Mimi Pastor ’19 and Seth Thayumanavan ’20 describe a day of meaningful and impactful accomplishments.
Today was our second-to-last building day in the DR and we tried to keep thinking back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and our theme of self-esteem both in the DR and at Deerfield. At the work site, we filled in the floors with concrete which really made the house feel as if it were complete. This brought a sense of accomplishment over everyone and assured us that we were doing our part in making a difference.
We also had to do a lot of gritty landscaping which caused many of us to be tired, but in the end also assured our esteem when we saw the looks on the Dominicans faces when they saw what we had done. Keeping in mind our idea of esteem pushed all of us forward today, because it is encouraging when we see how happy our hard work makes the family that will be living in the house.
Furthermore, our time in the DR has allowed us to reflect on how our esteem needs are met at Deerfield. Many of us noticed that at Deerfield we search for validation in order to gain esteem, but here many of the people have confidence without titled validation, but instead through respect gained from their hard work, especially when people are not watching. Reflecting on Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs gave us all a more fulfilling sense of purpose throughout our hard work day!
In the afternoon, after finishing building, we played baseball with some of the members of the community. It was really fun to get to interact with the community in a different setting than the work site. Even though many of us weren’t fantastic at the game, everyone still smiled and gave us a sense of accomplishment.
On another note, tonight we had a great dinner and a night filled with Karaoke. We all sang and danced together, and no matter how bad we were, everyone joined in and made us all feel at home. We are so sad to be leaving soon because we had so much fun, and we look forward to continuing to learn these lessons as we leave the DR.
