Arms Wide Open…
Our team woke up to bright sunshine this December 25th and the knowledge of knowing that this Christmas was different. We had accomplished so much together and felt the true meaning of the phrase, “it is better to give than to receive”.After a hearty breakfast, we played what some call, “Yankee Christmas”. This is where each person brings a gift (between $5 – $10) and when your number is called, you either pick a present from under the tree or steal someone’s. Lots of good laughs as everyone decided that whatever gift Vaden chose, they would steal. Once all the gifts had been distributed, we opened them to find lots of fun souvenirs. Joy got a Monkey playing a guitar made from a coconut. Here is more of her thoughts from the rest of our day’s activities:Today we revisited one of my favorite villages that we have helped in many pasted Hero Holidays. The reason we keep coming back is because of the wonderful children that live there. Their community is so welcoming and well behaved that I feel need to visit each time I am in the Dominican Republic. After lunch, our group of 14 brought along soccer and baseball equipment to start a sports camp. As we drove into town in our open back truck, we caught the attention every child on the narrow road. We hopped of the truck and started picking up children here and there and skipped through the entire village. After collecting all the children we could find, we lead them to an open field to start our afternoon of games.
We had the most amazing time blowing bubbles and coloring with the girls as a majority of the boys were playing soccer or baseball. It was a fun filled day but it did not just end with our sports camp. Later that night, after dinner, we returned to the village to show a movie. We had brought a projector with us from Canada so it was like being in an open air movie theater. Ice Age 3, Dawn of the Dinosaurs, was a huge hit, which we measured by the amount of laughter from both child and adult alike. The smiles on all the people made us proud of what we had accomplished on our trip. Every time we show up at a place with our arms wide open to hold the kids, it touches the lives of many individuals, including our own.
I have never seen so much rain! The second, third, and forth day of our Dominican trip has been filled with mucho mucho rain. Unfortunately, our gift giving day in a local town was postponed until Jan 7th due to roads being washed out on December 21st. So, instead we did an assignment that our teams do on many of our Hero Holidays. Participants get into groups of 3 and pick a chapter from the book, ONE: A Face Behind the Numbers. Each chapter deals with a different cause and/or effect of poverty and has lots of pictures, quotes, statistics, and stories. With the information that the team learns from the chapter of their choice they devise a plan to help fight this injustice. Participants often think of some pretty amazing and attainable ideas which they often put into action when they return home. After this activity and lunch we all snuggled up, away from the rain, and watched Ice Age 3, then when we found some umbrellas made a soggy trip into town to the grocery story for snacks and phone cards.
Our second day (Dec 22) we awoke to rain yet again, but decided that this was not going to hold us back. We went to our work project and worked happily in the rain. On the way to Agua Negra, we stopped at a store and all bought rain coats and boots. People laughed because we looked like one big group of giant bananas (and it was true we were laughing too)! That day we completed one of the cement floors and built up the walls for new roof for the other house. What we all found to be cool was that the single mom of the house getting the new roof and floors, was right out there working with us. She worked so hard and was so grateful for the things we were doing for her family. After dinner and debriefing, our team played a very fun and expressive game of shuraids.Here is a blog from one of our Participants, Melissa, on her second day at Agua Negra (December 23rd)
Today was the most rewarding day of the trip so far. In the morning we arrived at the Agua Negra community centre to be greeted by countless children all jumping, singing, and smiling. Each one of them filled with excitement for the Christmas party that was about to begin. We were able to play and dance with the kids as we helped to hand out lunches and a gift to each child (approximately 200 children!). Being able to bring happiness to the childrens’ day was a major highlight of the trip and also brightened our otherwise rainy day.We were also able to see the concrete floor that we had completed the day before all dry and ready for the owners to move back into their house. It looked like a completely different house! In the afternoon we finished the second house we were working on, with the help of local contractors and friendly neighbours. The people of Agua Negra were so welcoming and greatly appreciate of our work. It was a bitter sweet day because although we finished our two projects, we also had our last trip to Agua Negra. The smiling faces and generosity is something that will be remembered by each member of our team.
I am happy to tell you that the rain has stopped as of 7pm December 23rd. On Christmas Eve our team enjoyed a day off. We took some time to go the markets on the beach to purchase $5 – $10 gifts for our gift game tomorrow morning. In the afternoon, our team got the chance to hangout on the beach and get some sun. Now we can come home to our friends and family with a tan and proof that we were somewhere warm!Merry Christmas everyone!
