Hi, this is leaders of the day, Emmy Thang and Olive Savoie! We kicked our day off today bright and early with a 5:30 AM wake up call. It was unpleasantly early but made for an excellent view of the sunrise.

Each bag with dirt ensures 30 years of coffee beans!

A scenic bus ride led us to The Confederation of Farmers, where we did manual labor filling bags with soil and organizing those bags in rows. The plantation we worked on is a coffee plantation, and many Glimpsers bought souvenirs! Esteban, the plantation owner shared his passion for political activism for farmers and families in the Dominican Republic, listing many hardships and protests that the agricultural community was a part of. We were extremely inspired by his story and reflected on the ways we participate in activism in our own communities! We were surprised by how each other’s company lifted our sprits while we did manual labor.

Working at the Vivero!

Our next activity of the day was planning our final project to leave the Bonao community with (aka CAP Project)! We interviewed members of the Orphanage that we are guests in and learned about what they need us to help them with for our project. Adding on, our first English tutoring class was today! We finally met our students and got the opportunity to bond with them. Olive found working with her 6 year old student nostalgic of her volunteer work at home.

Being leaders of the day proved to be challenging at times but overall beneficial. Emmy in particular seemed to become more confident and took great initiative throughout the day! Overall, we are having a good time and are finding our peers to be lots of fun to work with!