D.R.E.A.M.S.'
D.R.E.A.M.S.'
The following email was received on February 27, 2006
Greetings,
Our students and teachers at St. Mary Catholic Secondary School have built a
school, teacher's residence and 28 homes in the Third-World during the past 7
years. Please read the powerful, life changing reflections written by
D.R.E.A.M.S.' students Mike & Siobhan. Fellow teacher, Tom Sobocan made the
following observation: "These D.R.E.A.M.S.' students are going to have a blessed
trip because it started off in the chapel before going off to the airport. Young
saints in the making!"
Twenty-three students traveled with John LaBatte, teachers, Tina Scione and
Brian Smith, Angela Jones, a medical doctor and Jean Grzelak, a pediatric nurse
from the McMaster University Medical Centre and her husband, Richard with an
unprecedented, large supply of donated medical and education supplies. Our
D.R.E.A.M.S.' team of teachers, chaperones and students returned home recently
after building homes and serving the local community in the impoverished,
mountainous region of Ocoa in the Dominican Republic.
I will be traveling to the Dominican with our March break group soon.
God bless you & your ministry,
Don Hall Chaplain @ St. Mary Catholic Secondary School
(Phone numbers omitted)
The reflections of these students are reproduced
below.
Click on the thumbnails to get a good look.
It is unlike any place I
have ever been to. A place where the stresses and anxieties of life in Canada
do not exist. A place where the people are so poor, that they only have one set
of clothing and live houses the size of an average Canadian’s garage. 
The place that I speak of is La Ciénaga de La Horma, Dominican Republic. This
is the town that, every year, about forty St. Mary’s Catholic Secondary School
students, teachers and the schools chaplain go to as part of the school’s
Dominican Republic Education And Medical Services (DREAMS) project. The
project’s main goal is to better the life of the poorest of the Dominican people
by first building them a school and now building them homes. As well as
constructing houses and a school, the project has also provided much monetary
support.
Similar to many of the participants before me, I travelled to this foreign land not knowing what to expect. I had heard stories from people, who had made the trip before, but I still did not know what the experience would be like. I particularly wondered about what the people of this town and country. But, when my visit was over, I knew much more than I ever imagined.
The town itself is situated
throughout the mountainside, 1,000 meters above sea level and 32 kilometres away
from the nearest town, San José de Ocoa. To arrive there you must take a
painfully uncomfortable and lengthy ride on the back of a flatbed pickup truck.
The roads are dirt and mud; not pavement or even gravel, but plainly worn down
earth. People of Hamilton complain about a
few potholes here and there that are about the size of a football, while in this
town there are countless holes in the roads, some
the size of a refrigerator. Alongside the treacherous road, there are the most
beautiful plants I have ever seen; as well as cliffs, so steep, that you have to
be a brave person to look down. There are flowers, of every colour of the
spectrum and gorgeous trees that seem to dance in the wind. There are also
cabbage and coffee bean plantations being harvested by the hardworking tenants.
With all of the beauty of
God’s creation present throughout the area, it is truly amazing that something
can take away from it. Unfortunately, the poverty and injustices that were so
visible surely did that. There are poorly manufactured scrap metal houses
scattered alongside the road.
The
most shocking thing about these small, shed-like homes, which I found out later,
is that they typically houses three generations of a family. As well as their
homes, the people of La Ciénaga de La Horma’s places of entertainment are also
very different than those in Canada. The “club” that we were able to visit in
the mountains was basically a barn with a concrete slab for a dance floor and a
pool table. The pool table was slanted and did not have all of the necessary
balls to play a correct game of billiards. In addition to the club, the
Dominican’s other form of entertainment is baseball and the field they played on
was something I will never forget. There was a shoulder high metal fence behind
home plate and the locals created the base lines by constantly running to the
bases (which were once bags that held concrete). None of the players had gloves
and a tree branch was used as a bat. The thing that struck me the most about
the “baseball diamond” was that there were cows grazing in the outfield while we
played. The visible poverty, without doubt, touched me a lot more than the
beauty of the countryside.
