DR trip 08. Second day on the work site.

Today I went to the work site called Dominican Advanced. Its a school that has been built by missionaries that had a passed by not too long ago. It was a hot day but because we were up on a hill, there was a cool breeze that swept over our foreheads. There were many children up there spending time with us, both from Haiti and Dominican. They seemed to get along as through there hasn’t been hundreds of years of hatred and tension between them. After lunch we went for a walk down to the villages. The first village we came upon was a Dominican village. Everyone was very happy to see us and all the children joined our group as we explored the unknown. We then came to a set of stairs which led to the Haitian village. I thought it was quite ironic that the Haitian village was below the Dominican one. As we approached the bottom of the 152 roughly carved stairs, a vast beauty swept over me when I saw there little community all spending time together. As we carried on through the village I noticed students comfortably walking into inviting homes, having what they could of a conversation. It was incredible to see how far a little body language could go. On our way back to the stairway that led to a different world, I had a little girl beside me. She had my hand tight in hers and had made it clear to all that I was hers. After we climbed the stairs a lady walked up beside me and went to grab my hand. She barely had a grip on it before the little girl attached to my other side, smacked it away. At that moment I realized the lady trying to hold my hand was handicapped and was greatly rejected by those in her community. It broke my heart. In Canada people with disabilities are taken care of to the fullest. The fact that this lady had little love or hope to help her survive brought me down to a low. Shortly after the little girl had got distracted and ran off. I looked ahead and saw the lady a few paces ahead of me so I walked up beside her. Reaching for her hand, she looked my way, and reached for mine. She grasped tightly and smiled at me, making joyful noises that would normally make her community walk away, uncomfortable. We walked the rest of the way up to the village and when she saw all the children playing she groaned loudly with excitement and ran towards them. It took all my strength to hold my tears back and hope that the children wouldn’t reject her like the little girl had done. All I could do was smile so big my jaw hurt when she walked by, and all I could do was love her as she should be loved; as every person, young or old should be loved.Alethea Troves- Student Leader.

First day, out on the work sites

Today was our very first day with our new teams out on the work sites. We have 5 different teams and 5 different work site which include: Arroyo Seco- a school, Congreho- a school, Dominican Advance- building a fence around a school, Bernard’s House, and the garbage dump. Each of our teams went to a different work site and everyone worked super hard and had the time of their lives. There are little children at each site, so we all take turns playing with the kids, and working. It’s such an amazing time, the warm sun, the laughing children, and the satisfaction of knowing your doing something to help the people who really need it. Its such a great way to start off the trip!!After work everyone came back, went swimming, got some cold ice lemonade, and had a rest. Dinner was then served and debriefing of the days activities with our teams then started. Anyways… we’ve got a pool party going on now… so i better go, but ill let you all know how it went tomorrow.

WE’RE HERE!!!!

Well… we all arrived in The Dominican Republic safe!! The Western and Ontario Departures both got off to a great start. Both teams met up in New Yorks JFK airport, where everyone met some new faces, the Hero Holiday staff, and got ready for the last leg of our journey. On the plane most people slept, traveling really does take a lot out of you. But at 1:05pm, a whole 55 minutes early, our entire team was awake and excited to be landing in The Dominican Republic and starting their time here.After getting our rooms, roommates and luggage sorted out, we had some free time to go swimming or take a nap before dinner. After dinner Christal Earle, one of the founders of Hero Holiday, did a little orientation of Dominican life with us and we go split up into our groups for the week. These are the groups that we are going to be with at all the work sites, debriefing sessions, and excursions with, its all very exciting. All in all the first night was a blast!!

