Danielle, Lindsey, and Jeffrey McDonald are the first set of triplets to ever go through AMIGOS together. We caught up with them in the Houston Chapter and we had so much fun working with them to put together a little before and after snapshot of what AMIGOS meant to each of them.

Jeffrey

May 2012 Hi, my name is Jeffrey McDonald. I will spend 8 weeks of my 2012 summer in a community outside of Paraguari, Paraguay.  Some fun facts about me are that I am the youngest of 5 children, and the only boy. I have lived in Texas, Venezuela, The Netherlands, England, Denmark, and I will finish high school in Israel. My favorite sports are volleyball and lacrosse. This summer, I am really looking forward to getting to know my family and community. While I know the first week will be awkward and challenging and I will really have to put myself out there, I trust that I will develop very meaningful relationships with the people I meet in Paraguay. Yes the language barrier is intimidating, but I hope that I will come out 8 weeks with a bunch of new friends, better grasp of Spanish and Guarani, and a very positive outlook to complete my last year of school.

I'm most worried about my partner; I know that I can be hard to deal with sometimes. I hope that I get someone who can put up with me at my worst, and likewise that I will be paired with someone who I can really trust and who will be a friend long after our time together ends. The most frightening aspect though, would have to be trying to set up everything in the first week. I will be walking into a longstanding community as a teenage gringo with big ambitions, but it will take a lot of hard work to rally the community members, gain their trust and friendship, organize several meetings, choose an agreed-upon project, fill out a solicitud, and be seen as someone who holds a degree of authority despite my age. I trust that after a week of hard work everything will click and I will be able to enjoy my remaining time in South America!

So How did it go?

January 2013 Looking back upon my experience in Paraguay, I have only good things to say. I immediately became very close to my partner, Dillon, which was one of my only reservations going into my eight week journey. My community was so well organized that there was very little struggle trying to set up meetings and fundraisers. My host family was nice and we were having engaging dinner conversations even on the first couple of days. There was no awkwardness or discomfort. The training we did in preparation for the experience made me feel perfectly prepared to handle the work aspect, and thus I was able to enjoy downtime and playing with my host brothers without stressing too much about everything else I had to do. All in all, my weeks in Paraguay were some of the most exotic, testing, and amazing weeks of my life.

Lindsey

May 2012 Hi! My name is Lindsey Paige McDonald. This summer I will be going to Jarabacoa in The Dominican Republic for six weeks. Some interesting things about me are that I'm on the MHS lacrosse team, I've lived in five countries and I'm the 4th kid out of 5 (middle triplet with 2 older sisters). This summer, I'm most looking forward to getting to know my host family and the traditions in my community. I've heard amazing things about the relationships between an Amigo and their host family and I can't wait to experience it myself. I'm nervous about how the community will react to having an American show up and try to organize activities and a project. I just hope they accept me into their community and help with the projects throughout the summer, so everyone can end up with a great experience.

So How did it go?

January 2013 This summer I spent six weeks in the Dominican Republic with two other partners, a boy from Boston and a girl from Nashville. The experience was amazing. I lived in a small community outside Jarabacoa. I had 2 little host sisters and a little brother, an older sister and her husband and a mom. I became close with my families and I still talk to a lot of them today. My group's CBI project was repairing 4 benches on the main road in the community and putting up trashcans. It's hard to explain the summer in general because I went through so much that can't really be summed up in such a short space. For the first week and a half I struggled and I felt like I would never become close with my partners but by the third week they were like family and I couldn't imagine having anyone else there with me. The people in my community were extremely welcoming and gracious. Everyone in La Planta knows each other very well and when we needed their help with our project tons of people offered to pitch in. I was amazed at how people who were living off of very little still invited us over and offered us meals and their help. One example was a family of 5 Hatians who lived in a one room house that insisted we come over for dinner. Their mindset about sharing and giving to others was so different from alot of what you see in the US. I loved my trip and the people I met and I wouldn't give up the experience for the world!

Danielle

May 2012 Hi! My name is Danielle McDonald. I will be going to Cañar Azuay in  Ecuador for eight weeks this summer. I'm the eldest of the triplets, I love sports, and I like cooking. I am looking forward to meeting a bunch of new people and being able to speak spanish all day long. I dont really have very many worries right now, it seems weird but currently I  am the most worried about what I'm packing because I dont want to forget something and not have it in country.

So how did it go?

January 2013  When I arrived in Ecuador I met thirty other people and was paired off with two. My partners and I were then whisked away to a community called Chontamarco Centro in Cañar, Ecuador. We spent seven weeks getting to know the community and helping them in the everyday tasks of milking cows, hoeing weeds, feeding guinea pigs, collecting corn, and peeling it. We got to know the community by holding meetings. Through some discussions, we planned a community-based initiative to clean up the center and promote hygiene. My partners and I held campamentos, or small camps, every day after school to teach the kids issues including environmental conservation, hygiene, and leadership. The kids aided us in the community-based initiative by getting their parents involved in the process. I had to leave a week early to go back to school but by the end of my stay there I had become part of a new family and helped place six trash cans in the community. It was not what I had expected it would be but it was still an amazing experience.