Traveling and learning is a beautiful, yet terrifying experience.
You get to see a new world and become exposed to new cultures, ideas and languages. But with all of the joys, there comes a price. Whenever you go to a new place and learn about a new culture or new people, you are forever burdened by the fact that you now have that knowledge and must do something with that knowledge. You no longer have the excuse of ignorance, and you must instead act.
For 10 days, my Encuentro Dominicano Communidad 17 listened, learned and experienced the life of a Dominican family living in a poor, under-resourced countryside or campo of the Dominican Republic.
In the campo, Juana Diaz, we tasted traditional Dominican food, shared stories with our host families and bonded over the current music. The community was open, welcoming and generous to a fault.
Integrating myself into this community, I was able to skim the surface of the lives in which the community members live.
The limited food of a household was always offered to guests, and children were literally raised by the entire village. Time was cherished and spent speaking with those who mattered most. Everyone was extremely welcoming to my group and offered their homes, their food and their companionship. The relationships between community members were more familial rather than neighborly, and everyone supported one another.
In contrast with the wonderful culture I observed, I also was witness to the hardships of everyday life in the campo.
For example, people in the campo do not have an adequate supply of water. The water they have comes from collected rainwater or is carried a distance from the nearest river source. It is limited and unreliable. Shower water is rationed into buckets and I cringed every time I had to use the restroom because it meant another portion of water disappearing from the familyβs reserve. My host sister drank so little water while I was visiting that she was sent to the hospital due to dehydration.
The community is taking it upon itself to create a gravity-run aqueduct because the government does not consider water availability in the campos a top priority. The water available in the Dominican Republic is also becoming scarce, not because of limited supplies, but because it is being sourced out and sold to big water bottling companies.
After witnessing what I did in Juana Diaz, I am forever changed. I have the burden of the debt that I owe back to the community that has given so much to me. I could have gone my entire life without even being aware of the water issue, but because I have been exposed, it is now my duty to do something about it.
It is my responsibility to take this experience and let it grow into something greater. Morally speaking, I am forced to do something about the disparities I witnessed among the campo, as I was fortunate to be born into a situation where this is not an issue I must face on an everyday basis.
The opportunity I was granted in visiting the campo was amazing. I would encourage people to take advantage of a chance such as this should it come along, but it is not the sole way of becoming educated on issues such as the water problem.
Students at Creighton University are lucky enough to be in the presence of brilliant minds on a daily basis and receive an excellent education. We need to use this education to learn about the world and use this knowledge for the betterment of society. Education is the key to eliminating ignorance, and once we no longer have ignorance, we no longer have an excuse not to act.
Kurvers as well as other Creighton students in the Dominican Republic lived for 10 days in the countryside or campo.