Luke McSween Oviedo, Barahona, Dominican Republic 2019

My Trip to Oviedo, Barahona, Dominican Republic 

Luke McSween

                

In-Country Training: 

              On June 2nd of this past summer, eleven other volunteers from different parts of the US and I landed in the capital Santo Domingo. All of us were from parts of the US that did not have a local chapter, so we had been sent five days ahead of the 30 other volunteers to complete training in a convent. The first culture shock I experienced were the road laws, or the lack thereof. We had arrived at night, and I remember being astonished at how chaotic the roads were. There were no road lines separating lanes, and everyone swerved within inches of each other. Soon we arrived at the compound we would be completing our training in. In the small but spacious compound with no AC and no shortage of mosquitos, we formed a close group as we completed different activities. We had quite a few soccer players as well, so we bonded by spending our free time playing games and juggling.

               The compound itself was made up of four buildings: a dining hall, the tenant's house, the church, and a mysterious small meeting building. We only had access to the church (which held our rooms on the second floor) and the dining hall. In the dining hall we had our first experiences of the local foods, which included lots of rice, beans, and plantains. The coffee was very rich as well. The dorms were old, and there were no windows to keep out the bugs, only wooden shudders. We put up mosquito nets around our beds to protect us at night. We soon learned that the lack of hot water showers would not be such a bad thing, as the heat kept us awake each night.  

                While we were staying at the compound, I was bitten by a spider on my right ankle. At first I had mistaken it for a mosquito bite, but in a day my ankle had doubled in size and was too painful to walk on. I had not seen the spider, so for the next couple of days I was told to watch for any side-effects in case it was poisonous. As you can probably guess, waiting to see if you're in danger or not is not fun. Fortunately, no side-effects came up in Santo Domingo. 

                 Barahona (the name of the southern region of the Dominican Republic as well as the major city in the region) was a different story. After meeting up with the thirty volunteers that had completed the training in country at a hotel, we drove four hours to a hotel in Barahona. This hotel was much nicer than the compound and even had hot water and AC. We spent five days in this hotel doing different activities more oriented towards life in community, such as purifying water and community rules.

                On our last day at this hotel, I came down with a fever. My ankle had fully recovered by this point, so I wasn't worried about there being a connection between the two. But the counselors wanted to make sure there was no connection, so I was taken to a private hospital. The hospital gave me a pill to take for my fever and told us to come back the next day if I wasn't feeling better. Fortunately, I didn't need to return. 

                On the last day before going into community they tell you who your partner is and which community you were assigned to. To help determine your partner and community, an interview was conducted for each volunteer the day before in which you could request a partner. Because of my visit to the hospital, I was unable to attend the big reveal. In the cab on the way to the hospital I was told that I would be working in Oviedo with Sam, a freshman that I had never talked to. At the time I was annoyed that I hadn't been put with one of my friends. But by the end of the 3 weeks in community, Sam and I had become good friends.

Sam

 Driving to Community:

                    On June 9th, all forty volunteers were crammed into two guaguas, the public buses. One bus headed into the mountain communities, while the other headed to the coastal communities. My community Oviedo is considered a coastal community being an hour from the coast. We started off about 8:00 am, all of us nervous to see what types of communities we would be working in. My community was one of the last stops, so I was able to see many of the other communities. Each community was strikingly different. Some were situated on ledges with a beautiful view of the sea, some were actually on the shore, and some, like my community, were much more inland with scattered farms. In each community, you could see little boys walking around in groups, with varying amounts of clothing. There were also people sitting by the streets talking with neighbors, which I would later spend many hours doing myself.

                    When we finally arrived at Oviedo, I was a mix of emotions. I was excited, but also nervous. From the communities we had driven through and the training we had received, I did not know what level of development to expect. I was also nervous to meet my host mother, Maria. The challenge of living in a house where no one understood English seemed daunting. Additionally, I was placed with Sam because I was one of the stronger Spanish speakers in the program, and Sam's Spanish wasn't very developed. 

                     As soon as I stepped off the bus, a tall woman with dyed orange hair came to greet us with a big smile on her face. She gave us a big hug before greeting our supervisor, Gabby, who had come to the community many times before to make sure the community was ready for my arrival. While my supervisor and Maria were talking, Sam and I unloaded our heavy bags. We followed our host mom into a pink house where we were directed into a room with two beds that our host mom had set up for us. Our host mom's son, Mario, greeted us in the living room as we walked through. He was a tall man around twenty-two years old. After a few minutes of chatting with our host mom, our supervisor left to drop off the next set of volunteers. And there we were, in a community we didn't know with people we had never met. It's amazing how things changed in those three weeks in community. 

My Home

First Day in Community: 

                    On our first day in community, our host mom invited the local youth helpers to meet us. The local youth helpers were teenagers our age in the community that worked directly with our program, AMIGOS. They were meant to help us with our three goals in community: our daily camp, our volleyball team, and our project. Our jóvenes or local youth helpers were Alexis, Ariel, Sidney, and Juan Louis. We all met that afternoon in our host mom's kitchen to discuss our plans going forward. During this meeting, Sam and I also gave out gifts from our home states. I gave our host mom and new friends GooGoo chocolate bars and Predators T-shirts, while Sam brought pictures of the Golden State Bridge. 

