Dominican Republic

Today at Batey Libertad, we picked up trash along the narrow, dusty streets. Our group collected more than four bags of garbage in a span of 25 minutes. We still left a lot of litter on the ground because it was too hot to pick up for long, and the few trash cans there were full. Garbage overflows at the Batey because garbage trucks rarely come by. In fact, trash collection recently stopped all together, and residents are now burning garbage at the back of the Batey.

After lunch, we participated in an AIDS awareness class with students from the Batey. The group leader, Yanlico, demonsrated how teens should protect themselves in order to avoid the disease. He had all of his students and all of us stand in two lines facing each other. One line stood shoulder to shoulder with hands behind their back and Yanlico handed them a yellow tennis ball which they had to hide. The other line needed to guess which student held the ball. They guessed until they discovered the correct person. The ball represented HIV and the purpose of the game was to realize that one cannot simply look at a person and determine whether or not he or she has AIDS. Yanlico told us that nine percent of the Dominican population is now HIV positive.

Cody Bralts
Urbana High School
Urbana, IL