Christmas Eve Miracle

I am currently in Dominican Republic, visiting our Hero Holiday sites with my parents and some friends, and catching up with old friends from the garbage dump and the villages that are forever etched in my heart. On Christmas Eve, I had a little miracle, and last night I went to sleep with peace because I knew it was going to be ok. As many of you know, this past summer, while here on Hero Holiday, I found a little boy in the garbage dump that was orphaned, and who didn’t remember his own name, because his mother and father had been dead for so long. I named him David, and his story has gone around the world! He stole my heart this summer, and for the past 4 months, he was always on my heart and the focus of so many of my prayers. He is an amazing and resilient kid, but I left here in August hoping he would be ok. The home that he was in made me a little nervous, but what did I know about life for Haitian refugees and what they are forced to do to survive?When I got to his village on Christmas Eve, I started looking for him, as there were lots of kids around our vehicle, but none of them David. Our translator, Bernard, and I started to look for him throughout the village. I went to the house I had last seen him staying in, and there was a new family there. We asked around, and after much confusion, found out that that family had moved to another house. We got there, and the lady that was there told us a terrible story: that David had freaked out and wrecked their house, and that she had to beat him with a leather belt twice. As she is telling me this, I am trying to control my facial expressions. In my head, I keep repeating, “Ok, Christal, calm down and don’t judge this situation until you find out the truth”. With measured control in my voice, I asked if I could see him. She proceeded to tell me that he no longer lived with them, and that he was now with a Dominican Family up the hill. Her son led us up the hill and as we wound our way through little rivers of garbage and mud, past houses with blaring sound systems, dodging chickens, dogs, and other unidentifiable creatures, we finally came to a nice painted cement house (a rarity for this village) and knocked on the door (also a rarity!). Inside, a man with kind eyes looked out at us and smiled, and Bernard explained to him who we were. He replied, “Oh, yes, we were expecting you to come find us!”. And then, from out around the corner of the doorway, I saw those same beautiful eyes searching mine. As soon as he saw it was me, he came forward. We met in the doorway, and I held him and cried. I kept kissing his cheek and telling him how much I missed him and how much I loved him. He just stayed there with his arms around me and nodded his head. I turned to the man whose house we were in and I told him thanks so much for taking such good care of him. He told me, “I can see that you love him very much. We love him too. We brought him here because we don’t want to see him being mistreated anymore.” That was what I needed to hear: that he was somewhere safe and somewhere where he was loved.We began to walk back down to meet up with everyone, and David showed me his new school, as well as where he and his friends play. He told me is happy now and that he feels safe. The people that have taken him in were friends with some missionaries that visit his village, and they were very good to him and made him know he was loved.This was my Christmas miracle: the gift of being able to see a dream realized, and the reality that there is never a small kindness that is wasted. Life is about giving yourself away, because it is the gift that the world truly wants and needs. This year, on Christmas Eve, I experienced that in a whole new way.

Announcing our New Western Departure!

Hello Everyone! We have exciting news for a Friday afternoon. It’s official: Hero Holiday Dominican Republic has a new departure location for Summer 2008! Abbotsford, BC. We have had overwhelming participation from our students in Western Canada, despite the long haul it required to get them to Dominican Republic. Yes, sleepy-eyed after hours of travel, they are little troopers! Details…participants can choose an Abbotsford, BC departure rather than Hamilton, ON. The dates for the trips remain the same. We will have our staff ready and waiting whether you show up in Hamilton or Abbotsford. However, since Abbotsford is twice the distance from Sosua as Hamilton, the cost of Hero Holiday is slightly higher at $2595. Leadership Students, you are not forgotten! You also have the option of flying from Abbotsford instead of Hamilton for a cost of $3895. Well, I hope you are as excited as we are!

Upcoming Hero Holiday Application Deadlines

Here are some upcoming application deadlines that you might want to take note of:

• November 1, 2007: Application Deadline for Thailand Spring Break (Mar 9-24, 2008) Hero Holiday
• November 15, 2007: Application Deadline for Mexico Spring Break (Mar 1-11, 2008) Hero Holiday
• December 1, 2007: Application Deadline for our Student Leadership Program
• If there is enough interest, we are considering running a Christmas Hero Holiday Trip in Mexico, for families and individuals. Please email our Hero Holiday Director, Charles Roberts, as soon as possible  at charles@heroholiday.com, if you are interested in the opportunity to do something significant this Christmas.

Please visit our trips page more more information, or visit our applications page to apply

Participant Blog:My Girl

Have you ever had one person who impacted your life in such a way that just thinking of them brings tears to your eyes? Have you ever missed someone so much that looking at a picture makes your heart break? I have, and she is a six-year old girl named Anna*.
Anna and I met during my 10-day trip to the Dominican Republic with an organization called LiveDifferent. We were building a school in her neighbourhood and every day as we were working the kids would come by to see us. Most of them, some as young as only three, would put on work gloves and help to build their school. Anna was one of those kids; she was my little helper. Every morning when we arrived at Arroyo Seco, she would be standing waiting for the truck, and her face would break into a big smile when she saw me coming down the road. She and her friends would follow the truck down to the school and jump all over us, exchanging hugs and smiles. Anna grabbed my attention immediately. As the other kids would run and jump all over us and beg to be picked up and played with, she would stand off to the side a bit and take everything in. She was quiet and wore a look on her face that at first I took for sadness, but I soon learned that she wasn’t a sad girl and was very blessed with the most generous and caring family I have ever met.