Despite the materially poor
quality of life in the town, I was amazed to learn what the local people are
like and how they live. These people that I had the privilege to come to know
and admire are the kind that I wish I could be. The generosity that they
possess, while having barely any possessions, is something that struck me
deeply. An elderly woman of the town once offered me a cup of coffee, during my
stay in the town. Not being a coffee drinker myself, I declined, but she
kept insisting that I have one until I finally did. She then made sure that I
had finished the entire cup. As well as their spirit of generosity, they live
their lives to the fullest. Contrary to most Canadians who too often worry
about the future, the people of this remote town are only concerned about each
day as it comes. With this mindset in place, the local people carry out their
lives full of happiness and without being stressed about the future. Though
they live in a society lacking the many possessions and luxuries that we have in
Canada, every person I met during my short stay in the town affected me greatly
and changed my life forever.
The more I reflect on my participation in the DREAMS project, the more I understand how much it does for the people of this destitute town and the people who call it home. Moreover, I have truly come to realize that it has transformed for me into a person that now appreciates all that I have. I will be forever grateful to my school chaplain, the teachers and others who made this truly Christian experience possible.
*****************
She Said: The Third World: Richer Than We
Think
Siobhan, Grade 12
For the past five years, under the initiation and leadership of teachers Mr. Paul Morrison and Mr. John Labatte, and chaplain Mrs. Filomena Tassi, staff and students of St. Mary’s have been travelling to a remote and impoverished village in the mountains of the Dominican Republic. This project, entitled D.R.E.A.M.S. (Dominican Republic Education and Medical Support) began by building a school for an educationless community, continued with the construction of a teacher’s residence, and is now focusing on the building of houses.
I have been fortunate to
travel to the Dominican twice now and from personal experience can testify to
the immeasurable value this trip holds. Before I left, I realized that I
wouldn’t be showering
or eating my typical meals, but that I would be enduring serious physical labour
and the effects of the southern sun on my pale Irish skin. As a result, I left
with the mentality that I was making some great sacrifices to help these
people. However, my mentality quickly changed when I realized that these
sacrifices were not sacrifices at all; when I realized that I received from the
Dominicans people was far greater than anything I could ever give to them.
We tend to equate happiness with money so much today that we often end up making ourselves unhappy. We have unrealistic dreams of being rich and even those of us who do become rich are never satisfied with what we have.
It is not illogical,
therefore, to understand the sincere and unceasing happiness that the
Dominicans
know. Materialistically, they have nothing. No big house, no fancy car, no
computer, no electricity, no sanitary water. But in spite of this poverty, they
are genuinely happy. Without shoes, they dance all night long. Without a bat,
they’ll play baseball for hours. It is not in the activity that they find
happiness, but in each other.
Having seen this, I wonder, who really needs help, the Dominicans or us?
Do not misunderstand me in
this question. My intention is not to undermine the efforts of
D.R.E.A.M.S. in its mission to help a community of financially indigent people
live their lives a little more comfortably, nor is it to glorify poverty. For,
these efforts are powerful in the lives of the Dominicans, and poverty can be
destructive, crippling and terrifying. My intention is to emphasize the
insightful philosophy on life that the Dominicans have, and that many of us
first-world citizens lack.
Most of us can’t imagine a
life without our so-called necessities: television, nice clothes,
computers, electricity. We think it’s too bad that people like the Dominicans
aren’t given such “wonderful” things. But after seeing how the Dominicans live
their lives so happy in simplicity, I think that if they found the opportunity
to visit us they would think it’s too bad that we are given such “wonderful”
things; these thing that teach us to detach from each other, secularize us, and
essentially contribute to unhappiness.
It is so important to be aware of the world we live in. All of us benefit from understanding each other’s situation. Materialistically, we have been given so much. We need to learn to “live simply so that others can simply live.” This isn’t charity, but justice. What’s so fantastic in doing this is that we receive something wonderful in return, a gift beyond measure: enhanced spirituality and a better understanding of the essence of life.
*****************
Don Hall followed up with this photo of the D.R.E.A.M.S.' group. Fr. Lou Quinn who is pictured in the middle of this photo and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last year works with this group. The photo also includes Don's son, Andrew (top, 3rd from left). He may also be spotted in the photos above.
And these added photos tell the rest of the story ...
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Sometimes we find a story that really sets us straight and sometimes the story comes from an unlikely source. After all, how could "the wisdom of the ages" come from a teen student? But why not? Index for the D.R.E.A.M.S. Project pages
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D.R.E.A.M.S.' Witness by
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The
World of Grandpa Don www.plefka.net |
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by The JavaScript Source | |
