Dominican Republic = Summer 2007

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This was the summer that began my travels (summer 2007). It was also the summer before my first year back in the classroom. I was finishing my last year in my masters in teaching program, was about to embark on a year of student teaching (paid minimally as a teacher's aid) and I wanted to take advantage of having the summers off, but I didn't have a huge budget to spend on a trip... yet!

Habitat for Humanity does 1-2 week overseas home-building trips called Global Villages. You find a destination and date that fits your schedule, fill out an application, and then have a phone interview with the trip leader for that location. They basically want to hear that you are a team-player, are flexible, and are up for the challenge of heavy lifting and labor! I ended up on a GREAT team, headed to the Dominican Republic in July 2007. It was a two week build trip, and I was only in the DR for those 2 weeks. In later summers I would learn to extend my trip since I do get 8 weeks off in the summer and you want to make the most of the plane ticket and exploring another country!

http://www.habitat.org/gv

The Global Village program costs money for YOU, the volunteer, but Habitat sets up a website for you where you can ask friends and family to make donations of any size towards your trip. I got my entire fee paid by my loved ones - thank you! I only had to pay for my flight for this summer trip.

We built houses in a region of the DR where there is NO tourism. Thus the locals have no need to know english. I got to speak spanishwith the locals for 2 weeks. I learned spanish words specific to what we were doing, like "lodo" is mud and "arana" is a spider!

At the end of the 2 weeks we had a few days of planned rest and relaxation as a group. We went to a local beach for a day and we went to a ropes course in the woods for a fun adventure, and we toured the capital, Santo Domingo as well.

A few summers later I applied to do a Madagascar Global Village build and was accepted but the flight cost was more than I could justify.

I loved everything about my trip to the Dominican Republic, although I'm not sure I'd sign up for 2 weeks of outdoor manual labor in July in the summer again!

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Photos

I built this wall!
Cement bricks with a mud mixture and rebar.