Hurricane Sandy turned a recent Bermuda Overseas Missions trip to the Dominican Republic into more of an adventure than expected.BOM has been taking teams from Bermuda to locations all over the world for the last several years to build homes with international charity Habitat for Humanity.Warwick Academy counsellor Paula Wight took several students between the ages of 15 and 17 on the trip to the Dominican Republic in October.“We only had five days so we flew up on the Saturday and travelled to our destination on the Sunday and started to work on the Monday,” she said. “Habitat was asked to partner with Catholic charity Fundasep.“They build a special type of house that goes up quickly. You only lay a shallow foundation and the house goes up in concrete panels so building is faster than a bricks and mortar house. We were going to be doing this for people in the mountains of the Dominican Republic outside of San Juan.”It took them an hour-and-a-half travelling in a convoy of five pickup trucks to get to their destination in San Juan, where it was already raining.“The next morning when we went up to build, there were several things we couldn’t work on because things were still damp,” said Mrs Wight. “We went up the mountain, and some of the trucks got stuck.“We finally got up the mountains to where we were going to work at about 10am. We couldn’t do some work because the ground was wet but we managed to dig foundations and demolish a house.”The group was evacuated that afternoon the mountain was closed ahead of the storm to anybody who didn’t live there.“By 2pm we knew Sandy was huge and big and it was raining,” said Mrs Wight. “We went to visit the local orphanage that afternoon.”The need there was overwhelming, she said.“I always find orphanage visits really hard,” she said. “As a mother and an educator it is really hard to see those children all vying for attention. We tried to play with them, but they were so starved for attention it was like a mini riot. It is heartbreaking. They don’t get a lot of visitors.“We gave them school supplies and school shoes, and basic first aid supplies. The orphanage was actually run by a Baptist church in the United States.“If we do go back to the Dominican Republic, we will visit the orphanage again now that we have a better understanding of their needs.”After visiting the orphanage, they went into a town to build concrete panels with Fundasep. They were able to work indoors while it poured torrentially outside. On Thursday the Dominican Republic declared a state of emergency.Winds and rains damaged nearly 3,500 homes in the Dominican Republic and more than 18,000 people were evacuated by the government. Two young men drowned while trying to cross rivers in separate incidents.The Bermuda group sat around for two days. Three of their members had to leave and then they learned the bad news the bridges they needed to cross to get to the airport had washed away.They were stuck.“That was the moment which I felt a little concerned for us,” said Mrs Wight. “I kept thinking of Hurricane Emily and Long Bird Bridge and how that took ages to fix. Meanwhile we were asking people if they had a helicopter, and walking around in the rain trying to find somewhere that a helicopter could land.”The Government assured them it would have them out in a few days, but the water level on the river had to recede a bit before the bridges could be repaired.“On Saturday we woke up and it was a gorgeous sunny day,” said Mrs Wight. “It was chaos near the bridge as there were people there who had been waiting for days. We spent hours waiting in a nearby restaurant until it was finally open again.”They arrived at the airport in time for their flight to Miami, Florida, where they waited another three days for a flight to Bermuda.“The downside of the trip was very frustrating,” she said. “The upside was that we were able to take a group of people to the Dominican Republic. They got to see how the people there were living and understand their situation.”She said the majority of people who went on the trip said they would be happy to go back to the site and try again.“When you see how the people live it is very clear they need as much help they can get,” said Mrs Wight. “Our biggest concern was that we demolished a few houses on the day that we were able to work.“The occupants were going to be staying with others. There are about nine people to a house. You get your neighbours in there you are looking at 12-plus people in those shacks in torrential rain.“We are still waiting to hear if they are okay. We let the community know that we will be back.”Mrs Wight said most people who go on Habitat for Humanity trips around the world, are usually eager to do it again.Last summer BOM took a group of 40 to Paraguay to build homes with Habitat for Humanity. This trip was more fruitful. There Habitat worked on ten houses, two were brand new buildings and the other eight were additions.“It was impossible to imagine how these people live,” said charity president David Thompson. “On one of the houses we were building on a room and that was as big as the house.“There was a mother, father and 11 children living in this one-room house. There were beds everywhere separated with curtains.”BOM will discuss their planned trip to India in 2013 on December 16 at the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club from 3pm to 5pm.All are welcome.For more information visit www.bom.bm or see them on Facebook. Alternatively, telephone 295-1078 or e-mail david@ams.bm.