Hola familias y amigos! This is fellow Glimpser and El Lider del Dia for Immigration Day, Zelie Zshornack reporting to you at the close of Day 9 of our adventures here in San Cristobal, Dominican Republic. I’d just like to say it is crazy how fast the days have been passing by and I personally cannot believe we are already halfway through our trip, but all of the loving comments from home have definitely been leaving some feelings of homesickness among all of us. But please do not let that discourage the comments they are much needed! *Special thanks to my mother for becoming a celebrity parent here; along with several others, for the constant comments, I am only slightly embarrassed 😛
On to what you are all probably more interested in now… Immigration Day! We began with the usual 7AM wake-up call from me to the rest of the Glimpsers and GG leaders. Yes Mom and Dad, I did actually wake up to an alarm on time. Anyways, after we all freshened up a bit, us bed heads headed off to el Comedor for another expected delicious Desayuno. Pineapples, watermelons, mashed plantains, and flavorful sausages with onions, YUM. Following breakfast, I reminded my peers of the upcoming schedule for the day as we had a guest speaker coming which means we would be dressing business casually *insert smirking face emoji here*.
Before our speaker arrived, we had to finish planning the details of our CAP project to present to the community in a few days. We narrowed our ideas down to 3 specific areas to which we would focus on: building bookshelves for their community center, translating their Spanish brochure into English and French, and finally and advertising/social media focus to grow awareness of Las Cuevas del Pomier (the Caves). We divided into 3 committees and began planning the details of the project we were in to present to the community in a few days. I feel we are all getting very excited to start helping the community and putting our plans to action.
After a short break from the hard work we put into planning the CAP project, we headed back to the conference room for a video that provided the background information to the immigration situation between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The video alone opened all of our eyes to something I feel a majority of us did not know was occurring here, which was the negative perceptions and attitudes that have existed from the Dominicans towards Haitians. Despite sharing an island and being neighboring countries, it was mind boggling to hear how inferior Dominicans saw and treated Haitians as. After the video we finally got to hear from our speaker; Fristzne Blanco, a Hatian immigrant now living in the Dominican Republic for 8 years now with 6 children and a wife. His speech to us gave new depths to our understanding of the immigration issues that are still existing between the two countries such as the expensive, long, and difficult process involved in just getting the proper papers to immigrate to the Dominican Republic. Fristzne’s story made me see great strength in him because even though I have firsthand experience with being an immigrant and living in America alone causes many occurrences among all of us with immigration issues, they are truly nothing in comparison to the problems here in the Dominican Republic. I am most proud of my peers today for being so engaged with our speaker and asking so many questions which really showed our collective interest in this problem, and I think we can all say he was an inspiration despite his quiet and humble demeanor.
Lunch followed directly with our appreciated speaker here at CONAMUCA. Despite our eventful morning activities, all of our stomachs were grumbling for what these women were serving us next. Vegetable salad, rice, the best meatballs in the world (my opinion at least), and sweet fried corn cakes which I won’t deny asking my peers for their leftovers of. We engaged with our speaker at the lunch table while enjoying the amazing meal.
When our speaker left we enjoyed some free time together as a group. Some of us went to the Colmado to buy more snacks while the remainder of us stayed at CONAMUCA relaxing and napping as a recovery from our busy schedules. Upon our return from our snacking adventure we watched a final short video recapping the immigration situation between the Dominican Republic and Haiti which was a good conclusion to the main focus of our day.
Since today is a Wednesday that meant…drumroll please…English Class! We have all begun to adjust to our students and mastering lesson planning to the best of our abilities. Though it is difficult for me personally as a non-Spanish speaker, it is such a nice feeling to know we are teaching our students English to hopefully brighten their futures, and we’re all picking up some Spanish while we’re at it.
As classes ended and we finished planning Friday’s class Isabella and Natalia taught some new games that passed the time at the school as we awaited the bus to take us back to CONAMUCA. When we arrived back we all rushed to the dining hall for the final and best meal of the day. I’ll just take a moment to appreciate all of the cooking CONAMUCA has done and yes, to answer my mother’s comments, I am eating and trying everything!! We are all trying to get the recipes to our favorites to take back home to answer many of the comments asking as well. Dinner tonight was salad, spaghetti, fried banana chips, and everyone’s favorite bread. I feel CONAMUCA is learning SC1B’s special love for their bread as they always bring a new bowl out to us immediately after we finish the first one. As the night came to a close with our nightly meeting, we recapped the day with our favorite and not so favorite moments as well as giving out a whole lot of Big Love after I handed my El Lider del Dia cape to tomorrow’s leaders. Special thanks to all my fellow glimpsers for supporting me today. El Lider del Dia is not an easy job, but I don’t think I did too bad.
