Blogs

These last couple weeks have been some of my most stressful and thought provoking yet.  As a group we made a trip to the Dominican-Haitian border to see the market that happens two times a week.  A bridge in the DR is opened and Haitians are allowed into the country from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. to buy and sell any goods they may possibly need to survive the rest of the week.  The sense of desperation these people gave off was heart breaking.  Not only were they rushing into the DR but as soon as they had finished their business there, they were in just the same rush to get back.  The poverty we experienced was eye opening, it was like nothing I had seen before.

As I have mentioned before my service site is at an elementary school in a barrio called Cienfuego ... Read More »

I have just recently returned from my immersion in a Campo (a poor rural villiage) and had the expereince of a lifetime.  I keep thinking that I could be in Omaha right now but instead I am hiking mountains, going to the beach and living in an entirely different culture.  The Campo I lived in for 10 days was in the mountains on the northern coast of the DR and from where we were the scenery was amazing.  We could see more mountains and valleys and the ocean on the clear days.  The people were amazing also.  They brought us into their homes as if we were family.  We were fed so much food, we didn't even know what to do with it all.Read More »

I have now been down in Santiago, Dominican Republic for three and a half weeks and I am having a great time.  The culture is completely different than back in the United States, everything is a bit more relaxed and easy going.  I have been getting used to power outages, hurricane season (we are pretty protected by the mountains so all we really get is rain), bugs and roosters crowing at all hours of the day.  I have been volunteering at an elementary school in a poor neighborhood helping teach kids English.  It is amazing how lacking their education system is, classrooms don't have the suplies they need but they are making the best of what they have.  The kids are so much fun and are full of questions and although I'm still just learning Spanish they are v ... Read More »