I am back in DC after a week in the Dominican Republic, and waiting to go pick Neil up at the airport!
I am feeling very grateful for family, friends and home.
It was amazing to work with Centro Bono and the amazing activists there. I asked them about how they do not tire of teaching people about rights that exist on paper but do not exist in practice. They responded that without knowledge of what your rights should be, you can never demand what should be yours to begin with. At one point in our meeting the group leader saw that we were lacking energy so he just sprung up and started singing and doing a dance. Then somehow, we all ended up dancing around the conference table. They really have amazing energy and vision.
What a wonderful experience working with this group!
The reason I am feeling so grateful for home and family is on the last day of our trip we visited the Casa Rosada, which is an orphanage for kids with HIV.
The Casa Rosada, or Pink House, is an run by Nuns. They have about 50 children ranging in age from a few months old to early teens that the Nuns house, feed, clothe, teach, and provide medical care to. The work the nuns do is amazing, and the children are very well cared for, but it made me so so sad and lonely for them to look at a tiny 3 month old baby and think that he would be there his whole life without a family. Many families in the DR cannot afford medication or care for HIV positive children so they are abandoned in the hospital.
This experience left me feeling very sad, and very appreciative that I have a family. It also left me feeling so much awe and appreciation for both the activists and lawyers at Centro Bono fighting for the rights of migrants, and for the sisters at the Casa Rosada that spend their lives caring for children that parents and society have abandoned.
True examples of charity & life.