Thursday, December 29
We finally arrived at the Outreach360 Community Center in Monte Cristi around 12:30 am Friday. The drive from the airport in Santiago to Monte Cristi on the Dominican’s central north coast gave our team their first glimpse of what it meant to be in the Dominican: smiling people, loud music, and long bumpy roads. The heat served as an interesting contrast to the Christmas lights still lining many of the houses along the roadside. Amanda, our Outreach360 Country Director in the Dominican Republic, gave us a brief overview of Outreach360 and its mission. We also were given some detail on what our day would look like tomorrow. One would think that after a full day of travel, we would not be able to keep our eyes open, but our van was packed with conversation and excitement for what the coming days would bring. After two and a half hours, we arrived at the Outreach360 Community Center, a former hotel converted to accommodate activities with children of the community and house Outreach 360 volunteers. Once we settled into our rooms and unpacked, we quickly drifted to sleep to the sounds of bachata music and roosters in the distance.
Friday, December 30
7:30 am wakeup call, 8:30 am out the doors of the Community Center and off to the Bateys, where we visited a couple of small rural agricultural communities for a day of fun and games with the local youth. Before leaving the Community Center, our team loaded up the bus with soccer balls, art supplies, musical instruments, and any other object from the almacen that we thought we could creatively work into a fun activity. By 9:30 am we had arrived at the first batey, Batey Isabel, a small community with a large open field that served as the town’s center, with small cement houses, tiendas, and a church stemming off of it. Before turning on to the main road leading into the Batey, a group of the young boys from the community had already lined the street anxiously awaiting our arrival – we had arrived over 30 minutes early, yet they were already waiting for us. No Outreach360 volunteer group had been out to visit since the summer, so days like these were few and far between. Once we made the turn into the community, the boys ran in front of the bus calling out in Spanish to anyone and everyone in sight, letting them know that we had arrived. By the time we parked in front of the church, a large group of children had flocked to see what was next. We unloaded the bus and headed into the church to debrief before the activities. The children followed us in. We broke up into several groups: reading, arts and crafts, and recreational sports. Most of the boys in the community went outside to play sports while the girls stayed in the church for reading and crafts. Friendship bracelets, origami, and decoration of doll hats were available. Copious amounts of glitter and Elmer’s glue were used as finishing touches to the children’s artwork. By the end of the morning, origami rabbits scattered the church floor, and one of the boys was reclaiming his inner Michael Jackson, complete with the classic MJ spin move.
After about 2 hours in Batey Isabel, our group boarded the bus and headed out to Batey Madre, another rural agricultural community about a ten minute ride up the road. Batey Madre had a similar feel as the first, with large open fields and livestock dotting the property. There we sang and danced with the children, read them Spanish books, and played an exciting game of kickball. Some of the girls even taught us children’s songs in Spanish. The sounds of clapping and laughing filled the air as we tried to follow along. There were fewer children at this batey, but the fact that so many kids were present at that time of day (typically siesta time) warmed our hearts.
At 1:30 pm, we said our good-byes to the children of Batey Madre (lots of hugs involved) and we boarded our little bus to head back to the Community Center. Upon our arrival to the Community Center, we were able to have some downtime to take a siesta, chat on the balcony, or simply recharge with a good book. We eventually headed out at 4:00 pm to take a tour of Monte Cristi. We stopped by a large park that houses a metal tower designed by Gustav Eiffel (also known for creating another famous landscape fixture). After exploring the park, we passed by the Museum of Monte Cristi and made our way to a pier on the beach. There, we were able to take pictures, collect seashells, and get a taste of the scenery we would soon see again later in the week.
We returned to the Community Center, only to be greeted with a delicious meal of rice, beans, chicken, and cantaloupe. We were given instruction by Amanda, our Outreach360 Country Director in Dominican Republic, to have additional activities planned for the kids tomorrow. Tomorrow we will be going out to a different part of the bateys where we will play and laugh and learn with more children. We are eager to jump right in again.
Highlights of the day:
• Suzy has now been renamed “Rubia” (Tracy)
• Having the young girls in the second batey be so proud of their school that they grabbed some of our group’s hands to show it to them. (Suzy)
• Seeing our group jump right in and not hold back in interacting with the youth, even with our limited Spanish vocabulary. For what we lacked in our Spanish-speaking ability, it feels as if we were truly able to at least communicate love. (Tracy)
• A little boy at the first batey, Esteylin, made a bracelet for me and put it on my wrist. Later he came up with a drawing for me. It is amazing to see how important it is for the community to give whatever they can to us, when they have very little themselves. (Heather)
• The girls in the first batey were proud of their language and asked if they could read instead of having us read to them since some of our Spanish was not correct. It was great to see how they appreciated us trying to read to them even though they laughed at our mistakes. (Sakai)
• A little girl named Melisa was coloring with me and she asked me how to say my name. Afterwards she handed me a picture that she drew of me and she had spelled my name out. It was awesome to see that she knew how to spell and pronounce my name (Alvi)
• When we were leaving the first batey, one of the kids that I had been playing futbol with grabbed my hand and earnestly asked if we were coming back the next day. It broke my heart when I had to say that I wasn’t sure. (Aynul)
• We brought tons of colorful craft string to make friendship bracelets with the children. I made friends with a sweet little girl named Nicauri. After making her a bracelet, I asked her if she would also like to make one and she shyly agreed. She told me to pick what colors I like, because she was going to give me the bracelet. After she carefully braided my bracelet, we colored together and exchanged our dibujos (paintings). (Alma)