Alumni Blog

The Intercordia Experience was meaningful for me because…...

Cynthia (Loran/Dominican Republic/2009) shares her awareness about the beauty and complexity of poverty in the DR.

In 2009, I was a participant in Intercordia Canada Engaged Learning Program and spent 3 months in a small town called Consuelo in the south-eastern part of the Dominican Republic. I spent the summer integrating myself in a biblical evangelical community that was very different from my own. I volunteered at an after school children’s center with approximately 400 children from poor socioeconomic backgrounds teaching English and organizing games and crafts. I also paid occasional visits to nearby sugar cane cutters’ camps, spent time with shoe shinning boys in Boca Chica, and spent weekends at a center that provides dignified life opportunities to people with intellectual disabilities in Santo Domingo.
Consuelo’s scenery is a strange mix of Bachata, Reggae and Christian Pop music; street dogs, free range chickens and pedestrian goats; dirt roads and paved roads; cell phones and loud shouts from window to window; slums, humble houses, and luxury mansions; trucks filled with plantains or sugar canes with loud microphones screaming the price of the day in Dominican Spanish, motorcycle taxies, and horses; nice shoes, no shoes, and clean fashionable clothes… Consuelo is a strange mix of modest poverty and new-age technology. It is a place where inequality prevails and where the rich and the poor live side by side. Yet however poor certain barrios of Consuelo may be, this town has a certain richness that is rare in Canada: genuine joy and generosity. Here, laughter is everywhere and people look out for one another.
Living at the rhythm of poverty has given me a lot of time to think about my future goals and aspirations. It has sucked me out of my rushed routine and brought me peace and content. Observing the close family ties within my community, I have taken time to speak with my parents weekly and entertain a stronger relationship with them. I also spent time with children every day and I learned how to care for them and how to be with them, a situation that was very new to me and that helped me grow as a person. Most importantly, Dominicans have showed me how easy and necessary it is to speak and share with strangers. Here, sharing is not only necessary for one’s economic well-being, getting to know each other is also necessary for the barrio’s safety. When a thief tried to rob our laundry one night at 3am, our street was quickly filled with screaming neighbors who hissed him away without difficulty. Finally, people have welcomed me with such warm hospitality that I feel embarrassed of the way that I have treated strangers in my own country. In the Dominican Republic, it is common to open your doors to strangers.
The Intercordia Experience was meaningful for me because it has changed the way that I understand poverty and has opened my eyes to its complexities. Having been in contact with the living reality of poverty, I am even more conscious of the dilemmas involved in my field of study, International Development. Most importantly, Intercordia has given me the opportunity to create meaningful relationships with people whose world views are utterly different from my own. We attained a level of mutual understanding that I did not think was possible.