                     Later that day we met our neighbor Yaya, a sweet, small lady who was good friends with Maria. Yaya's easy nature set us at ease as we talked with her about our work in community as well as our own homes. We loved talking with Yaya. We met with her every day for coffee and had several meals with her. 

                     After meeting Yaya, our host mom brought us to the government-built basketball and volleyball arena, which had lights. In this arena, the boys played basketball until 7:00 pm every week day, after which a girl's volleyball team would practice till 9:00 pm. For a while Sam and I sat with our host mom in the stands watching the boys play, until I decided to try and play myself. A boy named Juan Pablo greeted me and asked me if I wanted to play. Soon I was playing in a game of three on three. 

Playing 3 on 3

                     That night we had what would become our favorite meal: hot chocolate with bread. Our host mom had been a cook at one point, so all of her food was very good. Maria also helped us set up our mosquito nets over our beds. Fortunately, our room had a powerful fan. 

My Mosquito Net

                     During my first day, I had struggled with the local people's Spanish. I could get by in conversations, like our meeting with the jovenes, but vocabulary and dialect proved to be a challenge. 

Our Goals in Community:

                    In community, we had three main objectives: to establish a camp for kids, to create and practice with a volleyball team for a tournament, and to complete a community project with a 12,000 peso budget. 

                    The camp was intended to teach core ideals, such as teamwork and respecting the environment, to kids between the ages six to twelve. But because there were so few kids the first couple of days, we didn't turn anyone away. During a meeting with the jovenes, we decided to hold the camps in the park from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm. While we would have liked to use the local school, the principal was difficult to deal with, so we decided that the park would be better.

(Back row) Alexis, Sidney, Gabby, Luke, Sam, Ariel

                     However, the park was very broken down and had trash and glass everywhere. Sam and I borrowed brooms from our host mom to clear the glass from the center pavilion area. 

The Park

                        During camp, we would play games like Telephone or, their favorite, Duck-Duck-Goose ("Perro, Perro, Gato" as we called it).

"Perro, Perro, ¡Gato!"

                    Due to the ages of our kids, as well as their small attention spans, we couldn't play games that required a lot of explaining. Plus our local helpers turned out to be difficult to work with and wouldn't show up to camps, making it even harder to communicate complex games. Using a soccer ball I had brought with me, I taught the kids to play soccer. The main sports in the community were basketball and volleyball; they had never played soccer before. So each day at the start of camp I would play soccer with the kids until everyone had arrived.    
                    While a lot of kids would come some days and be absent others, I made some close bonds with a lot of kids in the community. One boy named Wriley came early every day to try and beat us to camp. I could always count on him to participate in our games, even if he was difficult at times.

Wriley and I trying snapchat filters

                    I also became good friends with two boys named Emilio and Christopher, who lived across the street from us. During the last week I helped set up a make-shift basketball goal outside their house using some string I had. We played basketball for a while, and the neighbors came out to watch us. The last night in community, I started a baseball game with them and a couple other kids, using a stick and plastic ball with random objects as the plates. We were having so much fun that the neighbors again came out to watch us. One neighbor gave us a small baseball bat to use as well. One time I picked a laughing Emilio up off second base and ran with him back to first so he couldn't advance. I still remember the laughs from all the neighbors as they joined in and yelled for Emilio to hurry up and go to third.

Emilio and I

Christopher and his sister

                        For our volleyball team, Sam and I spoke to the coach of the girl's team that practiced in the sports complex. There were two volleyball teams in Oviedo, but the other one practiced in the park (where there were no working lights) and was composed of older people. For the team, we had to have 5 guys and 5 girls, to promote gender equality, and the 9 other communities were each going to send a team to Oviedo for the tournament. The volleyball coach, Angel Louis, loved the event and took over the planning for us. He let us practice with the team each night and also reached out to the other volleyball team to enlist three more players (as Sam and I had to be part of the team).

Practice with the volleyball team

                        The tournament was a huge success as everyone was excited to prove their community had the best volleyball team. My team was able to win the tournament, and we received medals as a reward. At the end, the leaders of AMIGOS talked about the importance of equality to all the players.

                         My favorite goal, however, was our project. The AMIGOS organization stressed the importance of the idea that the local helpers should choose the project as they actually know the community; this was our only condition for the project. With a 12,000 peso budget, the local helpers decided that fixing the lights in the park's volleyball court would be our project. Lots of people played or watched volleyball there each afternoon until the sun went down. If the lights were fixed, they would be able to play much longer.
                          While we had a clear goal in mind, the main obstacles were finding a store that sold the materials and finding the person that could do the job. Fortunately, the local helpers knew of a guy who lived in community who could do the job. We weren't able to collect the materials until after Sam and I had left community, but the project was still completed!

Our Project

Debriefing:

                     After three weeks in Oviedo, both Sam and I were sad to go. Maria had been the best host mom, and we were very sad to leave her amazing food and great company. Before we boarded the bus, Maria reminded us that we would always have a home in Oviedo, and that we could come back any time.

Luke, Maria, Mario, and Maribal

                 All forty volunteers met up at a hotel for two days of debriefing. We shared tons of amazing and crazy stories from our time in community. It was another hard goodbye as we all went our separate ways.

Thanks:

                I would like to give a huge thank you to the Wilson family. Without your support, I would never have met such amazing people. I learned so much about a different country as well as myself during this trip. I am extremely grateful for the many relationships with both people in the community and in the AMIGOS program that the Wilson family has allowed me to create.