Digging Ditches: Day 3

Another full day, this one fuller than the rest, actually.  We began our day at an elementary school in La Jagua.  Katie, '14 shares her thoughts about that portion of the day:

Every day of service seems to start out the same, with an open-top truck ride to the village that we are working to bring water to, La Jagua. We all enjoy the smiling children who never fail to wave at us as we pass through the streets. Today was special because for the first time we were able to interact with these children that we all have found adorable. We started our day of at the local school in La Jagua. Using our little knowledge of Spanish we introduced ourselves to the children and gave them the packages of school supplies that we had collected in the dorms prior to our departure. Although very shy and reserved, the children seemed to be excited about their new supplies and the fact that the people they had been watching dig for the past two days were there to play with them. We divided the children into groups and shuffled them about the stations of activities that we had. At the station that I helped to prepare and run, we helped the children to draw and label the body parts in both Spanish and English. The innocent and uninhibited expressions of these children helped me to realize two major ideas that have surrounded our service thus far. The first is that these people are one big family. As we were explaining our activities, the children all helped each other to understand the instructions as if they had a responsibility to look after one another. The second idea that truly came alive for me as we worked with the children was that, despite the fact that these people have far less than any of us, they find happiness in the smallest things and are truly the most joyful people I have ever met.

After the morning at the school, we returned to the aqueduct site.  We learned that the farmer who owns one of the fields through which the aqueduct will pass would like to plant his cabbage crop the day after tomorrow, which gives us very little time to prepare the trench, install and test the pipe, and fill the trench in with dirt.  Despite the time crunch, and some terrain challenges (the pipes bend a bit, but the curvy path and changing elevation of the trench in this particular part of the aqueduct is a bit problematic), we made excellent progress.  We'll certainly be able to get far enough tomorrow to turn the farmer's field back over to him.

Instead of returning to the Rancho for our afternoon siesta, we quickly showered and hopped back into the truck to head to a local university.  There, our students interacted with Dominican students who are taking an intensive English language course that requires them to spend four hours per day, five days a week, studying English.  We helped them practice their conversation skills via a lively speed-dating-style Q&A activity.  It was interesting to begin and end the day seeing the various ends of the education trajectory here.  Piña said that he thought about half of students in this area make it through high school, and many drop out before graduating because the high school is so much farther away from the town than the primary school.  Many students ultimately don't continue their education because to do so would require that they walk about five miles to school, and five miles home.  Of the students who graduate from high school, he estimated that 80-90% go on to college.  But even the college campus this evening seemed totally foreign to those of our travelers who have spent any time on a college tour in the U.S.  Today was as much a learning experience for us as it was for any of the students with whom we interacted today.

Tomorrow morning we'll return to the aqueduct for a slightly shorter work day, and then we'll venture back out on an outing.  Stay tuned to hear about tomorrow's adventure.