Thanks for your patience! See our account of yesterday below:

Hello friends and family, this is Fernando Ruiz from Tennyson High School and Judit from Summit Rainier. Today was a very interesting day. We experienced how the locals live. For example, some of our students were hoeing around, meaning they were hoeing the weeds in the fields, washing dishes, sweeping and mopping the floors. At first, many of the locals did not want to let us help them around the house. In order to make this happen, we had to insist on helping with their oficios, which are chores. After we finished helping them with their chores, a group of us, including the host families went to a river which was about a mile away from the community’s houses. Currently, most of these houses have running water, but before they had running water, they would have to walk every time to the river when they needed water. In fact, on our way to the river, we witnessed a very kind act from one of the children of the community. On our way to and from the river, there was a very steep hill where a little 7 year old offered to carry his little sister. These type of acts are very rare to see in our community that we live in and we are usually busy fighting with our siblings, while others cherish them. We realize that the locals are very caring people and want to give others little things, which tend to be all that they have. That is where I met the cutest little boy named Jorry who was two years old. He was quite a character. I loved that he was very talkative and we began to play around. This was one of the highlights of my day. After this, we then had a traditional lunch meal of the Dominican Republic. This was made up of white rice and beans. We allowed the locals to eat first and we interacted with them as well which was very fun for the both of us. Once we were done with lunch we loaded up on the guagua, which is the bus here in the Dominican Republic. We then headed back to the hostel in order to change to a more formal attire for our first day teaching at the liceo (Public school). The classes were divided according to their age groups ranging from 8-50 years old. Being the first time teaching classes like this to the community was very frightening for us, but there was mixed emotions for others. Thanks to the help of our ambassadors, we didn’t feel alone while teaching. Overall, it was a fun, exciting and interesting experience for both of us because for one we were the teachers. After that, we went to dinner and we had something very different. It was fried bananas with sunny side up eggs topped off with grilled onions and peppers. Some liked it and some didn’t. We finished our oddly satisfying dinner and headed back to the hostel and had our nightly meeting and reflection. To sum everything up, we believe everyone had an eye opening experience when seeing how the locals lived and how privileged we are in the U.S.

 

 

Our Very attentive Global Glimpse Teachers

Our Very attentive Global Glimpse Teachers

Jarely and Zara managing their 8 year olds :)

Jarely and Zara managing their 8 year olds 🙂

First day of School

First day of School

Sayda getting to know everyone!

Sayda getting to know everyone!

Sloan and Jessica discussing their favorite things with their students

Sloan and Jessica discussing their favorite things with their students

Robyn like a pro!

Robyn like a pro!

Summer and David reviewing Introductions with their students

Summer and David reviewing Introductions with their students