with a block)
Tim: consistent worker, especially as he worked on making forms. He also spent most of one day shadowing ChiChi (hauling cement and mixing both mortar and concrete)
Eric: can’t beat around the bush on this one: he quickly became the form master. He learned how they worked and showed an incredible ability to problem solve to create forms efficiently.
Sarah, Ashley, Britt: capably ran various aspects of the job: they worked on seeing bottlenecks and fixing them as necessary so overall productivity could continue. They did a great job of overseeing the forming of rebar columns and the bucket lines.
Jesse and Brian: they have been integral and pivotal. They have done an excellent job of teaching the students how to use power tools, make forms, pour columns and how to think. They rarely give answers, rather, they encourage students to problem solve but they have developed a beautiful sense on when students are beyond this and just need to be told what to do next. Brian and Jesse have led by example without taking over. But, when push comes to shove and we just needed something done, they’ve jumped right in.
Regarding all 5 chaperones: it is plain and simple, they are incredible construction chaperones. They understand the philosophy of this trip. They are not crutches on which the students rely, rather, they are shovels that push students to learn and experience. Through this, our group is well on our way to building a house. Great job!
I’m going to post a plethora of pictures of various students working on various things. Enjoy!
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| A typical construction lunch setup |
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| Pouring a form |
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| Pouring a form |
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