Hey everyone! Or shall I say, “Hola!” Our Dominican Republic Christmas Hero Holiday has begun. All 14 of us arrived safe and sound to our tropical paradise on Saturday without any delays. This is amazing because they were canceling flights left, right, and centre because of some storm going on in Eastern US.Today, Sunday December 20th, we went on LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute)’s awareness tour. We got to see some past projects they have completed over their many trips since 2005. We also got to see our projects for this trip too. We are going to be putting a new roof on a home that needs one really bad and also give the family a cement floor because right now they have a dirt floor. We are also going to give a cute elderly lady a cement floor too. I had never really thought what life would be like living with a dirt floor but it would be really hard to keep your house and items in it clean. I am glad that we can help them out.
We we got back to the resort after our tour, we pooled all the gifts that we brought with us on the trip. There was lots of toys, candy, school supplies, and bars of soap. We all took a station and was in charge of making sure that item got into each bag. In total we made 212 bags! That’s a lot of gifts to handout. We are going to be giving them to all the children at our Christmas party at Agua Negra. Can’t wait!I am really happy I am on this trip this Christmas. I really want to help others and it is a great time of year to do it. Tomorrow we are suppose to be handing out gifts in a village near Sanitago, but it is suppose to rain. So, we will see…
whole team when I say that we had a wonderful (or should I say, “maravilloso”) day at the Arroyo Seco Clinic. My Spanish has improved from none to very poor so at least its a step in the right direction. The language barrier isn’t as much as a problem as I thought it would be, though it would nice to be able to communicate with the local people in a 
bit of their own language (especially when I was trying to console a child who was terrified of the dentists). We have amazing doctors and dentists that we have been working with at our clinics. I got to work with the dentists today and although personally I have never liked visits to the dentist, I have a new found respect for the profession. They were able to relieve a lot of people’s pain today by pulling teeth which made a big difference for the patient. The dentist even let me pull a tooth. It was so exciting!
A leader on our trip said something that has really stuck with me, “The only difference between us, the participants, and them, the local people, is the country we were born in”. At that moment, I knew exactly why trips like this or organizations like LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) exist. To help the people of countries like the Dominican Republic get the things they deserve and have a right to: Education and Healthcare. I have these rights back home in Canada and will definitely not take them for granted. I also came to the conclusion the I am here to help change some sad realities for others and that one volunteer at a time can help. I am so thankful to be a part of this amazing experience which has without a doubt changed my life for the better. I hope everyone is enjoying reading our blogs and looking at the pictures of what we have been up to. We’ll see you all when we get home.~ Emily, a participant having a blast on the Hero Holiday DR Medical trip.
Yet another day has passed and I am never prepared for what I might see and experience in a day on a Hero Holiday (this is my second Hero Holiday DR). Today was spent at another clinic in Arroyo Seco which is a school/church that the team I was on last year helped to build. It was so amazing to return to a village I had been to before and see familiar faces. I was able to reconnect with one of the children I played with last year, and had brought some photos from Canada for her. I think everyone in the entire clinic saw the photos as her grandmother was so proud to show the gift off.Today we registered over 60 people to see the doctor/dentist, as well we did school checks which would be similar to a 
physical exam back home. I saw inside many mouths, as the locals pointed to teeth that had rotted, or broken and needed to be pulled. I do not think I will ever look at my tooth brush and floss the same anymore. I thought so many would fear the dentist, yet we saw smiles and thumbs up as they walked away with gauze in their mouth’s and a few less teeth. The gratefulness of the people here always blows me away as they many have so little but the are so happy and appreciate of what they have and receive.Yesterday I worked in a very small one room church which facilitated three doctors each with an examination chair and a small pharmacy. We saw over 100 people and gave away a ton of medicine. I am finding it difficult to think that the drugs are only able to help for 5-7 days and then they will run out and be in a similar position as to what they started in. I am so blessed to have been born in a country that medical care is covered and medication is so readily available to me when I need it. Although many of the medications we have brought down are just simple over the counter things like tylenol or multivitamins they mean so much to the people we are working with (the Flinstone vitamins are always a favorite!). I wish these people were able to have the similar luxuries that we so often take for granted.
The smiles here are contagious and I am loving every minute of this trip, even as we have little mango covered hands reach for ours. The special friends we meet and playing soccer when the holler your name to pass you the ball, or being asked when you will return again, makes this trip so worth while.~ Joni, Nursing Student on Hero Holiday Medical Trip DR
It is now Day #3 of our Hero Holiday Medical trip and we have already been down and dirty with construction, a lot of pill sorting/dividing, and labeling. Not to mention a great deal of SWEATING!Everyone survived the travel day which was long but when we all arrived safely to the beautiful (and did I mention hot/humid) Dominican Republic it all made it worth the travel. Sunday morning my team (#3 woot woot!) was put to work sorting through all the bags of medicines, vitamins, dressings, an supplies. At first this job seemed insurmountable but once we broke into smaller groups and picked an area, the piles got smaller.
