Hello families and greetings from San Cristobal!
Did you know that your favorite Glimpser is an amazing dancer? Well today we discovered the inner dancing queen in all of our incredible students!
Today we have a fabulous day filled with history, culture, and lots of movement. Today’s focus was culture of the Dominican Republic, and what better way to learn about the culture than to dance?! We spent the day at Sol Naciente, a cultural center Sainagua where we learned about the intersection of the rich African, Spanish, and Ingenious cultures that make up Dominican culture. We started our exploration through movement and danced hip-hop and traditional Merengue. The merengue moves involved us stepping on the beat, turning with our partner, and changing sides with our partner. Every one of the Glimpsers got their groove on with the locals and danced like professionals! Make sure you ask your favorite Glimpser to show you their merengue moves after the trip :).
After having a delicious traditional Dominican Lunch, we got to explore some of the African and Taino roots of Dominican Culture through music and dance. Nelson Rivera, the president of Sol Naciente, and his group of talented musicians performed Atabales for us, which is a traditional Dominican genre of music with deep African roots. Atabales, also now as “palos,” involves homemade drums that are made from hallowed tree trunks and the guria (a metal cylindrical scraper). Nelson told the story of Palos and how it began, and included some amazing Glimpsers (shout out to Renee, Armando, Celeste, Prashneet, and Nikhil!) to act as the gods and goddesses.
Back at the accommodation, we reunited with out youth ambassadors and started to plan our first English lesson for Thursday. Send the Glimpsers some love and good luck on their teaching! They are going to be FANTASTIC!
Keep leaving the comments- we started reading them and miss our loved ones terribly!
Big Love,
Allie & GGSC!
Looks like great fun! I love it when you can cultures can appreciate and enjoy one another!
Oops…bad english moment…
Looks like great fun! I love it when different cultures can appreciate and enjoy one another! Enjoy!
Take lots of pictures August! Love you and miss you!
Happy to see all the smiling faces ? Enjoy everyone!
Dancing and music! What a great way to learn about another culture. Love you Sophia! Xoxo
Dancing to atabales is a lot of fun especially with Nelson. Also teaching can be scary, but just make sure you breathe and be flexible. The first day is the hardest, but it gets easier.
Happy 4 of July to all of you.
We look foreword to seeing the post about your day .
Renee now your ready to dance with your ninang Elsie!! I LOVE You !!
mom
Happy 4th my son love and miss you…love seeing all the pictures keep posting…too see Rodrigo dancing it’s a miracle…..enjoy your time….
Hi my child Rodrigo love you and miss you glad too see you are having a great time…cant believe I see you dancing….Happu 4th to all of you…
Thanks for the update and beautiful pictures.
Have a wonderful time tomorrow, Elle.
take care…xoxo❤️
Hola Mija,
No veo tu bailar? Yo se puedes! Tienes miedo, no? Tienes un bien Miercoles!
Feliz El dia de Indepencias!
Te caro,
Tu Mama
Aboli, Everybody missed you today at 4th July celebrations in Dublin. It was nice to see you smiling picture in yesterdays’ post.
Love you and miss you!
Mamma and Baba
Hey AJ,
It looks like your having a good time. We all miss you.
Love you,
Nanny, Nia, Ameyra, Mom and Dad
Hi Yesi its jorge, hope youre having fun and doing some cool stuff. Kevin says hi and we all miss you, see you soon :)???❤❤❤❤❤
What a great opportunity to see and experience another culture up close.
Hello Yesi it is Juan, hope you are having a good time over there and made many new friends. Love ..Juan..???Chelsea and Gio say Hiiiiiiiii…
Eagerly waiting for more updates!! Hope the English lessons went well. Love you and miss you Nikhil!!!