We were 15 students sick and tired of the gray Charlottesville winter, our minds stuffed with biochemical equations, quotes from Franklin and Dryden and facts about political systems in East Asia. We were ready to be free, ready to release our stress and worries for one blissful week. We were ready to party in the Dominican Republic.
Except we couldn't party. No dancing, no drinking, no cursing, no showing of intimate affection and we had to be quiet by 10 p.m.
Absolutely great.
For the majority of University students, the above rules did not apply to Spring Break and they most likely broke them consistently. For me and the 14 other participants in Alternative Spring Break's trip to Esperanza, Dominican Republic, these rules are symbols of one of the greatest weeks of our lives.
The arrival
Our plane landed in Santiago, Dominican Republic around 6 p.m. March 6. After meeting Tom Eklund, the executive director of Orphanage Outreach -- the organization we'd be working with -- we were ushered onto a bus and headed toward Esperanza, which was about an hour away from the airport.
As we rode through chaotic traffic, a Canadian volunteer, Curtis (but known to everyone as "Miguel") gave us the scoop on the orphanage. La Casa Hogar Buen Samaritano Para Ninos Huerfanos was run by Dominican Pentecostals, and therefore rules would be strict. The orphanage housed 20 boys, ranging between three and 18 years of age. We were warned to only drink bottled water, assured that the food was excellent and told that the threat of malaria was not that great.
The orphanage
We pulled into the orphanage around 8 p.m., passing by the blue and green painted orphanage and stopping at the volunteer side of the grounds. We unloaded our luggage and were shown to where we would sleep. The sleeping quarters were called "ramadas," long structures with cement floors, tin roofs, and chain link walls covered with ply-boards and blue tarps. Inside were bunk beds covered in mosquito nets. This would be our home.
Across from the sleeping ramadas was the dining and meeting ramada, in which we found a delicious meal of chicken, rice, tomatoes, cucumbers and the choice of water, lemonade or red Kool-Aid for a beverage.
We soon discovered that students from Central Michigan University, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill would be joining our group. This made the total number of American volunteers 72. Many people wondered if 72 volunteers were too many for an orphanage of 20 kids, but we soon discovered that there would be plenty to do.
What we did
After a quick orientation led by Eklund on Sunday morning, we were broken into threegroups: teaching, learning lab and work crew. Almost everyone got a chance to work within each.
The teaching team went to two local schools everyday and taught English vocabulary to both the children from the orphanage and other local children. Vocabulary topics included fruits, animals, clothes, body parts and greetings. Each teaching group had to think of creative ways to teach the students and since there was a language barrier -- many volunteers didn't speak Spanish -- the task was not an easy one. Games, songs and pictures were used, however, and soon both volunteers and the kids were having a great time and learning from each other. The Dominican teachers said they were relieved to have a break and honored to have Americans teach the children their language. Recess, however, was a favorite for both volunteers and students, who played volleyball, basketball and Duck, Duck, Goose.
In the learning labs, volunteers worked one-on-one with the orphanage kids, teaching and reviewing science and math and leading team-building activities. Sometimes frustrating, sometimes exciting, the learning lab was designed to assess the abilities and knowledge of each individual child, but often the volunteers and the kids had different ideas for the learning lab. Some students used the time to play and laugh as the volunteers frantically ran after them. Others were more diligent, showing their peers the difference in density between salt and fresh water, studying insect wings under the microscope and inventing clever ways to lead their blind-folded partners through an obstacle course.
The work crew did many projects around the orphanage's grounds under the supervision of Marta, an American volunteer, and Chavo, the orphanage's administrator. The projects included mending a fence, making a baseball field, mowing the grass in the orchard and digging a ditch to prevent run-off water from flooding the area. I mostly participated in this last group and welcomed the intense physical labor of lifting and digging, having been to Mem gym only twice during the school year. Indeed, I needed the exercise, but I was just a little sore at the end of each day.
