10 Suggestions for Students of Encuentro Dominicano

1.  Get to know the people in your comunidad.  You will experience so much throughout this semester.  Your fellow comunidad members may be the only ones who will be able to fully understand what you went through when you return home.  Build your relationships so you can trust and support one another, you’ll be happy you did!

2.   Don’t be shy about using your Spanish. Don’t be afraid to embarrass yourself; stepping out of your comfort zone is the only way to improve your Spanish.  Go out of your way to practice your Spanish whenever you can.  The people who do this will end up improving the most throughout the course of the year.

3.  Make friends with the workers at ILAC! The drivers, the gardeners, the cooks, everyone! The ILAC staff is great and they’ll all be there throughout your entire experience.  Talking with the workers is also a great way to practice your Spanish.

4.   Play volleyball! Playing volleyball every weekday at 5 is a great way to get to know the workers and get some exercise.  The ILAC staff gets really into it, especially JJ.

5.  Make friends Santiago. Santiago is your new home, so make the best of it! Making friends with people in the city is a great way to experience the culture and learn about the popular things to do/places to visit within the city.  We’d also recommend reaching out the PUCMM students; they are super friendly and welcoming.

6.  Download whatsapp! Make sure to do this before coming to the country because it often will not let you download it unless you are in your home country. Many Dominicans use the app as a means of communication.

7.   Travel. Although it may seem scary in a new country, now is your time to step out of your comfort zone and be independent.  There is so much to see and do in the DR. Fit in as much as you can with the time that you have!

8.  Climb Pico Duarte.  Mountain climbing may not be everyone’s thing, but is a great way to come together as a group for some serious bonding.  Rain or shine (or hail!), it’s worth it and it’s an Encuentro tradition!

9. Explore ILAC. Sometimes with all the school work and studying, we got sick of being in the same place for so.  Taking study breaks and exploring ILAC is a great way to get a change of scenery.  Grab a snack from the Colmado and eat it on the roof.  Or grab a friend and head to one of the track kiosks for a study break.

10. Go dancing. Santiago has a fun nightlife scene! Dancing is a big part of the culture and definitely something you don’t want to miss out on!

Dani Grobeck, Comunidad 18 

Spanish Immersion Classes

The Encuentro Dominicano program is equipped with the resources for all of the students to learn conversational Dominican Spanish. The program is lucky to have Professor Edwin Paniagua as the instructor for all the Spanish classes. He is a an established Spanish language and literature professor at a local university as well as a published author. 

Each class he instructs on ILAC is individually structured for the Encuentro students current knowledge. The approach he uses to teach the classes are excellent for learning how to emerge yourself in conversation with people you will meet while traveling as well as making connections with host families and friends in the campo. 

A fun aspect of his class is learning the Dominican slang. From personal experience it is a satisfying feeling to have real life progress of comprehension and a widened rang of vocabulary to select from while in conversing in Spanish. Everything I learned in his Spanish class was definitely helpful and I use in my daily life here in the DR. 

Comunidad 18 member

Hiking Pico Duarte

The day after returning from the campo we began another incredible adventure. For three days, we were to climb Pico Duarte, the tallest mountain in the Caribbean. We bought all of our food and climbed in the taxi at 4:15 AM. We drove two hours to the base and met three genuine men that we would be spending the next few days with. They packed up all of the gear onto horses and mules and we began our first 10-hour day! 

It was very step trail and definitely harder than expected. We had no idea what was coming for us! About 6 hours into our climb the skies darkened and clouds moved in fast. Within minutes the rain began to drizzle and all of the sudden it was pounding down on us. Then it began to hail - hail the size of large pebbles that battered our heads and left welts and bruises on our bare legs. The mountain began to flood and our path became a little - but powerful - stream. We were completely soaked through; our boots full of water and our legs and toes going numb. Amongst all the chaos and torrential storm, I ironically found peace. 

We picked up our climbing pace and I kept ahead and to myself, allowing my mind and body to embrace the storm’s energy and chill. I think my peace came from the realization that I couldn’t do anything to improve the situation and it wasn’t worth fretting about. The only option was to continue forward to our base that we anticipated was just a few hours ahead. (Little did we know we still had about four hours coming.)

Slowly the hail stopped but the rain didn’t let up for a few more hours. Later, we come to find out that a hurricane had just hit the Dominican Republic; hence the torrential hail and rain. The thing we didn’t understand about our trip to the actually mountain of Pico Duarte was that we weren’t only summiting one mountain - we were continuously ascending and descending mountains, each a hike of their own. We had to venture through the mountain range to actually reach the famous peak.

We eventually reached the actual base of the peak around 5 PM and were welcomed by our already arrived horses and soaked sleeping bags and clothing. We put on what was relatively driest and stood by the fire bringing back up our body temperatures. We held up all of our sleeping bags and clothing in front of the fire for the next few hours and our patient guides cooked us a warm and filling meal. They casually smirked at how unprepared and inexperienced we were. Still, I conversed with them in my recently improved Spanish the rest of the night and began developing friendships. We set a fire in our little cabin and all squeezed close on our cold wood floor, shivering in our still damp sleeping bags.

The rest of the trip was much more enjoyable for we peaked the next day. We were high above the clouds and could see the miles of mountains we had climbed through. We came back down to our base and had a much more restful night. The second night was a lot less cold for our sleeping bags and clothing had dried that day. We still slept all in a row and Steph and I zipped our sleeping bags together in order to increase the body heat! It was very successful!