After a few minutes, she and I had already formed a bond that I will never forget. I saw a lot of sad things when I was in the Dominican; I saw kids with swollen bellies and hair turned red from lack of nutrition. I saw families who had to work in a garbage dump for less than a dollar a day. I saw parents who would do anything to give their kids a proper education and successful life. From these people, I learned a lot about life and they will be forever in my memory, however, it is Anna whose picture is framed in my bedroom, and Anna who I think about each and every day.

When I was in the Dominican, my life was changed and I learned so much about endless topics that I could write for pages about. Anna taught me about happiness. Looking back on my life, my happiest moments are spent at Arroyo Seco with Anna’ hand in mine.
When it came time to leave and return to Canada, I carried her to the truck to say our goodbyes. She rested her head on my shoulder, leaving a puddle of tears on my sleeve, and that simple gesture brought me to tears, and I cried like I haven’t cried in a long time. Her mother, one of the kindest women I have ever met, brought a translator over as she pulled Anna, still crying, from my arms and told him to tell me that “This little girl is mine, but now she is both of ours.”

In the next year before I go back to the DR, her memories will probably fade of that week as she goes to school, turns seven years old, and moves ahead with her life, but my memories of her will never fade. She is, without a doubt, the one person who has touched me the most in my life, and the person who taught me what it is to feel truly happy.

~Nikki Cochrane

*Name has been changed to protection identity.

**All participants are given the opportunity to blog so many views are represented. These views do not necessarily reflect the views of LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) Leadership Development. If you are a Builds participant that would like to share your experience please email your story (and picture, if possible) to builds@livedifferent.com

Participant Blog: A Spoonful of Sugar

The day we went to the dump opened my eyes a bit more to what some of our world has to go through. They work for less than a dollar a day to support themselves, support their families. They can’t ‘call in sick’ because their lives depend on this little work that they have. They can’t get any other work because they are not even considered as existing human beings. Starving dogs roam looking for any left over food, abused because they are the competition to survival.

A little boy was sitting on the top of a hill with the ‘Heffe’ (who, may I add, was wearing a ‘make poverty history’ bracelet as he helped us pump possibly the only fresh water that they’ve gotten in a long time). The little boy’s parents were working hard in the dump, collecting anything of value. He sat there so silent, no words, no emotion showing on the outside. He wouldn’t look around or anything. Just sat in silence, so tiny and innocent. We gave a cup of water to the little boy and he drank it so slowly, like it was precious and he had to savour it. He kept it up to his lips, not letting go of it, taking tiny sips. He finished it after a long time. We asked what was wrong through the translator, the translator asked him but he couldn’t even speak. He asked people around him and they said he was really sick. I sat down and rubbed and tickled his back. Love is one of the most important necessities to survival. I put him on my lap because he was sitting on the dump grounds all day…every day. We gave him another cup of water and then Christal asked if any of us had something sweet. I went to my knapsack because I remembered that I had a fruit bar in there. I quietly snuck him little pieces of the sugary fruit bar and he ate it so gratefully, so peacefully, still hardly moving. But just ten minutes later, he started moving more and he smiled at me about five times. He had a beautiful smile, beautiful eyes and all he needed was sugar. All they need is sugar. something in their blood, in their tummy and they can’t get it because many people only see that they have their own money, their own home, their own sugar.

~Katrina Niederer

*All participants are given the opportunity to blog so many views are represented. These views do not necessarily reflect the views of LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) Leadership Development. If you are a Hero Holiday participant that would like to share your experience please email your story (and picture, if possible) to blog@heroholiday.com

