“Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol; you want it not for yourself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.” – Mark Twain

Question of the Day: What are the challenges of living in this community? What are the strengths? What is poverty in the DR?

Hey 🙂

I’m MagdaElena, but most people call me Magie. I go to Pittsburg High School, I will be a senior this school year, and I’m interested in the medical field.

I’m Moises, most people call me Moises. I go to Lionel Wilson Prep, I play soccer, and I am interested in a career in STEM.

So, today was Community Day! We started our day at 6:30, we ate some delicious breakfast at 7:30, and then we made our way to Sonido del Yaque where we were greeted by 5 wonderful families along with their children. We helped the families by picking up weeds, setting the table, organizing bracelets, making food, and carrying down wooden planks for future homes. We ate lunch and got to spend some amazing time with the children; we played freeze tag, hide and go seek, cops and robbers, basketball, and hung out with them on the community playground.

We learned about their community responsibilities and each family’s daily chores and the different lifestyles compared to ours. Today’s visit showed how important and impactful a united community can be. What surprised us most was how outgoing, welcoming, and energetic all the kids were towards us. We really felt an immense amount of love when we were there. We are most proud of our work ethic and endurance during our visit. We were willing to do the hard work required in order to help the locals out.

Being a leader was cool as well as challenging at times due to having to deal with lots of people at one time. This experience was also reassuring for us because we both felt confident that we were ready for the challenge. The most inspiring part for us is the amount of hard work the people at Sonido del Yaque put in on a day-to-day basis, whether it be with walking up and down their countless stairs, maintaining and running their tourism business, as well as operating their product business.

JA1C performed honorably in our mission by involving ourselves with the locals, going out of our comfort zone to talk even though some of us don’t speak Spanish, and also interacting with the kids.

Big Love to my mom and the rest of my family -yuyu. Big Love to the goons in Oakland, and shout out to my parents- moi

Now, introducing the lideres del dia for tomorrow are Alicia and Felipe. They will be starting us off on CAP Day 1.