Mar 04 2008
Coming Home (…again)
By Mike Giancola, director, Center for Student Leadership, Ethics & Public Service
Nine years ago, in the early days of the Alternative Service Break (ASB) program, we traveled to Barahona to partner with Habitat for Humanity. Our team served in a very poor rural community on top of a hill…Alfa la Montaña. The view was unlike anything most of us had seen before—beautiful blue water and mountains in the distance, poverty and despair at our feet. The contrast was striking and hard to process in seven days. The days were long, filled with moving concrete blocks, mixing “mezcla”, and drinking more water than we could have previously imagined. But the highlight for many of the students, myself included, was spending time with the kids on the worksite. We practiced our Spanish with a forgiving audience, sang songs, taught them English and just had fun.
After work one day (ok, Jessica, James, Dana and I left early so we could hang out with the kids), we went to visit a family who recently moved into their Habitat house. When we arrived, we saw the four girls, but quickly noticed that mom and dad were not around. The girls immediately came up to us and we played as if we had known one another for a long time—forget the fact that my Spanish, ok Spanglish was not much beyond basic, but we all spoke the same language…laughter, smiles and love. The youngest Franyeli was about 11 months old at the time so after playing with her chicken bone, she came and sat on my lap on the front porch. I rocked her starring into the distance, trying to make sense of the complexity of their situation. A few moments later a motocicleta pulled up to the house and a man who I have never seen before got off and came into the house saying “hola” as he passed me with his daughter on my lap. He grabbed his lunch, said “Mi casa es su casa” and then went back to his job working in a textile factory. I didn’t even have time to think about how different this interaction might have been had the tables been turned and he was visiting my house in North Carolina. We played for a short time more teaching the girls how to count to ten in English and then left to go back to the hotel. The rest of the week, we worked hard in the hot sun, but we also found time to visit with the girls and their mother. At the end of the week, we said our goodbyes, although I knew that I wasn’t saying goodbye, just goodbye for now.
Over the years, I made it a point to stop and visit when I returned to the Dominican Republic, bringing new students with me each time. And each group of students experienced the hospitality and the joy that this family shared with me during my first visit.
Yesterday, we traveled to Barahona to document our partnership with Habitat for Humanity and the local community there. Again we made the trip up the mountain. The team was struck by the view, but I couldn’t wait to surprise Janet, Francesca, Brenda, Yaneli and Franyeli. When we approached the house, Francesca shouted “Giancola” and I knew I was home. A few minutes later, the other girls and their mother returned home from church. We embraced, laughed and then looked at the pictures from previous visits that were throughout the house. Needless to say, the girls had all grown, but their smiles were exactly the same.
After visiting for a while, Janet gave the team a tour of the Habitat house (a four-room house, 100 square feet with a small living room, two bedrooms and a small kitchen) I can imagine many of you are thinking, “My bathroom is 100 square feet.”
She reflected on the old house that had no privacy and was less than half the size of the new house. (From my memory, the old house was a one-room shack (for six people) made of scraps of tin with holes throughout, a dirt floor in the kitchen with an outhouse behind the house).
When asked what she remembered about the students from NC State, Janet through an interpreter said they were funny, they played with my girls, they were hard workers and had a good servant heart…we had a lot of laughs. Fifteen-year old Francesca said “Me acuerdo cuando me enseñaste como contar a diez en ingles…one, two, three…” [I remember when you taught me how to count to ten in English]. Nine years later, they hadn’t forgot the memories from our team’s visits. Neither had I, but what was once a story about despair is now a story about a mother who loves her four children and works hard to provide for them. A story about determination, love, friendships and family, and of coming home.
If only I had realized that long ago.