Tyler ’26 and Jane ’26, reflect on a meaningful first day at the worksite.
Today was not an ordinary day. Of course I’m in the Dominican Republic, but me and my team built a house. I can say for myself, building a house is not for the weak. This day was a great day for everyone who’s on this trip to learn some collaborative learning skills, but as well use some Spanish skills. When getting to the work site there were only three levels of blocks started for us. The goal was to get to 11 levels of blocks before the end of the day. I knew that me and the team were going to be able to reach the goal. We all were inclusive and enthusiastic to get our hands dirty, I mean really dirty. I was hesitant at first because the language barrier for me was challenging. I could never tell if someone on the site was either asking me for the bucket or the hammer.
After hours of hard work things started to get extremely easy and I could understand what I needed to do. Coming from passing blocks to one another all the way to putting concrete in between the blocks, I felt comfortable and satisfied. The laughter and smiles that were going around on the work site made me reflect. My reflection resembled removing myself from my comfort zone is needed. The team did a phenomenal job with removing themselves from their comfort zone. A fulfillment hit me after we finished our goal. Many relationships were built and lots of words were learned. My favorite word so far has been Mezcla.
-Tyler ’26
Today was our first full day in the Dominican Republic and our first day on the worksite. It was long and pretty tiring, but it was also really insightful. We started the day with a foundation of the house consisting of three layers of cinderblock. We ended the day with eleven layers, along with many other lessons learned. Throughout the day, my team and I developed many of our skills, including learning how to build, communicating through barriers, and learning about the local culture. We were lucky enough to have people cook and provide fruit and water for us around the worksite. It was exciting to watch everyone work collaboratively and diligently. Although different people had different jobs, there was a sense of unity across the worksite.
Everyone was doing everything they could to help contribute to the overall goal: the completion of the house. Whether it was sifting sand, mixing mezcla, refilling buckets, passing cinderblock, building make-shift ladders, cooking food, or shoveling cement, everyone played a role. The challenges we faced definitely spoke to the difficulty of the job, but the final product and continuous progress across the worksite was truly rewarding.
-Jane ’26