My group sorted through all of the multi vitamins and divided them into groups of 10s, put them into little baggies and then labeled them with appropriate instructions in Spanish. I definitely wonder if I got my vitamin intake for the day through osmosis of absorbing them in my fingers! lolThat afternoon, group 3 ventured the Sosua region on the “truck” (which is a truck with a flat bed which has seats on them and holds roughly 16… we were squished like sardines!). Our awareness tour took us to our work project to see the Community Centre where we are finishing the kitchen project that the Hero Holiday July teams started. The second part was at the cemetery where Christal shared with us Danica’s full story, the reason why we started this trip. We also paid respects to her grave site. The final stop was up, over, and around to a community which has a medical clinic built and run by a charity, Servant’s Heart, in memory of Danica. The road getting to this clinic was on of the bumpiest, and twisty rides over especially because we were riding in the truck too. Very fun over all!
Once we arrived we had a following of little children wanting to see what was happening. The clinic tour was great as being a nursing students it was right up our alley. There is a pharmacy, examination rooms, and a waiting room. Then we explored the village and discovered a baseball game being played by some of the boys in the street. This was very interesting because they were playing with half a baseball but still managing to hit pretty far.After visiting and walking the village, we drove back to the resort. This resort is wonderful and we definitely won’t be under fed. It is such a treat to wake up and eat breakfast right beside the ocean. All of the resort staff are very friendly and extremely nice. I am looking forward to see what tomorrow will bring!~ Meighan, a nursing student on Hero Holiday DR Medical
We are in the Dominican Republic and loving it so far. To be honest, the first few days were exhausting with all the travel and sorting the medical supplies. You should have seen all the donations our team came with, it filled the Hero Holiday office and an additional room being use to sort! It was amazing and they will be all put to good use.Today was our first nursing experience in a developing country and it was amazing! We held our clinic in a village’s local church and saw as many as 100 people in need of medical care. Some of us 
were working in the “pharmacy” handing out the drugs the physicians prescribed, while others were working with the doctors in making assessments, as the rest taking patients vitals as they registered to see the doctor. It was very over whelming at first with all the rush of people and the humidity, but as everyone got the hang of things it went smoothly and was a great success. It was great to see the difference between Canadian health care and the health care in the Dominican. Unfortunately, the people of the Dominican Republic and Haiti are not as lucky as we are.It was fun playing with the children in around the clinic and holding all the babies. Can’t wait for the rest of the week and the many experiences we will have!
Adios Amigos!Ashley, Abby, and Chandell, nursing students on Hero Holiday DR Medical
All year we have been c
As our trip draws to a close a common conversation topic has been about going home. We look forward to waking up in the morning and going out to make a difference in our community. We are not going to lie, it is going to be hard to go home and not be able to go out everyday and actually see how we are making a difference through hard wor
Over this last month, our eyes have been opened and our lives have been changed. It is because of the twinkling eyes we look into on our work sites and the cute little hands that we hold. Not only that but the heart warming stories we have heard from the people we have worked with. The choice to become an intern this summer was one of the best decisions of our lives and if we had the choice to do it again we wouldn’t change a thing. So, yes, it will be hard leaving but we will always have the memories
Okay… so this morning I was asked if i wanted to write a blog.. of course i will do that! well…it’s easier said than done! Our trip started on Sunday with the awareness tour, which was great! My team went first to the cemetery, and well… I probably would never go to a cemetery for ‘fun’, but we went and heard the story about a little girl Danica who died as a result of poverty. Her story really moved me because of the fact that there are so many children out here who are stateless, who don’t have parents, or cannot read, write and do simple math. Maybe if they were born in another country and had parents they would grow up to be a doctor or a teacher, it just doesn’t make sense…After that we went to the village where a clinic built in Danica’s honour resides. This clinic is here to prevent other children like Danica, to die from such simple things that you or I can get help for without even a prescription. As soon as we jumped of our truck and walked into the clinic, kids were all around us. It’s great the way these children greet you! They don’t even know you, but as soon as they see you, they run to you, want to hold your hand, and play with you. That, only THAT makes them smile already!!The first workday we (team 4) went to the orphanage. One half of the team went in the morning, other half in the afternoon. I was in the morning shift, and we had some fun stuff to do: play around with the kids, clean the beds and floors. 
We had to move bricks (huge cement blocks which I forget the word for in Spanish), weighing about 45lbs each, from one side of the building to the other side. This is so the contractors could build the wall around orphanage higher, so a little advernturous boy could not escape anymore…(he is hilarious, but a pain in the butt for the staff!) Our team had fun with this task seeing who could carry the most bricks at one time. Most of the team could only carry 1 brick at the time, a few carried 2 bricks, but I won being able to carry 3 bricks! It made be laugh because when the young guys who had come to help the pretty girls tried to carry 3 bricks like I had, they had a real hard time. Since that moment, my team decided to call me: Gun show!
