After the incredibly trying day the group enjoyed a well deserved free day today. With this free day came great responsibility. This was our first free day in which groups of 4 could go into town without being accompanied by a Global Glimpse Leader or one of our youth ambassadors. Armed with our water bottles, closed toe shoes, and sense of direction we went our separate ways to explore Bonao. We returned from the supermarket with bags full of chips and soda to snack on while we play UNO. From La Opera, the main shopping center in town, we returned with woven or braided bracelets and necklaces for both ourselves and friends/family back home. Some of the girls wandered between stores trying on dresses and different outfits. We all had to return back to out hostel by 12:45 in time for our delicious lunch of rice and beans, chicken, and salad.  Soon after we finished eating, we were back on the road. One group of us went back into the city center for some more souvenir shopping while the rest of us stopped by an internet cafe not too far from the hostel to get in contact with friends and family. For a peso a minute we all alternated between one phone situated in a small wooden booth calling our parents and friends assuring them that we are alive and well, having fun but missing them. After returning back to the hostel everything seemed to relax a little bit. Games of UNO and Spit were played while Scout, La Daijha, Cynthia, Kellie, and I sat and talked about our lives back home, school, friends, family, music, and really anything else that came to mind.

After some well needed relaxing time we came together to start working on our appreciation letters to Global Glimpse Donors. We learned about what should be in our letters and began writing the first drafts. Soon after Keyla, Julien, Charles, and our GG Leader Jocelyn accompanied Esteban to purchase supplies. Esteban is the president of the Federation of Rural Workers who we’ll be working with for our CAP project. CAP stands for Community Action Project in which we partner with a community and work together to create a project that is helpful,feasible, and sustainable for the community. Through interviews with community members and class deliberations the project we decided on was the creation of signs. The federation has recently gotten more tourist activity with everyone from volunteers and college groups to meditation groups. Esteban voiced a need for signs so that visitors could explore the grounds without needing a tour guide present. As our CAP project gets closer and closer we are all beginning to reflect on our times together a little more. We are all so excited to work with the community to produce something they voiced a need for. Updates about the project will be coming from Charles and Julien who will be leaders on Tuesday and Wednesday when we start working on our projects.

P.S Apologies for the late posting. Our wifi wasn’t great last night so we had to wait till this morning to post.