Thank you so much for reading! It is getting pretty late, but I just wanted to say to all of our friends and families thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to come and experience this, but we cannot wait to come home!
Much love…ZelieJ
4am here in the Bay, can’t sleep so of course I check to see if there’s a new blog post and yay there is! Jihan, hopefully you’re putting your French skills to good use, while learning some Spanish as well! This blog for some reason has made me emotional…and hungry! Jihan can explain why ?. Can’t wait to see more pics (the thumbnails are pretty low res but I can see my baby girl ☺️). Half way done and so much more to do and learn, can’t wait to read more! Love& miss you Jihan! Xoxo, mom. PS I forgot to tell you Sonia went to the movies with Margaret over the weekend then had dinner at the O’keefes. I also told Thomas how to find these blogs…
Hi Briana!! Sounds like you are having a great time. I can’t wait to hear your experience in DR. We miss you a lot, Camila comes everyday asking for you. Enjoy the rest of the trip! Te amamos demasiado ❤️
Thank you for posting such a great picture! I am happy to see my girl smiling so brightly. We love & miss you Melika! There are no words to express how proud I am of you. It sounds like you guys are accomplishing & learning so much. Take care all of you!
Love Mom & Samir Jr.
Briana hija te extrañamos mucho pero sabemos que estas bien y feliz de estar compartiendo y conociendo nuevas experiencias y se que te ayudaran en tu vida. Estamos orgullosos de ti. Te quiero
Zelie,
great picture! KK says hi and she misses you. To keep you updated on what’s going on in the states… Curry won best record breaking performance at the espys last night. Chance also performed which means he’ll have a new song coming out soon! Anyways, keep working hard and sounds like you did a good job being El Lider de dia which is awesome! Have a great rest of the trip!
Zelie, sorry for this off topic reply but I wanf to update you on my bball … I played 8 games in two days last weekend (won all 8). and now we’re in the sweet 16 for the skyline tournament this weekend.. we could play mills Sunday on the 17th what a coincidence. ?.But data problems are taking over the phone again ?? lol anyways enough about me. Have a great rest of the trip babe and good luck on your CAP project. continue to make many memories and can’t wait to hear all about them when I talk to you soon❤️
I’m sorry I missed your call dude ? I had a game at 12. if you can call me back call me if not I’m sorry
ZELIE!!
WE MISS YOU!!! I hope you don’t think that we forgot about you because we did not! Were so glad that DR is treating you well! Hahaha good job with trying new foods and breaking your diet of gummy bears and Starbucks! ANA L misses you extra much, she wants you to know that. Enjoy your time in DR! It looks like you’re having a (poop emoji) load of fun there!
I wanted to let you know that everyone’s doing well here too! Rebecca is doing amazing in LA! She has one roommate that she thinks is a little weird but in a good way! She’s made lots of other friends that are ALMOST as artsy as her! I can’t wait for you to see her pieces, they’re great! Joelle got back from Germany today! She has some crazy tan lines that you’ll see on her ig when you get back! (She’s a party animal again thanks to Germany!) ANA L has been working hard! She brought up some crazy tweets on Twitter in groupchat. We wish you were here to see them, you would’ve had a lot of funny things to say (laughing emoji)! Lexi has been busy with visiting family and I’m finally finishing up my CSM classes next week! I see the Zustin comment above! Turbo is doing well too! We can’t wait for you to get back, Snake Pit hasn’t been all together for awhile!
WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!! Can’t wait for you to come home!
P.s. I think we should all go to the movies when you and Rebecca get back (thumbs up emoji)
LOVE, SNAKE PIT 🙂
Hello Zalie! It’s friends again! Rebecca wanted to add something and I quote, “I love you so much and hopefully you enjoy the trip as much as I did. Miss you so much and can’t wait for you to come back”
MUCH LUV, SP part2! We love you!
Zelie, Congrats on what appears to be a fine day for you as El Lider del Dia. Keep practicing your Spanish so you don’t lose it. Maybe, when you get home, let’s speak Spanish more often so I can get back into the groove. Are you learning much about the community you’re helping as well as the history of the DR? You should have a lot of take aways from this experience. Enrich your knowledge but at the same time, continue your outreach, continue helping and continue sharing.Take care and see you soon! Te quiero!
My dear sweetie pie zelbel, thought of escalating the embarassment. Hehehe, just kidding. I love the blog, really great job and what a relevant topic not just for you personally but also the entire world. All you are learning about these issues now are enriching your values. I’m also glad that you are enjoying teaching, practicing and learning languages. It puzzles me til now how many languages there are and how different they are in the same continent and yet we can be similar in so many ways. Does that make sense?
