History day was the first official day in the Dominican Republic, and after the rough day yesterday we were excited to finally start our journey together, in order to do that we had game to learn everyone’s names and also created a commitment to be open minded, be inclusive and give it our best. Then we learned about Culture and Safety through a game of Jeopardy.
As our first ice breaking activity we has “ask me about” poems to get to know each other more and for lunch we ate La Bandera (typical dominican lunch) and had the chance to meet our ambassadors and get ready for our city tour.

It was raining a little while walking through the city of Bonao but the bright colors, the compelling history and the groups positivity made it a true bonding experience. During our city tour we got to meet Jim Hernandez and Stefany, the people in charge of La Voz del Yuna, who shared facts about the history of this important radio station and their inspiration to preserve it. At the museum they played music from a Vitrola, a manual vinyl record player from 1906, we also met Andres, a shoe shiner working in Parque Duarte. He has worked at the park for 31 years and has seen the city change and develop.

We had to cut our tour due to heavy rain, but we still had the chance to enjoy fruit paletas, before heading back to our accommodations. Our first self reflection today was about first impressions – first impressions of Bonao, its people and the food.One of today’s highlights has got to be Licelot (our cook) and tonight’s yucca with salami, many glimpsers had never tasted it before so it is a new and yummy experience.

To end our day we learned how to be a leader of the day, and had our nightly meeting were we looked at how history repeats itself and heard an amazing spoken words by Maddox (again big love to her for sharing). our unity clap word was Uno, because we bonded and now we feel like we really are one.