Today, being politics day, we got the opportunity to learn more about the Dominican Republic’s government. We started off with a seminar by Ms.Fife, who educated us more about the Dominican Republic’s role in foreign and national affairs. With more insight about the Dominican Republic’s stand in politics, we headed down to City Hall, in where the mayor of San Juan de la Maguana greeted us with a smile and open arms. In the mayor’s talkback we learned about the small emphasis on education in San Juan, about the year span of terms an elected mayor could serve and about how Hanoi struggled being in the position she is in due to the unorthodox running of a female candidate. After a casual lunch, still being in City Hall, we began to prepare and participate in a Model UN, in where the delegations of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Senegal were represented. Our topic was health, in where Senegal defeated both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Most of us learned much about how countries come together to discuss problems and solutions and how sometimes things can get out of hand. The next activity was our down time, we headed to the Mayor’s house for our pool party in which the ambassadors were involved as well. After a great time in the pool it was time to head back to the hotel for our ritual nightly meeting and bedtime.
Being leader of the day helped me improve in the way I handle stressful situations. Being leader among a group of people close to age is surprisingly much harder than expected, the amount of patience and positivity needed is very difficult to attain. Overall I grew as a person among the delegation and I got to share with everyone of the students.
-DIANA
P.S Lucy, Manuel, Vikki, Mom miss you guys alot. See ya’ll soon! <3