Just thought I'd give you a taste of how I am living...so get ready to be jealous!!! Hahaha, just kidding. It is gorgeous here, and I love it, but I still have school and service and everything!
First, ILAC. That is where we live while we are here. It is a Jesuit Mission in the Dominican Republic that caters to the entire country, dealing a lot with health issues in the communities up in the mountains and in the campos. By increasing health care and making the lives of the people living in the campos easier, they are decreasing the population in the big cities. People can stay up in their own villages because many now have running water and better health care thanks to the efforts that the mission puts forward. We help with this, too. Next week will be our first immersion into the campos. Our group goes to a campo that needs help, and we each stay with a family, and do service during the day. This time around, we are going to build an aqueduct so the community can have running water. It's pretty amazing the effect ILAC has, and the amount of people it reaches and all these different communities. They have people in charge of healthcare in something like 150 different campos across the country.
We are guests of ILAC while we are here, but it is also our home, so we talk to the people that work here, and they talk with us. We work on our Spanish and form some really great relationships with the people that do all this work. All our meals are made by the kitchen staff, so at 8 am they ring the bell and we all file in for breakfast. It's a similar process at 12:30 for lunch, and at 6 for dinner. The food here is pretty good, but it is taking a little getting used to. We have a lot of beans and rice, which I LOVE, but we also have a lot of plantains and yucca, which are both starches and are cooks like potatoes, but just have different textures to them. Like I said, just taking some getting used to.
Every Monday and Wednesday, we go to our service sites. There are four of us that take the guaguas and then the F car to Cien Fuegos for the morning, and return by lunchtime. After lunch its studying/laying out/napping until Spanish at 3:45. We have Spanish every day of the week, and there are only four people in our class, so it is really easy to learn and understand. Tuesday's and Thursday's we have our class in the morning, and in it we talk about history, culture, and theology in the Dominican Republic. We talk about our service sites, and learn about why the DR is the way it is, and how our service is effecting it.
Friday's are open, but are sometimes filled with other activities. This past weekend we traveled to Santo Domingo, rich in history and culture, and stayed the night in a hostile. It was fun to get to see a different side of the country, but also very different because of the clear Spanish influence and a more tourist oriented part of down. But it did make all the history we were learning come alive, and it was great to walk in the footsteps of all the great and not-so-great leaders.
Saturday's are also free for the most part, and are used for homework, trips to La Sirena, the department store, or to the Colmado on the corner to buy a soda or candy bar. Then Saturday night, we go out!!!! The dancing here is so much fun. The traditional dances are the Bachata and Merengue, and it is so fun to dance them with the Dominican's. I wish that I knew more of the music so I could sing along, but I am getting familiar with some of the songs, and our group has our favorites!
Sunday is then reserved for more homework. We also have church at 11 in the chapel, which is gorgeous. Mass is in Spanish, but I am really starting to understand more. People from the community come to the mission for mass, and we all pray together. It is a great feeling of solidarity with the people, even though I cannot communicate with them the way I would like to.
Overall, I am having so much fun. It doesn't feel like a vacation anymore, but it still doesn't feel like school. The things we are learning are so easy to apply, and we are learning directly from the people here. It is a great way to learn, and I am so glad I took advantage of this program that Creighton has offered. I can't wait for this coming week in the Campos, and I will be sure to update you when I can! No computers, no cell phones, no electricity...only the company of my campo family whom I am doing service with. I CAN'T WAIT!!!!
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