My final evening in Cabarete was filled with many emotions. I
was both exited to be heading back to the world of my family and
friends again, and sad to leave such a special place and special
people behind. As I was walking down the street in the Callejón
de la Loma neighborhood, tears welling in my eyes from fresh goodbyes,
I felt the same emotions that I had felt the first time I saw the
place that was to be my home this term: awe, amazement, and pure
wonder. How strange and wonderful was this place that surrounded
me! The sights of brightly colored homes, the dark red earth of
the hills, and the lush green that covers them; the sounds of kids
running by and the rhythms of meringue and bachata music coming
from many different angles; the smell of a cool ocean breeze on
a warm tropical night – all these things had amazed me when
I first arrived in Cabarete. But this time they were even better,
even more wonderful. I felt like I was a part of them, part of
the neighborhood, part of this strange world. And they had certainly
become a part of me. The people in the houses were not just interesting
people from a foreign world. I knew their lives – how they
worked, how they ate, and how they played. Despite
the fact that we were so different in so many ways, they had become
my friends.
And that was the most wonderful thing of all.
Some of the things I did in and out of school while I was in
Cabarete include helping Hector with the Independence Day play,
working on raising money for the
baseball field improvements, tutoring student’s family members in English,
spending time with kids and families on the weekends, taking kids hiking and
having our own beach bonfire, and of course teaching and fixing up the library.
What I will miss the most, as you might guess, are the kids.
My relationships with the students were incredible gifts. It almost
makes me feel guilty – like
they gave me more than I could ever give them. Some of the special ones I will
never forget: Victor, a smart eighth grader whose family I spent so much time
with, Alex, a fourth grader who I was always hanging out with and who was probably
my best friend in Cabarete, Nana and her sister Susuna, who were smiling and
drawing pictures of flowers and hearts almost every time you saw them, despite
the fact that they lived in a dirt floor, cardboard house and their father was
in prison. These kids and so many others down there need so much. I wish I could
give them all the opportunities I had. Yet all they ever asked me for – all
they wanted from me – was my time. I would like to thank the Tucker Foundation
for giving me the opportunity to give them a couple months out of my life. I
promise I will find a way to give more.
Those were my thoughts just after returning to school. I think
they reflect the simple but incredibly profound transformation
in my perspective on the world
that resulted from my experience in Cabarete. I consider those 10 weeks
as some of the most important in my life. I was at a lecture last
week on global health
by the former head of the Centers for Disease Control, and he said the
biggest obstacle to changing inequities in global health and effecting
social justice
in developing countries, was simply forcing the privileged and the suffering
to make eye contact. The program does this in a powerful way for the
Dartmouth students involved. On the other side of the coin, I think
the continuity of the
presence of Dartmouth students in Caberete has been key to making a real
difference in the lives of the kids in that community.
After returning from Cabarete, I became much more involved in
my mentoring program with kids from a local public housing project
in New Hampshire. After graduating,
I spent a year as an AmeriCorps Member, working for a social service
agency with a largely hispanic immigrant population in Southern
California near where I grew
up. I am now a first year student at Dartmouth Medical School.
