Hola!

Today’s theme was immigration day. We woke up with a seven o’clock wake-up and had a breakfast that consisted of oatmeal fruit and cereal. We really missed cereal. The point of today was to learn about the immigration issues that exist between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and the tension that these issues cause. We started off by watching a documentary that highlighted the main causes of these tensions, and after a Haitian actress came to the hotel to share with us get experience of trying to become a citizen of DR. After, we had a bit of free time so some of us went out to buy some groceries, while some of us chose to stay in and relax. The other main event id the day was to deliver presentations we have prepared for our community action project for the community of Los Calobazos. We had about an hour to finalize our presentations and our posters, then a few members of the community came to hear our ideas. We broke up into five groups and each group was given time to present ideas to them for ways we think we could assist in improving their community and eco-lodge. After hearing everyone’s ideas, the community members expressed that their main concern as of right now is to improve the stairwell that leads from the main road down to the eco-lodge, the community’s main source of income. There are literally hundreds of stairs that guests staying at the lodge must walk down to get to their accommodations, and the community is concerned that the aesthetic and current state of the stairs will be off-putting to prospective guests. Therefore, our presentations were centered around the logistics of how we can best support them in improving their main stairwell. Community members also expressed that they want to create a sign to put out on the main road to advertise and try to attract new clients. On Friday a group of us will be going to local hardware stores to buy supplies like cement and tools, and this Saturday will be our first day of construction and execution!

We worked really hard on our presentations to make sure we were completely ready and found the whole process to be very rewarding. After each presentation, the community members of Los Calobazos were very excited with the potential impact the ideas of us Glimpsers would have on their business and community! To learn how to create change and potentially bring joy to others has been such a wonderful part of this trip, and today was another example of that!