Our group spent Saturday learning about local development projects in El Cercado, helping with two projects and hearing about the application of liberation theology.

We began the day by loading everyone on our big, blue flatbed truck and enjoyed a lovely ride through the countryside. As we rode through the mountain roads in the cool morning air, SSTer’s sang (see Lucy’s enthusiasm) and joined a new friend singing popular bachatas.

Our first stop was a demonstration sustainable agricultural project involving a fish pond, worm composting and a hoop greenhouse. Bartólo, an agronomist with the Catholic Diocese, and members of the community have been constructing this model site over the last few weeks. Bartólo taught our group about tree grafting and the importance of creating locally accessible development projects. We left the community as they were planting aquatic plants in the soon-to-be-filled and stocked pond.

Our second stop of the morning was to the Mennonite clinic and school. Morales, one of the Mennonite pastors, showed us the clinic and shared a bit about the church’s work.

A third of our group stayed with Morales to clean the newly constructed church in preparation for its inaugural service on Sunday. The other part of the group traveled to the community of Votao where we worked with the farmer’s cooperative to construct a hoop greenhouse and dig a fishpond, like the one we toured in the morning.

We weeded, dug out the pond with picks, hoes and shovels, and prepared materials for the greenhouse working alongside our Dominican companions.

After our sweaty labors, we enjoyed a typical lunch prepared onsite by some of the community members. We waited in town to reunite with the other members of our group to enjoy a well-deserved ice cream break!

In the late afternoon we traveled to the new Catholic retreat center where we listened to Joanne Peterson. Joanne described her 24 years of work in the region organizing Christian Base Communities to help marginalized people empower themselves. Her talk helped us better understand all the projects we visited, introduced us to liberation theology and gave an inspiring framework for ecumenical social development.

On Saturday evening, members of our group attended the Mennonite youth group service, where we were invited to sing for the congregation. This was good preparation for Sunday morning when we were again invited to sing for the entire congregation. Other members of our group attended Catholic mass on Sunday morning where we were introduced to much applause from the congregants.

On our way back to Santo Domingo, we stopped in San Juan de la Maguana, to eat lunch, and visit an ancient Taino site where the queen is said to have sat with her court as she watched games and oversaw council meetings. (See photo of our reenactment!)