By the Numbers

The 2014 trip had a host of extraordinary outcomes. Here are some important numbers:

• Over the week we conducted five medical clinics, working alongside our hosts from the Good Samaritan Hospital, and treated more than 1000 patients, providing them with at least a month's worth of meds, vitamins and toiletries that were donated by friends and family.

• One of the bateys we visited had never had a clinic before and as such our team treated more than 220 patients in one day, setting a record for the mission we work with!

• We finished our fifth hurricane-proof house on Batey 50. This batey is privately owned and therefor the government does not provide hurricane-proof housing. Prior to teams like ours building homes for them, residents lived in homes they cobbled together from found sticks, shards of corrugated tin, and weathered, discarded pieces of plywood. A photo below shows the old and new construction side by side.

• Our team distributed food to residents at all of the bateys we visited, reaching more than 1200 homes.

• La Fuerza Azul had 47 members — 19 students and two chaperons from the University High School of Science and Engineering, 5 doctors from the UConn School of Medicine, 6 Watkinson faculty, 7 Watkinson students, 5 Watkinson alums, 1 Watkinson parent and 4 friends of the school.

• We hauled 38 fifty lb. bags of donated shoes and had the privilege of distributing them everywhere we went.

• We have relationships with two different schools in the La Romana area -- one on Batey 50 and one in a barrio called Kilometer 6. We had the joy of donating more than 10 bags of school supplies — notebooks, crayons, pencils, glue, manipulatives and learning games — in both locations.

• We sponsored a teacher two years ago, Belkis, who has now finished her education and graduates December 3. We also had the financial resources, thanks to many generous donors, to sponsor a new student, Minerva, studying to become a teacher. The most interesting part of these sponsorships is that the organization that coordinates them requires the beneficiaries to pay the money back to the sponsor program after they have been gainfully employed for five years.

• The construction projects coordinated by the Good Samaritan have been using the same cement mixer for more than 25 years. It was overused when they acquired it. Now, 25 years later, it is woefully insufficient for the work they do. Again, thanks to the generous donors who support the work of Watkinson's D.R Service Team, we were able to give the Good Samaritan enough money to buy a new cement mixer. When speaking with a board member for the hospital, he was overjoyed and exclaimed that the efficiency of the 70 teams of volunteers that work alongside the Good Samaritan staff will increase by more than 30%. Our experience bears this out as we spent about one third of our week mixing cement by hand as the mixer wasn't working.

However, the total story of our work cannot be told by the numbers alone. Below the photos is a lovely reflection by one of our student travelers.

Top to bottom: New House and Old House Side By Side, Construction Team with the House We Completed, Med Team

Reflection from a Student Traveler

I had a blast working construction and painting, the children loved helping and I loved being with them because they were always happy. I also really enjoyed working at the med clinics; my favorite jobs were intake and blood pressure. The people in the bateys are so loving and amazing — a simple hug makes their day. Also, there may have been a few times where I was tempted to take a child home with me. And by a few times I mean every day the temptation would creep into me.

I have been asked numerous times: “Why would you give up your Thanksgiving to go work all the way in the Dominican Republic and be away from your family?” I would respond to them with confidence, “I would rather spend my Thanksgiving giving people that have almost nothing something to be thankful for.” I would rather give an 11 year-old boy who had tattered and holey shoes the sneakers right off my feet than pig out on a gluttonous meal. I would rather spend my Thanksgiving helping to run a med clinic than watching a football game while falling asleep from all the food I ate. The people we serve are not thankful for just one Thursday a year. They will be thankful when it rains because they now have a roof over their head. They will be thankful when they are taking their medicine because they were lucky to see a doctor. And they will be thankful when they are putting on the shoes that were donated by loving people half a continent away. And no, I did not spend Thanksgiving without my family; the team is just as much family as my actual family.

On this trip I was the happiest I have been in months. Nothing lifts my spirits like helping people that need it and making great friends while doing so. If I had to take anything away from this trip it is do what you can to make someone’s life a little easier or their day a bit more bearable. Be thankful for everything you have, including the education you have, and for the fact that you can count on it that you will have a next meal. There is no way that I will pass up this life-changing experience next year.

