Today was a very emotional day. From 0-100 to 100-0. Today, various events occurred. From waking up at seven in the morning, then to kite making (as you can see below: El Ballerine),

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El Bailarine!

to meeting a New York delegation and enjoying an awesome lunch with them, then to viewing a very tragic area of Constanza, The Dump.

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Eating with the New York delegation! Yummy Yummy! Delicioso!

For most of  the day, the group felt comfortable until we saw the dump. Once we arrived smoke filled our nostrils and darkened the beautiful blue skies of the Dominican Republic. We learned that the burning has continued for twenty years, since the beginning of the landfill. The Dump has bags and piles of trash everywhere, that surrounded the large portion of land we were in. No 0ne cried, most teared up, and the emotion of today was sorrow.

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Constanza!

As a group, we discussed how each and every one of us felt. Originally, we felt like most of us knew what “poverty” meant and then we found out from the 10 people living at the dump, the majority of them were content working hard, even though they  earned less than 200 pesos a day.  This was eye opening to all of us.

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Karen and Pheobe and Jag and Miguel in the back decorating their kites.

Not wanting to give the impression that all we felt was sadness today, the best thing we saw was seeing the little kids play with  the kites we created earlier that day.

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Andrea, Peter, Jag and Jamie on the left and Michael and Marcos our GG leader building kites.

Every child had a blast flying kites and drinking Tampico and eating some Dino cookies with our delegation.

We were most influenced and inspired by the workers that we met.  We didn’t take any pictures at the Dump out of respect, as we didn’t want to facilitate further judgement of our speakers.

Today was a difficult day for me being the Leader of the Day. It was life changing of course, but I felt like I had to be so serious due to the day and what was happening around us. Though I do know when to have some fun with group.

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Miguel on the right and Sean and Marcela on the left waiting for their food with New York delegation.

When meeting the New York delegation, everyone had a blast and we bonded with a group of people we will probably never see again. The bond was so fast, that majority of the people in the second delegation gave us their Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook accounts so we can add them at the end of our trip. Beautiful people I might add.

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New York! California, Seattle, and Boston!

Constanza y Bonao!

I learned a ton about myself today.   Knowing how to keep the stress and anxiety levels on the low, was good practice for me.  I also learned how to be flexible with a constantly changing schedule and still keep us on task.  My group is amazing and helped me realize how to change from a good leader to a better leader. El Lider Del Dia will help me in the future be more successful.

 

And down below are more picture of today.

 

 

 

 

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Genisis, Pheobe and El Bailarine decorating their kite.

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Sean building his kite!

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Pheobe and Genisis holding the their kite.

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Jocelyn and Karen’s kite.

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Goodbye Constanza!