Hello, my name is Ricardo Salgado, the health coach and today I was El Lider del día. Our theme for today was History. We began the day early with a bright and early 7:00AM wake up call.

We had our first Dominican Breakfast at 8:00 AM underneath a large tent here at the Fundación nuevo futuro. We were served fresh fruit, which consisted of strawberries, cantaloupe, pineapple, and tomato.   We also were served turkey sausage, with toast and eggs. To drink, we had the option of coffee, water and hot chocolate….and yet again, the food was delicious.

After the breakfast we had the opportunity to conduct an energizer activity…”WAH!” Which honestly was an impressive first time playing as a group because we literally were on point. That totally helped get the juices flowing as Michael and myself conducted our first Academic Seminar on History. For being the first time conducting a seminar with the group, I must say it ran pretty smoothly and the group definitely rocked their way through the “Order it!” activity. It was nice to see all the glimpsers working together and seeing them work as a team to figure out the chronological order of the history events of the Dominican Republic.

Once the group was done with the activity we had reflection questions about the activity and prepped ourselves for our city tour of Bonao. It was a nice and long city tour where we visited important and historical landmarks of the city. We stopped by the hospital, department of education, City hall, the library and the park just to name a few. Once we waited for Roz and Michael to exchange our money we ate empanadas in the park. As we ate our empanadas we felt the cool breeze and dark clouds rolling in…it was at that point we thought it was going to rain, but with Lady Luck on our side it didn’t!

A Dominican empanada, from the famous Freddy's!

A Dominican empanada, from the famous Freddy’s!

After snack time we made the trek to the Fundación (which was about a 30 minute walk) to get some down time and prep ourselves for lunch. For lunch we had, rice, chicken, salad, and beans and once again you could tell we were hungry since most of us went back for seconds…yum! It was amazing also to have some downtime between lunch and our teaching English seminar.

During the breakdown of the English seminar the delegation were split up into their teaching groups and given their level. After Roz’s and Leyri’s detailed English seminar the students were off to write their first lesson plan for their first class next Monday!

It was nice to get some down time after the English seminar, it gave time for self reflection and it gave us time to check in with one another. Dinner was promptly at 7:00 PM and had a very traditional dinner which consisted of: Mangú, which is squashed plantain, equivalent to chunky mashed potatoes, cheese with tomatoes, and spaghetti, with orange juice. After dinner was our ritual of a nightly meeting where I conducted the first half until I had to “pass the torch” onto the next leader of the day—Michael.

Students are in high spirits and have been amazing troopers. They are also bonding really well and have made the couple of days a blast!

Way to go Bonao #1!

Students lesson planning for their English classes!

Students lesson planning for their English classes!