Hi, this is Nareh and Andrew,

Today is Immigration day, we started off by waking up at 6 am and bringing all our luggage down to the lobby. Breakfast at 7am was a delicious combination of ham and cheese sandwiches with papaya and strawberry juice. After breakfast, we packed our things and took a long road trip to Juandolio.

2 hours into the trip we got to do something we have been wanting to do since the first week which was get souvenirs. There was a rest stop with all sorts of cool gifts that we got for our families. Some also chose to get some of the local food, like empanadas and lemonade.

We went back on the bus for 2 more hours and finally arrived at our villa in Juandolio. We were very happy with the accommodations, especially the pool. We dropped off our bags and had our lunch which consisted of rice and chicken, with salad and orange juice. Once we were full we headed to Ascala which is a nongovernmental social services organization run by nuns, that focuses on helping immigrants (specifically Haitian) with things such as getting healthcare, legal help, and providing housing. There we met Sister Ines who talked about the importance of the youth’s impact on society. We also met Abdias who shared his own story about how hard it is to live in the Dominican Republic as a Haitian immigrant. We were surprised to learn that even first-generation Dominican-Haitians had a high chance of getting deported even if they were born in DR and had no knowledge of life in Haiti. Both of us took this close to heart because we both come from immigrant backgrounds. We had a brief tour of the space which other Global Glimpse groups have stayed in the past when volunteering in local, predominately Haitian communities. We said bye to Abdias and Sister Ines and headed to our next location which was called Monte-Coca.

We came to learn that Monte-Coca is a predominately Haitian community with over 120 families and about 800 people. We met Don Roberto who is the community organizer of the neighborhood and asked him some questions about the living conditions because we will be working there tomorrow. We took a bus tour of the area and Don Roberto showed us the two homes which we’ll be furnishing with new floors. And then we dropped him off and returned to our home base in Junadolio.

We had an hour of free time when we unpacked our things and settled in. For us, it was Taco Thursday which was a big hit. After dinner, we had our nightly meeting where we recapped the day and shared our roses and thorns. We received tremendous feedback from our PCs and fellow glimpsers and we passed the torch to tomorrow’s leaders, Jalen and Jordan. After passing the torch we had a difficult discussion in which we talked about the negative energy that was crowding the air, how we Glimpsers and the leadership team can work past our differences and how we can embrace the last two days of our trip to their fullest extent. We then went back into our rooms and changed into our swimsuits for a fun pool party. We played volleyball as a whole crew and then my (Andrew’s) team won. We got back into our rooms, took showers, and went to bed.

Being Leaders was a very enlightening experience and we are happy with all that we were able to do today. Shoutout to everyone making this trip possible, love you guys.

See you soon familÍa, Andrew and Nareh

Don Roberto