Our day started yesterday with breakfast at 8am as usual. Before we began, Father Bob asked if we would eat our meal in silence so that we may reflect on the gifts we have especially in comparison to those we are serving. To make his point, he reminded us that the cost of each of our meals was roughly equivalent to three days salary of many workers in the area. Also, malnutrition is such a concern that in the roughly 375 children in the world likely died in the amount of time it took us to eat. A humbling way to start the day.
Further, he asks us if we would also take on the challenge of fasting in between meals on this day. Not a problem given the circumstances.
Then as a group, we are led into two of the poorest neighborhoods called Tin City. It is a part of town by the river where most of the homes are shacks made of pieces of tin or whatever other building materials could be scraped together to get a roof over their heads. The area flood frequently as the river always overflows when it rains -- and it rained on our first night in the Dominican. Needless to say, sanitation is a very big challenge and concern. We tour the area, walk down to the river, and here more stories about the lives of the people who live their, not because they want to but because they have no other choice given their circumstances.
We leave Tin City to visit el mercado (the market), which is their equivalent to Cleveland's West Side market in that you can get almost anything you want fresh from the outdoor market. Except it is not indoors; it is basically a very long couple of blocks with the street closed off and vendor stands set up in the middle, with two 'grocery store aisles' if you will. As is always the case, the streets are chaotic with people, cars, and motor scooters everywhere. Yes amongst the food they were trying to sell. If there are traffic laws, noone obeys them at all. It kind of reminds me of some of the back streets of New York only less clean, more chaotic, etc. This was a very interesting yet very disgusting experience. The chicken vendors, for example, had his stand on one side of his shop and the live chickens in a coop on the other side of the shop. Plus side: freshest meat possible. Otherwise, not a very pleasant sight. I did the biggest carrots I have ever seen in my life at el mercado. I'm looking around for some Tums after this brief visit and questioning the sanitation of everything I eat from now on!
When we finally get to the work site at about 11:30am, we get right to work. I started in the medical center and we set up to begin seeing patients. Another local volunteer doctor will see 9-10 more families today. Things are orderly and very under control so I didn't spend long here. I left to go shovel more gravel, which is needed to be placed along the base of the homes to improve drainage to try to reduce or eliminate the black mold that is growing there and causing respiratory problems for the residents. My last job for the day was to shovel sand into the sand box.
We got a special treat at lunch. Something different than the usual PBJ, plus ice cream! Our lunch is actually a hot meal of chicken and rice, mixed veggies (brocolli, beans and carrots) and pineapple.
Since New Year's Eve is always very festive and even possibly dangerous for tourists who don't know the customs, we head to the Bishop's compound on the mount for a retreat for a couple hours. We have a festive ride up to the mount with the driver blasting his music and us dancing around in our seats. After waiting a few minutes to get inside the compound, we head to the chapel for prayer, reflection, and sharing of experiences so far. Father Bob helps us send a voice mail message home to our families sharing our best wishes for the new year -- hope it was received at my house! And we also spend about a half hour in small group prayer which is a really great discussion about personal experiences from this past day.
We finish up and get ready for another surprise.... Our group was invited to a dinner provided gratis as a way to thank you for the work we are doing here in the Dominican. We are welcomed by their senator and Sister Ana shares a note of special thanks from the Pope as well. Way cool!
We are supposed to finish this New Year's Eve night at midnight mass at the Basilica de la Altagracia at midnight. As we are finishing dinner at about 10:50pm, Father Bob tells us that he was told mass begins at 11pm, so we all dash out for a brisk walk through the streets of the Dominican (remember, I mentioned the controlled chaos of street activity, so this was a risk for us at this hour on New Year's Eve in a foreign land!). We make it there in time and all take our seats together. We admire the fantastic architecture and enjoy the speaking and the singing. About 45 minutes into it, Father Bob comes in to get us and tells us that this is the prayer service and not the actual mass, which was to begin at midnight as originally thought. Since it is a long day, we decide to head back to the hotel. We get there at about midnight so we get a chance for a mini celebration in front of the hotel.
As you can see, December 31st was quite a long day! Even so, it was awesome to get such a full and complete range of experiences and emotions, shared with a group that has come together with a common purpose to and serve others.
New Year's Day. We get to sleep in an extra hour with our 9am breakfast time. Same meal, different day. We learn that today we will head to the beach this afternoon which is quite a treat especially for the teens! My job today is cement. We have quite a large group for the task of laying a 10-inch foundation for the vocation center. I did a variety of needed tasks like getting buckets of water, preparing rebar, pushing the wheelbarrow, etc. The task I did the most was to shovel gravel into the cement mixer. We almost broke the cement mixer at one point but the guys got it back up and running thank goodness! We finish up and head out to the beach at about 3:30pm. I wasn't going to go to the beach because I thought there was an option to stay and work. Apparently that wasn't in the cards, so going to the beach sounded much better than going back to the hotel. We spent two hours at the beach and I did get some beautiful pictures. Speaking of, I will go back and add pictures to this blog when I get back home. For those who know me, I have a ton!
We come back from the beach and go straight to dinner at Pala Pizza. Everyone is thrilled to have yet another night of something different than our normal hotel food for dinner.
Our last activity of the day was to walk over to the Basilica for mass, which is something we were supposed to do at the work site earlier in the day. Turns out the Basilica is not open at this time (about 8:30am, but Father Bob has arranged for us to get inside the gates to celebrate mass on the steps up to the church. It is an absolutely perfect night, with a clear sky and a bright shaining moon directly in our view. It is only about 20 minutes long and is the best ever......
As I said earlier, the past two days have been amazing. I did remember my family back home who I haven't had a chance to talk to, but to whom I text my well wishes for the new year.
Happy 2010!
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