Personal Narrative: My First Trip In The Dominican Republic

When spring break began my parents gave me the opportunity to have 2 weeks of spring break, where I would spend the first week hanging out with my and fiends and the week they go back to school I go on a cruise. While I was on the cruise me and my family visited 4 different islands over the 8 day voyage. On the third day on the boat we visited the Dominican Republic, on the fifth day we visited St. Thomas, on the sixth day we visited Puerto )Rico, and on the seventh day we visited are final island Grand Turk.

When thinking of my memories it’s as if you were surfing through TV channels. Some making me wish I could go back to that day and relive it. Some I hope I will never have to relive. Most memories make me smile and think of how much I want to be little again. Although at that age, all I wanted was to grow up and live my own life. My memories can range from being at home to being anywhere but home. Although, some stick out more than others. One of those few fond memories is going to the Dominican Republic with my family.

Back in 2014 and 2015, the school I used to attend in the Dominican Republic organized trips to orphanages in Haiti. 80 percent of the 32 000 orphans across the 760 orphanages have parents who want them, but they are not able to support their children. The organized trips were crucial in forming me as a caring and loving person. Before, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine how heart-breaking watching these starving, cheerless children would be. I always visualized kids as playful, blissful, and joyful creatures. However, looking at the Haitian orphans I realized how cruel reality can be to people. It was the first time I’ve faced such conditions, and I strongly rejected the fact who there are people in the world that may deserve even a little part of it.

It's significant to me because when I went with my family to Cartagena, I was 7 years old. it was the first time I was going on a trip outside of the United States. when we got to Cartagena I was amazed by how beautiful everything is, and I was shocked with how different it was from back home. The differences I saw sparked a curiosity in me, that I never knew existed. from that moment I fell in love with learning about different places around the world and the culture that comes with that place. the trip to Cartagena was also the first time I got to see some of my family members. I have always lived in Florida and only knew about the family members I had in South America through what my parents would say about them. When we arrived to South

Since transferring to the University of Southern Maine from Colby College to become a student of the University of Southern Maine School of Nursing, I have been looking forward to the opportunity to travel to the Dominican Republic with the University of Southern Maine School of Nursing Dominican Republic Outreach Program. The Dominican Republic Outreach Program travels from Maine to the Dominican Republic every six months to provide basic health care and health education to residents who otherwise would have no access to such care, and I am beyond excited to announce that I will be taking part in the January 2017 trip to the Dominican Republic!

Upon our arrival to The Dominican Republic, my mother informed me that we were going to spend most of our vacation at my grandparent’s house. Immediately, I was filled with exhilaration. After so many years, I would finally visit my beloved grandparents. I had already visualized what spending the summer at their house would be like. Rolling in the sand of the clear see-through beaches, listening to the birds sing and chirp around us as we savor our early morning breakfast, enjoying the sound of waves smashing into the rocks on the shore, and laying in an air-conditioned room when the temperature got too high.

a rich and diverse society in which I grew up and partook in work at.

Despair , a sharp tenderness in my feet every step i took, the smell of plastic and boxes flooded my nostrils like a tsunami , this is how i felt after my first officially as a working american .

"Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time" - Marian Wright Edelman. To serve others is to minister and help others in various ways; it is not an act to do for show or publicity, but simply to enrich and help the lives of others and your own life. Everyone can serve one another in some form or fashion without even realizing the impact. Over my high school and college career, I have volunteered for a multitude of community service projects, ranging from mission trips, to serving the local HESED house children. Although, out of all of these projects, the one that leaves a lasting impact to me was the mission trip to the Dominican Republic.

Brian turned his stare to Mr. Smith and voiced his displeasure. “Maybe I was not understood, Tim… I want Ms. Loran to accompany Mr. Johnson and me to the Dominican Republic. She can provide valuable assistance to Mr. Johnson since the main language in the country is Spanish, and she is fluent in the language.” I should not be surprised to learn he was aware I spoke four languages, but I was.

One August day in the Dominican Republic, my dad took me to La Sirena – a gigantic market. Walking from the parking lot to the market, sky-high, slender-stemmed palm trees surrounding the building. I felt a hot breeze flow across my skin. We entered the air conditioned market, and the sound of Dominican accents and music filled my ears. The market reminded me of a Wal-Mart, except Spanish music was playing, and each aisle was filled with Dominican products and goods in Spanish print.

My first awakening in a place that is not my home felt just right. My eyes were drowning in the beautiful view of the mountains while I inhaled the purest air on Earth. After eating a delicious breakfast, the mission began. A hike to the source of uncontaminated water that would provide the Las Rosas community access to clean water and sanitation. Following nine days of carrying and placing pipes, mixing cement, and building a water tank, Water Day had arrived. I was in Las Rosas, Dominican Republic, living one of the most wonderful and joyful moments of my life. I was seeing the children and the volunteers getting completely soaked with the water that was rushing out of the pipes. I was getting emotional when I saw Mami (one of the resident

Since returning from a service trip to the Dominican Republic in 2016, I have strived to be a leader in my school in nearly every way. On this trip, I learned the power that an individual can make on a community. Whether the work as pouring concrete floors, digging sanitary latrines, or building water filters, communities were overjoyed with our work, and since then listening to stories of how we changed lives is truly inspirational. Since then, I have applied this learning of the power of an individual to tackle numerous problems in my community. Last year, I learned of a food pantry in a local Latino community known as the Guadalupe Center. It was two weeks before Thanksgiving, and they were nearly entirely out of food. Only a couple small

To this day, for 15 years, I have travel every summer to Chile to visit family, but it made me realize that not everybody got the same quality of education as I did. This motivated me since my freshman year of high school to volunteer (over 750 hours) in an impoverished Chilean school teaching students K-12 English through creative techniques, games, and art forms. For example, I helped coordinate the English Festival, a week-long event where every class made a presentation (play, poem, skit, etc.) in English. I specifically helped each student learn his or her presentation until he/she felt confident and ready to perform. Additionally, during some of the recesses, the students and I would sit in a circle to play a word game where they would

One day in early 1996 during one of my parents decided to go and visit one of their friends at their house to see how she was doing. She was practically an aunt to me and my brother. Which at this moment in time was soon to be eight years old and I was a one-year-old. Sometime during our visit, I decided that I had to walk around a bit but I wasn’t expecting it to be captured on film and have this moment around for decades later. Before I was 3 years old my mother loved documenting our day to day. The flash of a disposable camera wasn’t an odd occurrence back then. Some of my oldest memories have been with a camera flashing. The positions and gestures my parents are showing seem to tell all. This frozen moment in time can show what my family