Participant Blog:Danica changed my life

A LiveDifferent Build is an amazing experience, no one comes home the same, but the affects of this adventure were insanely heightened by my contact with Danica. I never knew her. I had seen her once at the resort with Phil and his family, and had heard about her in our morning leaders meetings, but other than that, i had no reason to remember her. Even when the news of her passing came, although hard as it was for me to hear that another statistic had come true, I felt no real connection to her.On the way to the work site that day, I couldn’t help but cry. I don’t know why I cried, I’m not a crier, I only cried 3 times that whole trip, 2 were that day. I think my team thought I was crazy. Just sitting at the back of the truck, silently sobbing, hidden behind my hat. It wasn’t until Bill told them what had happened did they understand the reasons for my grief. They understood somehow, but I didn’t, I still don’t really. Later that day I had the opportunity to go to Danica’s funeral. I thought to myself, “Now Lea, you have no reason to go, you have hardly any connection with this child.” but for some reason I felt like I had to go. So I went..as a “support” for those who knew and loved her. I wasn’t very supportive. I was sobbing the whole time. I cried about a lot of things. About how a group of strangers had fallen in love so quickly, about how Danica had been cheated by poverty, about how the statistics just keep growing bigger, even though we are trying so hard to prevent them. I was overcome with a horrible sense of hopelessness.After the ceremony, I went up to the grave. I made a vow, to myself, Danica, and to anyone else who cares to hear it. For children like Danica, for those who can’t fight, I will fight for them. That sense of hopelessness changed. It converted itself into a burning desire to stop this injustice. Danica was 18 months old, how is it fair for her to die? How is that right? How can these things be happening all over the world so silently? When someone famous dies, people write books about them? Was anyone going to write a book for Danica? What about the other 29,999 kids that die a day due to poverty? Where is their book?This is what fuels me. Danica gave me a reason to continue my fight against poverty. She is my reason. For her, and all those like her, I will never stop fighting.~ Lea Silver *All participants are given the opportunity to blog so many views are represented. These views do not necessarily reflect the views of LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) Leadership Development. If you are a Builds participant that would like to share your experience please email your story (and picture, if possible) to builds@livedifferent.com

Participant Blog: Coming Home

I attended Hero Holiday Week 1 this year in Sosua, Dominican Republic. I have been home for just about a month now. People have been asking me how my trip was and I reply, “Oh it was awesome!” “It was great!” “Lifechanging, for sure, thanks.” But I could never open up about it and really tell them about it. Until now, I’ve almost tried to push it all aside and pretend I didn’t see the things that I saw because it was too hard to bring it up again and go through it all again. It’s just so hard to describe…I mean, just to put words to the thousands of memories that flood my mind every single day.

Most of us here have never experienced the hunger and illness that needlessly kills 30,000 children a day. I don’t even know how to describe digging through the dump just to find scraps of food for someone to eat…food that was on your plate yesterday that you threw out. It’s not even the poverty that you see in the movies because this time it’s real, and instead of a cameraman with a clipboard in his hand, there’s a 4-year-old little boy with no shoes on, wearing shreds for clothes, looking up at you and depending on you.

It’s so frustrating that you can’t even understand what they’re saying to you when they’re tugging on your shirt and looking up at you with those big brown eyes! I hate that I couldn’t really talk to them and communicate and let them know how much they were loved by total strangers. When you hold that child in your arms and she starts smiling at you and poking your cheeks and babbling on to you, it’s true. You are the person she’s been looking for. You, the person who didn’t think you could do much to help. And just by taking those few steps and believing in yourself, here you are, in a third world country, with the help of a hundred others, building a school for the community, visiting the orphanage for children who will know no more then the four walls they are enclosed in, and feeding that 3-month-old baby who’s parents have left them to die in a ditch. You, you did all this.

I will admit it was really hard coming home though. It was hard walking in my room and seeing everything that I have and all that I take for granted. Remembering of complaining of tiny, now insignificant things. It was hard looking at my kitchen at all the food I had. I didn’t eat for the first two days I was home and I hated everyone who went out to supper who didn’t think twice about throwing out what they couldn’t eat. Didn’t they know that I had held children in my arms who would never see more then a few apple cores and moldy pieces of bread in their lifetime? Didn’t they know that those 8 or 9 fries they threw out would be a dream come true for the starving? I was so angry at everyone for complaining about their clothes or their hair or when the internet wasn’t working.

Days go by and I guess it gets a little bit easier to deal with, but I still get moments where something strikes me and I can’t help but feel guilty about the culture I was brought up in. You just have to know that it’s not your fault that you have a roof over your head and food on the table. You can live in Canadian culture and still help out in many ways through awareness posters and discussions, and you will find someone who shares the same passion to help as you. From now on my motto is not “I’m only one person, what good can one person do?” It’s, “I am one person plus the million of other people that want to help. Together we can do this.”

And you can. You really, really can.

~Laura Marshall

*All participants are given the opportunity to blog so many views are represented. These views do not neccesarily reflect the views of LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) Leadership Development. If you are a Hero Holiday participant that would like to share your experience please email your story (and picture, if possible) to blog@heroholiday.com