We Set the Record

Emilio, our lead translator, says that our med team set the all time record for number of patients seen at a med clinic in all the years they have been doing this work…220! The med team was in a barrio that is far away from La Romana, called Yuma. It was a wide open space that made for a less chaotic clinic.

The construction team cranked out tons of work in the morning making significant progress on the foundation (photo below). One of the joys of today is that we are really starting to get to know and be able to joke around with our translators, Luis and Jean Baptiste. After lunch today, the 25-year-old cement mixer broke so work halted and while they were trying to fix it, we had a good chunk of time to play with the adorable kids.

After work, we made our annual visit to the local orphanage. Many of our team's repeat travelers have made some important connections and were eager to see these special little ones. For some reason, the permanence of these girl's situation really saddens all of our team.

The highlight of our week is our annual Thanksgiving celebration where all of our team and all of our hosts gather for a big dinner and party at the local resort, Case de Campo. It is a time when we get to relax, meet their families and bond in a deep and satisfying way. Plus, it's a blast. The kids all get to swim in the pool and there is always a big dance party! This year, Hilda (one of our translators who is a great grandmother) taught a group how to salsa!

Hump Day

Wednesday felt like a hump day! Everyone was very tired. As such we worked a slightly shorter work day.

The med clinic went to Batey Pinita, a very small and congested batey where the team has visited on three previous trips. Part of the reason it is such a crowded place is that this is one of the places where new workers and their families go after just arriving from Haiti. Since the cane cutting season starts of December 6, there were a lot of new and anxious faces at Pinita. There were also a LOT of tiny babies. One of our realizations is that, while we had a LOT of children's vitamins with us, we did not have infant vitamins. Another is that it would be really beneficial to the team to always have a pediatrician or pediatric resident with us. Regardless, the clinic hustled, saw more than 100 patients and still got back to Casa Pastorale by 1pm! Particularly impressive today were Toby, who held down intake (working with Juan Roberto) and Allie M., who has really mastered taking blood pressures!

The construction team started to mix and pour the foundation, which was made double hard because we had to do it all by hand as the cement mixer would not work. Everyone on construction is doing a good job pacing them selves and taking turns with the hardest jobs. Taylor, Helene, Jen J. and Alannah all impressed the boys with their impressive wheelbarrowing skills!

After our restorative trip to the beach, the highlight of the day was a visit from Belkis, a young woman our team met two years ago. We have been sponsoring her education to become a teacher and she graduates on December third. Through her tears, she thanked us profusely. In turn, our team thanks all the people who made financial gifts to support the work of La Fuerza Azul in La Romana!

Tuesday: Guazabal and Rebar

Tuesday marked the fifth year our team has spent a day at Batey Guazabal. The setting at Guazabal is very pastoral and the people are very sweet. This year's clinic was full of patients with acute hypertension, STDs, and malaria. We reunited with several friends, including a feisty lady in her late sixties named Victoria who remembers our names year to year and gives hugs like a vice grip. There is also a special needs boy on this batey, named Jacson, of who our team is very fond. He raced to bus and leapt into arms in order to receive hugs from his blue-shirted friends. The clinic ran even more smoothly than Mondays. Jessica D. has taken charge of running our pharmacy and is doing a masterful job; today was aided by Jeanette B., Hannah D. and Lily Y. Greeting patients at the door and recording their information (a job we call intake) was done by Noe and all our translators were very impressed with his Spanish!

Our second day at Batey 50 was very similar to the first…lots more digging and pick axing to finish the trench for the foundation. We are proud to say it is complete and the day was finished off with cutting and placing the rebar (which Mike D. calls rhubarb!). On Wednesday we will start with mixing and pouring cement into the trench.

After our work day we enjoyed a Toros baseball game which was sadly cut short by a rain delay.

