At 6am this morning, our Glimpsers arose with the dawn only to be held back by situations that we couldn’t really control, causing a delay during breakfast because our AMAZING TOP CHEF Welling (mhm he’s actually our delivery driver but we still love him and he’s part of the process) was running a bit late. THEN our safari (Party) bus had some mechanical problems and was ALSO running a bit late. Nevertheless, we prevailed, even through our treacherous hike (216 steps) down to the community we visited called Sonido Del Yaque.

Once we had arrived, we split our Glimpsers into 4 small groups that went with different host families to assist with their daily tasks. Some people cooked lunch for everyone, swept the outside grounds, cleaned windows/mopped, set up a small shop (where many of us were potentially blowing our parents’ money…), and helped with laundry. After our delicious lunch, we had some bonding time with the locals, especially the children, and had a lot of chaotic fun playing Duck, Duck, Goose (or Pato, Pato, Ganso). From this experience, we all learned some methods to make our own communities more sustainable, such as how to repurpose our waste. We also learned what it means to be a supportive, tight-knit community, and we even had some tears during our departure from our newfound family.

After the even MORE treacherous hike upwards (what goes down must come up), many of us took a nap on our safari bus on our way home. We then took a moment to discuss as a group everything that we gathered from our time with the community, and to share our similarities and differences from their community to our own personal ones. After that, we all got a little fancy-schmancy for our presentation to the leaders of the community that we will be helping in our Community Action Project over the next three days. We went over the general timeline and process that we will be using for this project with them and were able to get some clarity on some things that we weren’t so sure of. Once everything was approved by the leaders, we had some free time and got ready for dinner.

Once we finished our lovely dinner, we celebrated another special birthday on our trip: HAPPY BIRTHDAY REYANA! We surprised her with a cake, strawberry ice cream, and strawberry wafers, and some close friends got her a gift. During our nightly meeting, we also had some birthday wishes and shoutouts from our Glimpsers to Reyana, along with a lot of Big Love throughout the entire group. We are really excited to begin our Community Action Project tomorrow morning and we can’t wait to see what tomorrow’s LDDs have to share with you guys!

P.S.: We’d like to share that many of our fellow Glimpsers ranked today as their favorite day of the trip so far, which says a lot because we had a designated beach day already.

Messages from the Leaders of the Day:

Hello parents and possibly brother (I know you’re helping our parents read these things), I am doing very well and I am looking forward to seeing you all as well as my bed which I miss dearly. I have gotten bitten up after our call this past Sunday and I am PUSHING THROUGH IT! Say hello to everyone from me, let me know what is up with the children back home. BIG LOVE to you guys, see you Wednesday (I’ll be hungry).

With love your lovely, AMAZEBALLS Daughter (and sister) Lupe <3

Hi Mom, Dad, and any other possible people reading this: I’m really enjoying my time in the Dominican Republic, and I feel like I’ve started getting used to the heat and humidity (and somewhat the many mosquito bites). I hope all of the BeReals are going well and will be interesting to look back on next Wednesday, but until then, stay safe and I’ll keep longing for my nice shower and lack of itchiness back at home. With love, Alana <3