Unknowingly making peace with reality.

by Adora Fernando (Canada)

I didn't expect to find Dominican Republic

On December 29, 2018, I was on the way to one of my biggest learning experiences of my life on a service trip to Consuelo, Dominican Republic. While staying in Consuelo, I lived with a billet family, in whom I got really close. I loved the community work in the batté AB4, in Consuelo. In this small community, we built a house for pregnant women. Tears of happiness filled her eyes as we helped stack bricks, which was such a beautiful moment. She was so thankful because even though she had very little, the community came together to help her. In addition, we helped the gardener, Cerrillos. Not only was he a gardener, but also he was a gardener who grew crops for the community that alone would have taken him a long time. Although I barely spoke Spanish, this was just one small obstacle I overcame. I didn't have a phone for google translate but I had used a dictionary in searching up word by word. While doing this, soon enough I started having conversations with the children in the community. Specifically, my 10-year-old friend, Wongalelli who has such a special place in my life. He was like the little brother I never had, as he would come to help me by my side whether that meant helping out in the garden or while making the house. While helping out in the community, I grew a stronger importance for the people of AB4, such a small act of kindness for us had made such a big impact on them. Lastly, during this trip, we walked through the poorest part of the Dominican Republic in the slums. I felt really bad and upset about the condition they were living in. Throughout this whole trip, I learned about the concept of helping the community and people around the world. I learned that you can’t help the whole world because the world needs so much help. This affected everyone on the trip, especially me. This was a hard concept for me to comprehend and it affected the way I live. A year later, I went back to Consuelo. During the year break of coming back to the Dominican Republic was when I learned the most. When going back to Consuelo, walking down the streets of AB4, tears filled my eyes as I saw Wongalelli running towards me. This was a special moment as I realized I had made an impact in his life as much as he made in mine. As we walked through the slums again, I realized something that scared me immensely. Walking through the slums and seeing poverty did not shock me anymore. As we sat in a circle filled with my classmates, most of them were crying and upset. However, I just sat there emotionless and confused. This was when I realized that I was used to seeing poverty. My classmates began saying how they were angry and uncomfortable that we walked through the lives of poor Dominicans. However, walking throughout the slums is one of the best ways to learn and sometimes you have to be uncomfortable to learn. As my parents were both brought up in India, I had visited India several times already in my life. I had already seen the worst slums in the world by the time I was 8 years old. When I looked out to the slums from the car windows, my parents used to say “this is why you have to take every opportunity given to you”. At that age, I didn't think too much about this. Sitting in the circle in Dominican Republic reminded me of the moment I was in the car. The people in the slums of Dominican Republic don’t have the opportunity to do more of the half of the things we can in Canada. I began thinking that you can put that anger into sometime good and innovative that can help the poorest parts of the world. “You have to take every opportunity given to you” was a sentence that was said throughout my whole childhood, but I learned that it was the one mantra that I want to continue to live by.