I have just recently returned from my immersion in a Campo (a poor rural villiage) and had the expereince of a lifetime. I keep thinking that I could be in Omaha right now but instead I am hiking mountains, going to the beach and living in an entirely different culture. The Campo I lived in for 10 days was in the mountains on the northern coast of the DR and from where we were the scenery was amazing. We could see more mountains and valleys and the ocean on the clear days. The people were amazing also. They brought us into their homes as if we were family. We were fed so much food, we didn't even know what to do with it all.
Luckily though we were able to work most of it off while we were building an aqueduct to bring running water to them for the first time ever. Before they were using rain water they collected in barrels to drink, cook with, wash themselves and to clean. When they rain out of that water they were forced to travel very far distances to a river to get water. This water in order to be good enough to drink or what not needed to be boiled first. They will not have to worry about that any more. It really is amazing.
Besides building an aqueduct we did a whole lot of hanging out with our families and learning to do things the way they do. Each of us had a little different experience but some of us learned how to cook, harvest cacao (which looks nothing like what you think chocolate would fresh), look at cattle and a number of other things. I had an amazing time and will never forget those 10 days.
This experience has also allowed me to improve my Spanish. Although I am no where near fluent, I am much more confident speaking, not to mention I understand a whole lot more than I ever did before. I am really excited to see how much more I will improve during the rest of the semester.