Hi Global Glimpse, our names are Akira Huerta and Oralie Luu. We are honored to be leaders today, Monday, July 17, 2023. Our group woke up at around 6 am with us knocking on the doors to make sure everyone got up early. Most of them were already up early, so it was easy for us. For breakfast, we had 2 options: scrambled eggs with toast and cornflake cereal with milk. After that, we had a quick Mental Warm-Up to explore the situation that a lot of Bateyes have to confront.

We headed to Ascala at 8 am to hear a story about the injustices and discrimination against Haitians in the Dominican Republic until 9:30 am.

After visiting Ascala, we got to visit a Batey, a sugar cane field where many got to try raw sugar cane, which was very sweet. Marina even got to cut the sugar cane plant with a machete!

At 11 am, we were going back to our base house. We ate lunch at 1 pm with a variety of food options, including white rice, grilled chicken, chicken pasta, and mashed eggplant. We had watermelon and pineapple juice as well, which was Oralie’s favorite. After lunch, we discussed what the group had learned from these new experiences.

After our self-reflection, we had a very long 4+ hour bus ride back to the ranch. Many people napped and vibed to the playlist that we had created the previous day. Many snacks were eaten, which didn’t pair well with Akira’s contagious laugh, but it was all good. Everyone enjoyed each other’s company, and it didn’t feel like such a long ride with everyone enjoying themselves.

When we got back to the ranch at around 6:30 pm, we had a seminar about the second part of our CAP (Community Action Project). The design and brainstorming portion! We all got to contribute many ideas on the specifics of our project, and we had very good conversations in regard to the topic.

At around 7:20 pm, we ate a simple but filling dinner, consisting of mashed potatoes, steamed vegetables, and fried cheese. Afterward, we had our nightly meeting where Akira and Oralie passed on the Leader of the Day torch to Yarline and Sara, which both showed us their fun talents. 🙂