Building a school is hard work. Funding the project, working around construction and carrying on with classes in spite of it all make the task especially hard. Then again, most superintendents in the United States don’t have to do manual labor in order to have classrooms available.
Last month, Cabot Superintendent Tony Thurman experienced the physical strain of building a school. He — along with 51 other volunteers — participated in the Lifetouch Memory Mission to build a school in the Dominican Republic from Jan. 18-26.
This was the fifth Memory Mission to the town of Constanza. During this trip, volunteers started construction on a new elementary school. The project included digging trenches, hauling concrete blocks, mixing concrete and building walls.
“The government does very little to help the people, especially in this way,” Thurman said about building schools in the Dominican Republic. “Really, all of the outreach is done through a church or religious organization. … A church group has decided that education is a priority, and Lifetouch works with this group and several other groups. They’ve built a K-8 school in Constanza and a vocational school right across from it.”
While the work was hard, the days were peppered with breaks to interact with the community. Thurman said he and his fellow volunteers went on home visits and played with kids in a makeshift playground, and as the week went on, the language barrier became less and less of an issue.
“The first day, they were just kind of standing back watching us,” Thurman said. “By the last day, we were overwhelmed with people and kids. They learned we were there for a good thing, and they trusted us. … We had four interpreters with us at all times. One of the things I learned was that after a day or two, the interpreters were nice to have but weren’t necessary. Once the community members knew why we were there, you didn’t need to talk. You just understood. That was very special.”
The children in the community learned some of the volunteers’ names, and Thurman said they communicated with fragments of Spanish and English sentences parsed together.
“Tony!” one child exclaimed in one of Thurman’s videos before asking him in Spanish to play. Thurman answered, “Si!” before turning off the video recording to go play with him.
Thurman said the people he interacted with are “truly examples of what it means to be happy without material objects.” While their homes are small and their possessions few, Thurman said, they are some of the most joyful people he has met.
“When they hugged you, they really hugged you,” he said.
Because the trip was organized by Lifetouch Photography, volunteers got a chance to take school and family photos of the students and community members. Thurman said many
of the community members had never had a family portrait taken, and he was happy to be a part of that experience for them.
“We had a guy walk up, and he had a picture with him,” Thurman said. “Long story short, his daughter died last year, and he had never had his picture taken with her. But he had a picture of her. They took his picture holding her picture. He cried because it was the first time they had had their picture taken together.”
Often, when volunteers go to other countries to carry out charity work, there is a desire to return to that country to continue volunteering. Thurman said many of the volunteers on this trip feel that way, but he
has a different perspective.
“It was a neat experience to go 1,500 miles from home, and I loved seeing that world, but it made me realize I don’t have to go 1,500 miles,” he said. “The kids may look a little different here, but they’re still loving children who still thrive on attention. They love to play. They want to learn. They deserve every opportunity to learn.
“We have so many kids here who need exactly what we were giving to those children. Our buildings may be nicer. It may be a different culture. But when you get down to it, it’s all about love and care for children.”
Staff writer Angela Spencer can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or aspencer@arkansasonline.com.