from VCCA Journal, Volume 3, Number 1, Spring/Summer 1988, 35
© Copyright 1988 VCCA Journal
In the summer of 1987, ten students and a Virginia Western Community College professor spent twenty-one days in the Dominican Republic, supported by Community College Ministries and the United States Peace Corps. Nine days were spent living with Dominican host families in Los Alcarrizos, a suburb of Santo Domingo, and in Mata De Limon, a rural village in the center of the country. The remaining twelve days were devoted to lectures on Dominican culture and history and to visits to Peace Corps development sites.
Students had a first-hand opportunity to compare their observations of conditions in a third world nation with classroom perceptions gained from a sociology course devoted to a study of the Third World, which they completed in the spring of 1987. Their first hand experiences with food, health, sanitation, transportation, and educational difficulties that prevail in this part of the world left them with an appreciation of the potentials and problems of a Latin American culture.