The following day we began our descent around 6 AM and made it down to our starting point around 3 PM. Thankfully, our faithful friend and taxi driver, Big Luis was there ready to take us home. Overall it was a very successful journey of severe body odor, torrential storms, wet clothing and a never-ending mountain range.

Delaney Effeldt, Comunidad 18 

Service site: Caritas

Every Monday and Wednesday, my service partner and I spend two hours at an afterschool program called Caritas Licey. There, kids from lower-income backgrounds who live in the neighborhood can come to get lunch. It is run by a group of nuns who teach the kids crafts and lessons on theology. My partner and I contribute by teaching English lessons and bringing different crafts to do with the kids. Some days we will teach them songs or play games with them in English. Other days, we will do origami or color with them. Then, we help the Sisters serve lunch to the kids.

There have been some very challenging things about volunteering at Caritas Licey. It’s hard hearing about the difficult situations that the kids face. Many of them are from lower-income homes and their family lives are not always the best. It can be challenging to teach sometimes because the kids are misbehaving during our lessons. Sometimes it would be difficult to get through a lesson because they were distracted or fighting with each other. I have also learned a lot of discouraging things about the education system here in the Dominican Republic. For example, most kids only go to school for about four hours a day and many drop out early.

Overall, though, I had a great experience with these kids and the nuns we worked with. It was always great to go to service and find that the kids were excited that we were there and to see what we had planned for the day. Most days they would get really into the crafts we had prepared and the games we played to teach them words in English.

The kids and the Sisters taught me many things that I hope to bring with me when I go back home. They taught me to be creative; for example, the kids did not have many craft supplies, so we would usually have to be very creative with the materials that we used. We would bring toilet paper rolls, soda pop bottles, and egg cartons from the kitchen. They also taught me about simplicity; it did not take much to entertain them. They were perfectly content playing marbles with us or sitting down and coloring for thirty minutes.

I am glad that I was at this service site because it challenged me in new ways, but it was also just really fun. I hope I always remember the kids at Caritas and the things I learned while serving there.

Comunidad 18 member 

PUCMM exchange

This Halloween was quite different than most of my previous Halloween celebrations. Living in the Dominican Republic during the American holiday meant that the celebration would not include lavish costumes, haunted houses or grand parties. However, comunidad 18 did get to celebrate Halloween with the PUCMM students by playing Halloween themed charades!

            We spent the afternoon with a student organization that welcomed us to their campus and shared with us about their organization and what they do on and off campus. They gave us a tour, treated us with refreshments and gifted us PUCMM water bottles. This particular organization, ADEA (asociacion de estudiantes de administracion) is comprised of business students who are honing their leadership skills while serving their community. It was a very unique experience to meet our peers in another country who attend a university very similar to Creighton. The student body is about equal in size to Creighton and their campus has similar aspects as well. The students we met are very driven and involved in their school work as well as extracurricular activities which is refreshing after learning how lacking the Dominican education system is at the grades school and high school levels. It was fun to make connections with other students our age who are working to advance their education in order to have a successful career. 

            It was really nice to have people to hang out with that were our age. After our meeting we kept in touch with a few of the students. One evening they showed us around Santiago and took us dancing. It was fun to experience the city from their perspective because they knew the fun places to go and where to get great food. We also shared our Thanksgiving meal with them which was exciting to be able to share our culture with them after they had shared theirs with us. It was a great experience to have friends with a different cultural background!

Steph Sehon, Comunidad 18 

Campo Hospitality

We spent our campo immersions with the remarkable people of Copeyito. During our first ten day immersion, we picked up shovels and picks to work on an aqueduct and help the community find a new water source. Though the community members were quick to thank us for our help, I felt that I received much more than I gave during this experience. We not only were welcomed into the homes of our individual host families who looked after us during our stay, but also into the homes and lives of the entire community. I will forever remember the generosity and love those in Copeyito gave us – from constantly offering us chairs to sit on to pulling together their resources and talents to make us all matching skirts to wear home.

One of my first nights in Copeyito contains a memory that shows how widespread the hospitality of the community was. Our group of students was being escorted to the home of one girl’s host family by the kids of the community. My escort was a ten-year-old girl named EliAnni. As I was walking with her, EliAnni and I talked about our surroundings – the fields, the cows, and the stars above us. Being ten, EliAnni then decided it was a good idea for us to run to the front of the group so that we could lead the way.

Thus, leading the pack, we approached a house with a light on. EliAnni then proceeded to lead me down the walk and into the home of a husband and wife who I presumed to be the couple we were visiting. The husband quickly offered me a chair, and asked if I would like one of the apples that the wife was peeling. It was as the wife handed me the offered apple that I noticed the rest of our group passing this house. Together then, EliAnni and I realized that this was actually NOT the same family we had plans to visit. With my beginning Spanish, I started to offer an apology for intruding on this couple’s home. However, before my embarrassment could reach full heights, both the man and woman waved off my apology and told me to come back again. Before I knew it, EliAnni and I were back in the group, walking to catch up.

As we finished the walk to the correct house and I finished my apple, I reflected on how bizarre the situation that had just passed really was. It is not anywhere that you can walk into the random house of a stranger and instead of being called an intruder, be offered a seat and a snack. Though I didn’t interact with that first couple again on the immersion, I will always remember how their welcome and easy openness made me feel. And it is not the only time I was shown kindness; throughout the rest of my days living in this campo, I met many other extraordinary people. This is but one example of the many people I encountered in Copeyito who were quick to accept me without even knowing my name.

Erin Dorpinghaus, Comunidad 18