The kids
An intelligent, hilarious and fun-loving bunch, the youth at the orphanage made me laugh and smile more than I had in a long time.
They were not afraid to correct my Spanish and to teach me new words at any moment. I was however, told by several of the kids that my Spanish was very good. I laughed and told them that they should tell that to my Spanish 202 teacher.
The younger kids were constantly jumping on our backs and shouting "caballo" (that's horse in Spanish) and thus we were expected to give them a piggy-back ride and run as fast as we could go. When one kid finally jumped off and ran away, another would be at your side wanting a ride. Being sore and out of shape, I could only go for a few rounds around the basketball court before I began to repeat over and over, "Estoy cansado" ("I'm tired"). Finally, they gave up and went to the next volunteer.
All the children loved to have their pictures taken.
Each kid was different. There was Zacheo, who never stopped running and chattering away, leading the volunteers to conclude that he had ADHD. There was Yefri, a 17-year-old who loved to joke and was rarely serious throughout the course of our stay. There was Jaury, who before anyone knew his name, seemed as if he was going around saying "howdy" to everyone. He loved to put on sunglasses and say "I'm a cool dude" -- one of the few English sentences he knew.
From these kids and others, I learned not to take things so seriously, to live in the moment and to cherish the people I had around me. One member of our group said that we probably benefited more from working with the kids than they did from us. We all agreed.
Diversions and excursions
Even though we soon fell into a comfortable routine at the orphanage and in the schools in Esperanza, we did more than just dig ditches and teach the English names of fruits. There were movie nights, an arts and crafts night and a game night when we were able to spend more time with the kids.
We also had events and activities exclusively for the volunteers like long hikes through the surrounding town, watching a historical movie on the Dominican Republic's turbulent history, walks to downtown Esperanza to taste some of the best ice cream I've ever had and attending a local baseball game.
On Friday, we had the ultimate field trip. We toured a cigar factory and rice factory and drove an hour and a half to Monte Cristi, where we got lunch in a local restaurant and then headed to the beach. The option to hike up onto the cliffs overlooking the ocean was offered and the cliffs provided breathtaking views. The rocky beach was beautiful -- a vivid contrast against the deep blue sky and the turquoise-blue ocean. Everyone swam and basked in the sun, and some of us even engaged in an intense sand fight. Our targets did not seem to appreciate being hit with wet clods of sand, so after the initial "attack" we kept at a distance.
The trip was concluded with a short visit to an orphanage in Monte Cristi, where another Alternative Spring Break group of University students were volunteering. There we learned what other volunteers had been up to for the past week and we had the opportunity to buy handmade candles which supported the orphanage.
We got back to Esperanza around 6 p.m., just in time for dinner, and we were glad to be back. We had started to call it home.
The departure
Leaving Esperanza the following morning seemed sudden. We had to get up at 5:30 a.m. in order to eat, pack and hop on the bus for the hour ride to the airport.
The night before, we spent a couple of hours hanging out with the kids and saying our goodbyes. Later, my fellow Wahoos and I had stayed up and reflected on our day, our week and our relationships with each other. We laughed and talked while laying back on the grass and gazing up at some of the brightest stars any of us had ever seen. The next morning we fought exhaustion as we made our way through the Santiago airport and onto the plane headed for Dulles Airport by way of Miami.
When the pilot announced our descent into Washington, D.C., I thought about all the homework, errands and chores that needed to be done once I got back to Charlottesville. I felt my stress level slowly begin to rise. Then I remembered the place from which we had come and remembered the Dominican way of life. Efficiency, punctuality and time management were not as valued there. Family and friends and cherishing the moment with those around you are more significant in Dominican culture. Sure, they value efficiency and all that, but they just realize there are more important things in life. I decided to adopt their way of thinking. My 14 new friends and I had brought from the Dominican Republic tans or sunburns, spiders and ants that had managed to crawl into our suitcases, an amazing adventure in a foreign country, better Spanish speaking skills and a new lease on life. So, I think that ultimately the kids really did give us more than we gave them.
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