A Day Spent With The Community

On August 7th, Day 6 of our adventure in the Dominican Republic, we started off the morning with some warm hot chocolate, toast, delicious strawberry jam, scrambled eggs, and a small history lesson about the Sin Rostro faceless clay dolls of the Dominican culture. These dolls without faces represent the blend of different cultures, ethnicities, and traditions of the Dominican people as well as being united people as one family.

Following breakfast, we headed to the Community of Cañada de las Palmas in the beautiful mountains of Constanza. There we were separated into 4 groups, each group joining a host family within the community. The hosts accepted us into their homes graciously, sharing with students and leaders about their life, work, family, future goals, struggles with poverty, and much more. Some groups cleaned the community center and played dominoes, while others helped cooked lunch alongside the hosts. Glimpsers then met the children living in the community, where there were immediate connections. Everywhere you looked there were hugs, piggyback rides, flower crowns, games, photo shoots, and many smiles and laughs being shared between everyone involved. The LDDs (leaders of the day), PCs (program coordinators), and community members then served a lunch of fried platanos, potato and carrot salad, and rice with veggies to the community and students in the community center.

Following lunch, a baseball game was set up on the road surrounded by the mountain range. Many community members came to join the game and the road was lively with their lively shouts and laughs. After the game ended, we said our goodbyes to the friends we made, which included many exchanges of bracelets, phone numbers, hugs, pictures, and tears. Many students were very emotional, mentioning they felt like they had known the children forever.

Once we were back at the hotel, everyone went straight to start making our poster, and working together to translate our respective parts of the CAP presentation project to the community leaders of Barrio de las Flores. Everyone was dressed to impress, the presentation went great, and the leaders approved the project. After that, we headed off to dinner in our fancy clothes and ate spaghetti, salad, and bread. We then reflected on our day with the community and all the love that was shared. At the nightly meeting, we passed the torch to the next LDDs, then gathered our dirty clothes for our laundry day!

We all had an incredibly impactful day today with the community that we will never forget and will carry with us forever. Everyone looks forward to what comes next!

Love, Lucy y Mayra