“Everybody has a purpose in life

You may not know what it is

But you’re important.

Your living conditions, source of income, or race shouldn’t be the case about your purpose.

We all have our ups and downs

Which allows us to experience a wrath that needs to take place.

This wrath comes before the great things which are to come.”

            Well, today was an early day for us all especially for me, Tiyana the leader of the day. As the leader of the day I woke up at 5am. This was a challenge but I don’t mind waking up early. Once 5:30am made itself known I woke up the rest of the glimpsers! Indeed some of us were being stubborn but, we got past that hurtle. We got on the bus about 10minutes late which didn’t set us back from having a great experience as being a local. We arrived to the city of Mana and experienced working as a local for a few hours. In my group I did field work such as picking out the weeds and taking out the dead plants. In the afternoon we met an organization called CONAMUCA. They explained how they support women’s rights and agricultural work. We then came back to the Ranch and had Free Time in the pool. After pool time we went to a school and started teaching our students English. Personally the students in my class understand but don’t know how to apply their knowledge to their everyday life. Overall today was great day.

Being a leader I realized some challenges I experienced. I tend to shut down when things don’t go the way I planned. For example when we were late for leaving the Ranch to go to Mana I shut down. My fellows glimpsers made me realize that nobody is perfect and everybody had a bump in the world. Also everybody forget things. On the bright side I was flexible when there were schedule changes. I took into consideration that everything doesn’t always run on schedule. Also I made sure to keep my group in charge when doing the field work. I hope to keep being myself and accepting advice from others who have been in my position

My fellow glimpsers have inspired and keep inspiring me throughout the trip. When somebody is feeling down we all make it a point to ask the person if they are ok or what’s wrong. Personally we motivate each other every day. Just seeing us struggle and picking each other up shows we have a purpose and reason to be in this program.

I would just love to give a shout out to my parents for pushing me to be apart of this program. It’s because of you two that I’m in the Dominican Republic. Even though some people weren’t supportive of this decision you two made it happen. I LOVE YOU GUYS!!