Dominican Republic Water Collection System

In the summer of 2021, I went to the Dominican Republic as part of a Mercer on a Mission. The purpose of the trip was to help a small town in the DR by helping to install a water collection and storage system. I worked particularly on assembly of the well, collection site, and plumbing system. Additionally, I got the opportunity to mix cement and deal with supply purchasing. Please feel free to contact me with more questions about the trip and what I did.

I had the privilege to be given several responsibilities on this trip. They were as follows:
- Interpreter.
- Well construction team.
- Supply collection team.
- Plumbing Assembly Team.
- Water-testing Team.
- Water-collection site clearing team.
- Air-quality survey team.
Coming in to this trip, I was a decent Spanish speaker. However, I still had to overcome a small barrier to expand my vocabulary. In order to be a better interpreter:
- I befriended several of the locals and talked with them for hours each day.
- I started conversations with random locals to become more comfortable with different speech styles.
- I encouraged other interpreters to talk to me in Spanish.
- I volunteered to lead groups into town to speak to townspeople.
- I offered assistance to the women at lunch time, so I could learn a wider variety of vocabulary.