Alright all you lovely GG family, friends, and readers, buckle down for this intense, fun-filled day of HOT HOT HOT HOT and great politics. We started our day off with our classic morning routine: a dreadful wake-up call at 7am, but then a delicious, fruity breakfast by our favorite Conamuca staff. We boarded the Gua-Gua (the bus led by our famous, lifesaving, and charismatic driver: Giovanni, whose name we always seem to pronounce with an Italian twang (talking to you Erik). After a quick trip to San Cristobal’s ayuntamiento (city hall for you monolingual folks), we ran a great mock government meeting, where we experienced a borderline movie-like government, which had handfuls of corruption and a dash of masochism. The mock government aided us in discovering the distinct aspects of politics, as well as illustrating the differences and similarities between U.S. politics and that of the DR.

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The group then left to the DR’s “El Conde” in Santo Domingo, where we finally enjoyed a taste of DR’s version of our famous pizzas. We then explored Santo Domingo’s best tourist avenue, where everyone branched off and used their smarts, charms, and an occasional wink or hair-flip to bargain their way to some cheaper prices. The group managed to wrangle back up in time to come back to the lovely Conamuca where we had a meeting with the community members in order to reach a consensus about the group’s Community Action Project. Many of the students challenged themselves during the CAP meeting by taking on new languages and making pun filled anecdotes. As a whole the group came to an agreement that fits the community’s needs as well as overcoming their challenges successfully. After saying our farewells to our fellow friends from the community we came together in smaller groups to reflect about all the new things we learned and to juxtapose those concepts to the pre-established ideas. Our post-dinner free time featured the melodious voices of the C5 (conamuca 5): Malcolm, both Corinas, Fernando, and Erik, who sang along to “Amazing Grace” and other great classics. Finally, we ended the night with a scrumptious dinner provided by our fellow loving Conamuca staff and ending with our typical night routine. Keep those lovely comments coming folks!