Monday: Buen Trabajo

The med team has a very busy and successful clinic at Cruce de Pavon. The heroes of the day were Danni C. and Rachel K. who, despite not speaking any spanish, did yeoman's work with shoe distribution. This process is exponentially harder when the people receiving shoes can see all their choices, which was the case today. They both exhibited enormous patience and kindness. The process was expedited when Jen J. helped with some translation. Mikayla B and her mom took blood pressures today and did well, despite the noisy chaos ensuing around them. Carolyn P. staffed the parasite meds station today, a task that finishes earlier than the others because it is the first station at the clinic. This left her lots of time to take photos, which she was eager to do.

In addition to running a clinic at Cruce de Pavon, six students ran a kids camp for the young children whose parents were either out working or in the clinic. Though exhausted at the end of the day, our student leaders (which included Lily, Noe, Taylor, Liam, Hannah M. and Allie M.) said they had a lot of fun. As long as someone had a ball to play with, it seems all our young friends were happy.

The construction team worked on two tasks today: painting corrugated metal roofing shingles and pick axing the rocky clay dirt and then shoveling it out of the trenches that will ultimately house the foundation of a two family house.

Painting was uncharacteristically stressful because it was a surprisingly windy day and the very large sheets of metal kept launching airborne, sometimes into the children who surround us as we work. Jenni F. (the only mom in the group) was very worried that one of our little friends was going to be seriously injured! Alas, all was fine.

The heroes of the construction site were the men who tackled digging out the foundation. This was grueling, back breaking work on an humid 90-degree day. Most impressive to all the leaders is the fact that NO ONE complained. And EVERYONE said they were ready to go back and do it some more on Tuesday!

One of the highlights of returning to Batey 50 was to see the new school! It was exciting to see all our little friends in class and we are eager to bring the teachers some of the school supplies we brought with us.

Much of our evening was spent packing more than 200 food kits which will get distributed at Tuesday and Wednesday's clinics.

La Fuerza Azul: buen trabajo!!!!!

Sunday is Funday

Our first task on Sunday was to unpack and organize all of the meds, shoes, toys and school supplies that were so generously donated by friends and family back home. It took us about 4 hours with everyone hustling and working like a team to get this major job done. After that, we set up an assembly line and packed the food kits we will distribute at Monday's medical clinic, the first of the week. We have learned that we are going to a batey we have never been before called Cruce Pavon. Twenty six of us will head there for what Emilio (our dear friend and the lead translator our team has worked with each of the five years our team has come) predicts will be a pretty big clinic. Tomorrow, the rest of us (22) will return to Batey 50. All of the repeat travelers are nearly giddy at the prospect of seeing our friends there.

After all our unpacking and packing were done, we had lunch, a short siesta and then headed to the beach. One of the first things you learn about life in the Dominican Republic is that their concept of planning is not like ours. Here, it seems, planning is when you decide what is happening twenty minutes from now! All 47, highly expectant, type-A planners are learning to roll with the Dominican way of thinking/living! Our first experience of this was around our after dinner plans. We intended to go to church at Kilometer 6, a barrio where we have important relationships. It is always a raucous good time; but because the church had a special event during the day, they weren't holding service on Sunday night. This meant that suddenly 47 of us had a free Sunday night in La Romana! We opted to do some important team building and get a good night sleep.

We are sharing dorm space with a small team from Wethersfield. How's that for a coincidence. They are here doing a construction project at the school in Kilometer 6, called the Joe Hartman School. It is an interesting and important life lesson to work out differences with grace. Sitting at the same table and making 250 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the children at Elsa's school was a good start.

Travel Day #DRST14

All 47 of us made it to La Romana safely, though it was a long, and somewhat trying, travel day. Hassles included unbelievably cumbersome airport processes for checking through all 87 of our bags and also being locked out of the dorms once we arrived. Positives included everyone in tremendously good spirits/health and being on a new and spacious plane. Because being in the airport was the first time all 47 of us were together, we opted to do some team building while we waited to board the plane. Ms. Garcia and Ms. French divided the team into two groups and we ran large circle paseos right in the middle of JFK. La Fuerza Azul is off an away!!!! Below is a pano of our big group in the airport.

Apply for the 2014 Dominican Republic Service Trip

Download the trip summary! In order to be considered as a traveler, you must complete all three parts of the application and hand them in by March 24, 2014.

Part I: The student application cover sheet
Part II: The student application
Part III: The parent application