Veron playground

Tuesday was probably the most rewarding experience of my life.  We worked with a girl from the peace corps to build a playground for kids from Veron.  Veron is basically a collection of barrios (shantytowns).  When we arrived in the barrio it felt unreal.  I had only read about places like this in books and seen them on tv, but nothing could have prepared me for the real thing.  I have always had a passion for helping people around the world and this has reinforced my pursuit of a career in international development.  I had never seen so much trash and dirt in one place in my life, and it is their home.  There is desperation and signs of extreme poverty all around the barrio.  But the children were so happy and playful.  they seemed out of place.  how could people living in these conditions be so full of life?  they enthusiastically helped us as we cleaned out a small abandoned lot to make their play area.  years and years of trash piled up in this one tiny yard. broken glass, plastic, animal feces, syringes, rusty nails, bottles.  tiny kids run around without shoes and play here everyday.  they play with trash because they have no toys.  their parents do not watch them when they go outside to play, even the babies.  

the kids collected a bunch of tires from the dump for us to build with.  we decided to stick some halfway in the ground so they could crawl through them and so water would collect in the bottom and breed mosquitoes since dengue is a huge problem in the Dominican Republic.  We built a bunch of little play things for the kids from the tires and painted the them bright colors.  Two guys from our group built a seesaw.  Other people built benches.  We played basketball with the older kids.  We went around the barrio and picked up trash with some of the kids.  it is literally unbelievable how much trash is everywhere.  there is no waste management so people throw trash anywhere and everywhere.  

there are poor animals everywhere too, especially dogs.  people can barely afford to feed themselves and so the dogs are left with less than nothing.  they all look sick and depressed with their tails between their legs.  they cannot afford to spay or neuter them either and so they are always around.  unfortunately many people abuse the animals.  they kick them and push them around.  there were a few dogs that came over to see what we were doing.  they curled up in dirt piles by a small abandoned building at the edge of the lot.

after a lot of hard work in the Caribbean sun, we had built an area for the little kids to play and they were already playing on the tires.  Colleen's house is right next to the lot and she says that it is now swamped with kids from all over the barrio playing on the colorful tires.