Just thinking out loud....

A million jumbled ideas are in my head.  I know each one of us is trying to process what we just experienced as a team and as individuals.  What many of us encountered again in the DR was abject poverty and a sense of the overwhelming problem it represents.

On the way back to Santa Domingo, we discussed how the "problem" of poverty could be fixed.   We all wanted to do something that would help those lovely people we had just spent a week with come up out of generational poverty.  It is only natural for such a response. 

We see the people in Altagracia as human beings who have the same desires and needs as we do.  We see them stuck in a place that is perhaps not of their choosing but stuck all the same.  We want to apply the models that we would use to help them move onto the next stage in their lives, get education, good jobs, buy a house and have some kids who will repeat that cycle, all the time moving farther and farther away from place where they currently find themselves.

In a sense, we see them as "just camping out in that Batey for a while."  We cannot comprehend that they have been there for a long time and have very little hope of taking any steps towards a better future. We are not stuck having to accept strange people coming to build us a place to go to the bathroom. 

To that end, I am very grateful that there are organizations made up of kind and loving people who have taken an active role in the lives of the people living in the batey of Altagracia.  If it were not for COTN, where would the people we have come to know go to for support?  How would we have heard of their needs and taken these small steps in hope for them?

We wear the symbol of the starfish on this trip.  It reminds us of the boy walking down the beach at high tide and picking up starfish stranded by the tide, dying in the sun and throwing them back into the sea.  When asked if he thought he could possibly make a difference to the thousands of starfish that were stranded, he looked down at the one in his hand and said, "I am making a difference to this one."   

Five latrines, education for kids for a few days....can you see the starfish sailing through the air?