Our second day was spent in the children’s ward at the hospital, painting. It was really fun too. We were painting the walls, but each other too. There were 2 rooms we had to sand and prime, before we could put the real colors on. It was kind of funny, because the site foreman expected us to take the entire day for this but because team 4 is full of fast hard workers, we were done before lunch! While waiting for new paint to arrive, I had a chance to see the 2 babies in the intensive care room. One baby boy was born while his mom had only been pregnat with him for 26 weeks. He only weighed 2 pounds and was so tiny! I think this little guy is a miracle baby, especially since the hospital staff expected him to pass away last week. He is a real fighter so they have nicknamed him, “Little Tiger”and, good news, he has even doubled his weight since his birth.Our 3rd day was in was at a work site where Hero Holiday is putting a kitchen on the back of a community centre/school. In the morning, I went with half of my team to the village and played with the kids.. wow.. those kids are wild! When you give one of them a piggy back ride, they all want one. Before you know it, you have 5 children on your back and your legs want to give out. In the afternoon I went to the community centre to dig a hole behind the kitchen for the water drainage. This was a pretty small spot to work in, so Nate and I were kept shoveling for most of the afternoon. The rest of our team was painting or taking turns riding in the wheelbarrows. This day went fast, and we felt like we were really acomplishing something, and not to mention, we were sweating like crazy!
Today we went to Agua Negro (Black Water). It was a great work site. We’re building a house for a grandma with her grandson, because every time when it rains the water from a river close by comes floods their house. It is very dangerous because if they don’t wake up at night, they can drown. For this reason, we’re building a house on higher and dryer ground. It is a great project, and I’m glad that I was a part of it.I’m really thankful that I am here and that I was able to raise enough money to come. I have learned that there are many things in my life that are wants and not needs but I am really grateful for the country I come from and the family I have.I’d like to encourage everyone to NEVER EVER give up on your dreams! Even when times are hard and the situation you’re in is difficult or there doesn’t seem to be a way out. Do NOT give up, you can make it!- Clarine, aka “Gun Show”, participant Hero Holiday, Dominican Republic week 2
The past three days have been an unbelievable start to my third year in the Dominican Republic with Hero Holiday. Day one (our Awareness Tour) was a truly amazing day for me. When we pulled up to Cangrejo, I almost didn’t recognize it. I have been a part of building this community centre from the ground up, but I never thought it would look as amazing as it does now. The rest of the awareness tour brought the same feelings; happiness, surprise, and determination to keep working as hard as I can to make even more of a difference. I am looking forward to working on the new projects and I hope we can make them just as good, if not better than these previous projects.
Day two was an interesting day for team three. We went to the garbage dump to help collect bottles for the people down there so their income could be raised for that day at least. When we got to the gate I had a bad case of deja vu. Last year we were not allowed into the dump at all, and this year we were almost not going to be allowed but Christal managed to get us 15 minutes (which ended up being close to half an hour). Our whole team took full advantage of the short time we got, collecting as many bottles and giving out as much water as we possibly could. Although I had already been to the dump two years ago, I was still overwhelmed by how much garbage there was, and how these people have to search through all of it just to make one or two dollars a day, which is truly unbelievable. We were all disappointed that we couldn’t stay long at the dump, but once we arrived at La Union in the afternoon our attitudes completely turned around. The way the kids tarted cheering and running after our truck when we pulled in and will be an image I will never forget. I`ll also never forget seeing Dustin and the ten kids piled on his back all at once! The time spent there was filled with playing soccer, skipping, colouring, and of course Christal’s home run! I am so grateful that I got to visit La Union because playing with those kids is always a highlight of my trip here.
Today, which is day 3, was such a fun day! Our team got to go to the Orphanage. At first, I was a little bit nervous because this was a different orphanage than the one I have gone to the past two years. All of my worries went away when I saw the same sort of happy smiles on the children`s faces that I have always seen. These kids are not much different then we were growing up. They laugh, cry, sleep, eat and drool. One little boy even pushed a little girl off her chair and then took a picture of her on the ground, which is something many little boys do back in Canada. These children have contagious smiles and laughs that are unforgettable. We all came here hoping to help make a difference, but what we didn’t realize was how much of an impact these communities, people, and experience have on us. The next week is going to be filled with so many more memories and I can`t wait to see what we have in store for us tomorrow!~ Shannon, a Hero Holiday Participant of many years!