MOVE: Dominican Republic Trip

This past week I got back from one of the best experiences of my life. I along with 11 other Saint Mike's students and staff went down to the Dominican Republic for a service trip. We left at 3:45 on Saturday morning which was a little rough but luckily we were able to sleep on the flights and three hour ride to Ocoa. Buy the time we got to where we were staying for the night it was time for dinner then we went to the park. It was quite an experience. There was music playing and people just hanging out. I've never seen a park so busy but I guess it's the place to be on a Friday and Saturday night.

The next morning we woke up, went to church, visited a senior center than made our way to the village we would be staying at for the week. We stayed in the village of Los Corozo which has 75 families and is about an hour outside of the city of Ocoa. The view from the village was great seeing as it is surrounded by mountains. We worked with Adesjo which is an organization that tries to maintain the rural way of live for people of the DR. Without them more people would end up moving to the slums in cities which would be much worse for them. Adesjo tries to help them become self sufficient by doing many different projects including educating adults, building aqueducts, and helping create irrigation systems. The main task though is building houses for needy families. The communities vote on which family gets the house which I think is pretty cool.

My best friend for the week, Daniel.
During our week there we bonded with the entire community and built most of a house. We ran out of supplies since they had to go to the capital in order to get more but the community will finish it for us. We had a lot of fun too. We danced to merengue most nights and played volleyball with the village. We tried playing the US vs Dominicans. It didn't go well. We also went on a hike which was really fun. There was even some rock climbing at the end.

One of the views from the hike

Hard at work painting the house

Before we knew if Friday came and it was time to leave. The village threw a party for us the night before which shows just how close we became. There were lots of tears when we were leaving and we all are determined to go back at some point to visit everyone. Before going home we spent one more night in Ocoa and went to a billiard hall which was a great last group bonding activity. We traveled all day Saturday and made it back to campus by 1am on Sunday. By midday I already was missing the sound of the roosters and donkeys and the wonderful meals that our cook made for us. It was an amazing week and i feel like I didn't do the week justice in this post. I highly recommend that you applis for the trip next year if you're interested in service!
Peeling some guandules

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Milford Track!

Image
First day At 4:45 Sunday morning I started my journey back to the south island to hike the Milford Track . It is a four day hike through Fiordland National Park that ends at Milford Sound. I went there by myself since no one else really seemed by for the journey. By 2pm I was on the boat that takes the walkers to the start of the track. Only 40 people are allowed to hike independently per day. There is also a guided walk option but they stay at different lodges. Looking around the boat I noticed that most of the people hiking were couples. After taking some picture though I noticed that there were some people my age. There were two girls from Sweden that are taking a gap year between high school and college. I also met Tyler who is from St. Lewis. He graduated college and is traveling around for a year before settling down. We ended up hiking together the whole time and also hiked with the girls a lot of the time. The crew The first day was an easy 1 hour hike to the first hut...
Read more

Macklemore and Sam

Image
Last night was our spring concert. This year we had Macklemore which is the biggest act we have gotten in years. Needless to say everyone was really excited for the show and we've all been looking forward to it ever since it was announced. Sadly, my good friend and suit mate Sam was diagnosed with leukemia last week and has to stay in the hospital for a month for treatment. The doctors are fairly confident that he will pull though but it's still a really crappy situation. We all knew that Sam was looking forward to the concert so one of his best friends, Justin, said we should try and get Macklemore to visit Sam in the hospital. I thought it was a long shot but figured we could give it a try. I messaged my friend who is on the programming committee and in charge of the concert to explain the situation and he passed on the message to Macklemore and his people. On Monday we visited Sam and he mentioned the concert so another one of Sam's friends, Dana, decided to take the cam...
Read more

Firefly Spotlight: Top Five Most Anticipated

Image
There are tons of great bands playing Firefly this year covering a wide variety of genres. Every time I look at the lineup I seem to find an artist that I either forget was playing this year or didn't even know was on the lineup. I've been thinking a lot lately about who I'm most excited to see and I think I have narrowed it down to my top five (in no particular order since that was making it way too difficult). 1. The Weeknd- I've really been enjoying his Starboy album and he was on my list of people I wanted to try and get to see this year before the lineup was dropped. I think it's going to be a great high energy show. "False Alarm" is one of my favorite songs off his new album and I can't wait to dance like crazy when that song plays. 2. The Strumbellas - If you aren't familiar with The Strumbellas you should absolutely check them out. "Spirits" is a good place to start. They have a sound that is similar to The Lumineers and I th...
Read more