El Peaje

I'm taking two kids to another 3-day conference. This conference, called Celebrando el Cibao, is to teach Dominican youth about other cultures and social ideas. I decided to take Henri (22 years old) and Yuliana (15 years old) because they got the highest grades on my final Escojo exam that I gave to the group way back in May. The conference is not directly related to Escojo Mi Vida, but hopefully Yuliana and Henri will come back and be able to teach the rest of the Escojo kids what they learned.

Because it's a conference run entirely by volunteers, we have had to do a lot of fundraising. And like most volunteer-run camps, each community has to bring $1000 pesos. This money should not come out of the volunteers' pockets, but the kids should fundraise so that they are invested in the conference. This also is a good excuse to teach the youth group how to fundraise so that they can raise money themselves once I leave Baoba. We did a raffle to raise money for Camp G.L.O.W., so for this camp, we decided to do a peaje.

A peaje (pronounced "pay-ah-hey") is technically a toll booth. With the permission of the mayor, we held a long rope across the highway with signs saying that we were doing a fundraiser, and when the cars would stop, the girls would go out and collect the money. This is apparently a very common fundraising method in the Dominican Republic, and surprisingly we raised a lot of money. In total, we raised $3525 pesos (about $100), not including the various drinks and snacks we bought during the 8 hours of standing in the hot sun. So with the extra $2525 pesos the kids want to plan a trip.

The outcome of the peaje was great. We collected more than enough money. However, actually doing the peaje was a headache. We were out on the highway at 7:30 amm because we got a bola (free ride). And we worked through lunch and stayed out there until 4 pm. We would've left a lot sooner, but because we arrived to the highway via bola, we were stranded until someone else came to get us. And let me tell you, by 4 pm these kids were hot, hungry, tired and GRUMPY.

And I got sunburned. During the heat of the day, there were 14 kids sitting down on the shady side of the highway and me and one guy standing on the sunny side of the highway. The kids kept telling me, "Lauren, why are you standing in the sun? Come sit in the shade with us." But if I went over to that side, there would be no one to collect money on the sunny side. So I stayed.

Also the kids thought we wouldn't raise money if the people knew were collecting money to send only two kids to a camp in Jarabacoa. So we lied and told everyone that it was for their graduation from Escojo Mi Vida. Most people didn't even read the signs or ask why we were raising money; they simply threw coins at us as they drove by, so I don't know if that would've mattered or not. But it wasn't worth arguing about with them. If they thought we would get more money for a graduation, so be it. And also, just so y'all know, not only did I lie to get people to donate money, I was very much promoting my girls to act and dress as sexy as possible to coax money from all of these male Dominicans. And I believe that is why we were as successful as we were.