Jose lives in Villa Hermosa, a forgotten community far beyond the city limits of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He was one of the kids playing stickball on our Day One visit.
On Day Two, Monday morning, our group arrived onsite ready to put our backs into the building project, our hearts in the children's Vacation Bible School (VBS) and to contribute in any way we could.
Jose came up and pointed at me and made a bat-swinging motion, indicating (without words) that he recognized me as having taken a few swings at stickball Sunday afternoon. Giving him the only reasonable response, I said: "Si. You know Sammy Sosa?" parading my knowledge of one of Dominican's most famous professional baseball players. He nodded affirmatively and enthusiastically. I said, pointing to myself, "That's me!" To which he responded "Albert Pujols, me!" pointing to himself as one of baseball's best players and most feared hitters, also a Dominican. And thus started a friendship that was renewed similarly each day thereafter, each time with slightly more Spanish on my part.
The boy on the left in this picture is the son of the foreman on our construction project, Pablo. Each of the Americans brought gloves to work with the gravel, cement, cement blocks, shovels, etc. None of the Dominicans who we worked with had any, though we brought extras to give to those who wanted to use them.
We offered gloves to the pastors and others from the village who worked with us up on the roof of the building project. One of the Dominican boys received a pair of gloves. Later, the foreman's son, who's no more than 8 years old, asked me for gloves. I was fresh out, and looking around and seeing none available, I said in my finest Spanish, "we don't have any more," or something hopefully close to that.
An hour later he was back on the roof, undeterred, where some serious heavy lifting and cement-slinging was going on. He showed off his newly acquired pair of gloves to me with a big grin. Every time we met thereafter, that day and following, he would proudly show me the pair of oversized brown gloves engulfing his hands, to which I usually responded, "Que bueno!"
It was delightful to see our American kids enthusiastically helping out with construction and VBS, working and playing together with Dominican kids, adults, with whomever and at whatever.
The children made many new friends in Villa Hermosa. My daughter (10) insists that she will never forget our trip and that it was the best trip ever! My son (8) reports two thumbs (and two feet) way up!
Tune in for more ("manana" -- some time) at http://dominicanproject.blogspot.com
Gracias,
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