Now that our 26 volunteers arrived safely in Dominican Republic, we’ve been having a wonderful time getting to know each other. Our team is made up of 24 Canadians, 6 Americans, and 4 Dominicans (our wonderful translators). We had a great awareness tour yesterday, visiting a couple villages that LiveDifferent has partnered with in the morning, and in the afternoon we had the privilege of meeting the families that we get to help build houses for in Aguas Negras! This community, although amidst mounds of garbage, have the most beautiful people with the most beautiful hearts. The children’s faces light up when they see us driving up their streets, and we quickly hear them chanting “gringos”!

 

 

Today was our first work day and I have to say I’m very proud of this team! We worked tirelessly all day long to get as much done as possible. Most of our work consisted of lifting/passing bricks, sifting sand, making cement, and shovelling/passing buckets of dirt/rocks, and by 9pm we were all ready for a good night’s sleep. There’s still so much work to be done, and it will be hard, but the smiles on these families faces, knowing how excited they are, and knowing how important they feel that we have come all this way to help them, is our motivation.