Keep enjoying the food, looking forward to the recipes and you cooking when you get home.
Love and miss you so dearly.
BTW you all look great!
Hi again, Zelie! And hello to all the rest! Firstly, I’d like to apologize if you haven’t seen any of my comments in the past since your trip began. And I’d also like to apologize for this second comment for the same day. As if my first comment for today didn’t bore you enough yet! Anyway, I actually made at least one comment each day since your trip began. But I guess most of them didn’t quite make it past “moderation.” Only one I think made it. And hopefully the two comments I am submitting today will pass. Am busy actually editing my comment and I’ve deleted a lot already in the hope of passing the moderation stage. I’ve also been busy this past week with this newest game on the smartphone – Pokemon Go! It’s actually creating quite a stir in the country because many have been hurt by just playing this game. People have been hit by cars, fallen off cliffs and all other crazy ways to get hurt. Just kidding! I don’t play Pokemon Go! I actually just cracked a new joke I made up and it made Michael and Debbie laugh their hearts out. I asked them to “Use Dominican Republic in a sentence.” They couldn’t figure it out. So I said “Zelie is in the Dominican Republic right now!” Cool joke, huh? Anyway, I just wanted to add this comment because am watching the news and there’s just so much happening in the world today, mostly disturbing, and I just can’t help but remind myself about the wonderful things you are all doing in the DR if only to remind myself (Did I just use the word “remind” again? My writing is getting rusty!) that there are still good things happening in the world. Make a difference in this world! I don’t know exactly how but certainly what you are doing in the DR is a good start. That’s all for now. Until my next comment that passes moderation, take care!
ZELIE!! ITS TIFF! I SAW YOUR PARENTS COMMENTS ABOUT POKEMON GO AND IT REMINDED ME THAT THAT WAS WHAT I LET OUT IN MY POST!! It was supposed to be a part of my update from Cali for you 🙂 Let’s Pokemon GO!!! But safely because ^^^ it is true, there have been a lot of people getting hurt and robbed while playing the game! It will get us out of the house more often! Abd we will be sure to play safely and responsibly (for Mr. Zshornack) 🙂 I MISS YOU A LOT ZELEPHANT 🙂 (heart emoji)
See you soon!
Natalia —sending big Love out to you from all of us at home. Alec says to stay safe , have fun, and stay free from bug bites. He would like to join GG someday. The house is way to quiet without you. You really are the heart and soul of this home and we all miss you so very much. When you get back home — you can be in charge of pulling weeds now that you are trained in that job☺️ ! I wish there were more photos from your trip. We are Excited to see your pictures and hear all your stories when you return. Your big Bro Matthew is returning from Greece Monday. Milo sends a big MEooOW to you and he likes sleeping on your bed. Soak in all the sun — use SPF 30 sunscreen —and soak up the good vibes there … Your experiences are invaluable in giving you new perspectives on other cultures and lifestyles. I know you will Step up to the challenges you face. Your our rock star. Live, laugh & Love —Miss you — Papa
So good to here your voice babe ?❤️I’m so happy you called back!!! sorry for the over commenting on your thing ??. But I miss you like crazy and it sounds like your having tons of fun. Thank you for calling and I’ll talk to you again soon babe love you. ?
p.s- we won today and play tomorrow at 4 against San Mateo if we win we could play mills at 7 in the semis ?
omg I forgot to tell you on the phone my mom got me the white and blue shoes with the waves that you showed me!!! they are coming Thursday so I’ll get to use them when I get back!
Zelie
Happy two months babe!You know everything already. I wish you were here today with me but I know you’re changing lives everyday while you’re there and I’m so proud of you for that! You will remember this experience for the rest of your life! Iit was so good to hear your voice today!!i had so much to say and forgot to tell you so many things but we will talk soon!! I miss talking to you so it was good to hear you. I was with the fam in the car when you called and they said hi. I play at 4 and maybe 7 tomorrow in the semis if we win at 4. Keep working hard babe, I’ll talk to you soon and I love you! ???
Hello Zelbel! Tiff again! Update 07/17: today was the Skyline Tournament! Mills played Leigh and won by 5! Then Serra played San Mateo and won by 3! So now the boys are playing each other! SO are you on team Mills or team Justin? (thinking emoji) Coach Dave is also sitting infront of us and he wants you to know that Justin has made a lot of threes and scored a lot of points! (thumbs up emoji)
And Serra beat Mills 67-41 🙁 update you again soon! Kirk has diarrhea btw, he got travelers illness from Mexico. Oops LOL.
Much love, tiff!!