Hello from todays LDDs,
Today’s theme has been Aid and Development. Today was a long day for everyone due to the fact that we visited the community where we will be doing our Community Action Project (CAP) project. Barrio de las Flores is the name of the community. Before going to the actual place we had a guest speaker come to the hostel to speak to us about the community. A little before lunch, Carlos, our guest speaker, came to talk to us about what aid really is in his community and in the Dominican Republic. He also answered some of our questions and gave us a real eye opening lecture on how fortunate we are to have this opportunity to help other communities in developing countries. After his mini seminar we asked him to join us for lunch and to answer our on-going questions. We said our thank you’s and goodbyes to Carlos. The thing that stood out to me about being leader of the day was the fact that I had to be on top of most of the things, such as doing head count and making sure everyone is staying hydrated. It was pretty hard for me to stay on top of that part due to the fact that I was a little homesick, but I got through it thanks to everyone in my group for helping me and supporting me. – Lupe
The fact that I (Kristine) was not expecting to be a leader until the last day made it nerve-racking to be an LDD, but the people here made me feel safe. To me the day felt long because there was no scheduled free time. It was activity after activity like we fit a whole week into a day. A powerful quote by Joel Barker to embody what we did today is, “Vision without action is merely a dream; action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.” Through this and the speakers we learned the difference between trying to help and actually helping. We learned why sustainable projects are so important. We now know that a project cannot be successful without the targeted community wanting it. We learned about the community we are trying to help, Barrio de las Flores, and later about our own community of C3A (our delegation).
After we got back from Barrio de las Flores, we got ready to teach English. It was our first class. It was so exciting! Then we prepared lessons for our next class. The part where we learned about our own community was when we had a Nickname Seminar. It wasn’t official, but nearly everyone was there for that. We also played Two Truths and a Lie. After our Nightly Meeting, we played “Touch Someone”. Small groups followed prompts like touch someone who inspired you, touch someone who is artistic, touch someone who is a leader, and touch someone who you’ll miss. Followed by the statement we went around and tapped the shoulders of those we felt those statements about. The GGLs and PCs joined for the last one and it was touching. (No pun intended. Seriously.)