UC Davis Blum Center for Developing Economies

This is an entry from my journal on July 5th: July 5th, 2018 Yogurt at breakfast! No coffee though Came to the site and they’re still making the cage Finishing the script for education After lunch me, Semaj and Hannah got the supplies ready for the lesson and what we need We went to leave and we were locked into the Polideportivo! We decided that one of us would wait for Evan to come open it to put out the trash and bring the materials Hannah and I left while Semaj stayed but then realized the outside door only led to the backs of people’s homes and lots of dogs So then we just waited until Evan got there and took a moto down after we bought cakes and animal crackers!(after I found 2 soles in the bottom of my backpack) All the places we went to print were closed so then we went to Jorge and remembered he talks a lot (we only had ten minutes) We printed and got out of there in ten minutes thankfully but then we ran into Eliseo and he waved us over But he was offering us ICE C...

On June 25th, we had been there for less than a week, I was still adapting but getting used to the way things were. The day before we went to the market they had every Sunday and I ate Cuy for the first time while a stray dog sat and watched me, that was interesting. We had a meeting with the principal of the school for the lessons we would be teaching the elementary school kids. As far as the reservoir, the site was cleared and we tested the soil by doing a penetrometer test that reveals how strong the soil is. We used weights from the gym and a member on the team to figure out if there was any deformation of the soil. We were beginning excavation for the reservoir on the 25th and decided on a dome top for the reservoir because that’s what the Peruvians wanted and felt comfortable building even though we made all of our calculations and agreed on a flat top reservoir previously. I soon realized that it’s difficult to make plans there. The meeting with the principal was at 8 am and als...

June 20th was the first day the Engineers Without Borders Peru team got to La Huaylla, Peru. We were all very tired. We had stayed in the Lima airport the night before and didn’t get any sleep. It was a lot to take in since everything was so different. I had never been in a place where there were no English speakers. The infrastructure was very makeshift, looking like it might just crumble down during an earthquake. There were also stray dogs everywhere. We saw where we were staying, it was called the Polideportivo, it was an indoor soccer field surrounded by what seemed like hotel rooms. There weren’t many people living there, perhaps one family and one single man. The owner also kept guinea pigs caged by the field. We had met the Peace Corps. Volunteers in the area and Jorge, the head of the municipality who was in charge of the reservoir project, at the airport. My stomach had not adjusted to the food or maybe the water yet, and I was having stomach problems. We had three meals tha...

Once we completed construction of the reservoir, the community through us a good bye and thank you party (pictured above). People who have so little being willing to get together and prepare a feast for us and thank us was an incredible and emotional experience for both our team and the community. I will never forget that day.

At least two days a week we would spend time with the kids in the community (pictured in the three photos above). We would play games with them or teach lessons. These were my favorite days. Seeing the kid’s faces light up when we came made my heart full of joy. It showed me that we were really making a difference in these communities. I remain in contact with several of the community children through Facebook and love getting messages from them.

One day, during my trip to La Hyualla Peru, I had the privilege of going on an assessment trip to a near by community. This community was even more rural than La Hyualla (image 1). They had no running water in homes at all and asked us to assess their water situation and to consider a project in their community. The community had access to a spring, however, to get to the spring we had to hike up the Andes mountains. This was the hardest but prettiest hike I have ever been on (image 2). Once at the spring we conducted water tests to determine if there was enough water to help the community (image 3). Though we are still unsure is we can feasibly help this community, this day was one of the most life-changing days of my trip.

I sincerely believe that there are just not enough words that can describe how happy I was to be living in the Dominican Republic. The country is extremely different from the United States, but it’s exactly that reason why I loved it so much.   We’ll start with the juice. Fruits in the DR are unlike any fruits you’ve ever seen or tasted here. Walking through the campo with a friend, and being able to simply crack open a chinola, or passionfruit as we know it, sounds like such a menial experience but for me it was eye opening and just kept adding to the reasons to love the country. Every morning, I would wake up to the sound of a blender and as I sat down to breakfast I was always presented with juice or shake from some different fruit, passionfruit, papaya, or even avocados at times. And the mangos! My Dominican friends constantly made fun of me for my constant search every day for the café with the best mango juice or for one last mango tree. It wasn’t until my third week that...