To begin the day, Ayana and I woke up at 5:30 AM to do the morning wake up call and get the group up and ready for breakfast at 7:00 AM. For breakfast, the group had pancakes and fruit made by the Onaney staff.

At 8:30 AM, we rode from Onaney to an Avocado farm in Guanito. While the group was at the farm, we cleaned off the hoses which are used to water the plants. After about an hour and a half of cleaning in the Avocado fields, we drove to another part of the avocado farm in which we hoed around the trees and placed fertilizer into the ground in order to stimulate the growth of the avocado. The hard work that we did in the fields helped the group realize the hard work that the locals have to do everyday in order to make a living in this country. After the work that we did in the fields, many Glimpsers mentioned how hard the work was to do, and that they could not imagine doing it for the rest of their lives. It was especially humbling for us when the farmer (Elris) told us that the work that he does in a day was the same work that we did in an hour.  

After our hard work in the fields, we took a short ride to Guanito where we presented our ideas for the volleyball court that we plan to build for the community. We began by eating in Guanito, then the community met with us and accepted our ideas. They were all very happy to hear our ideas. The group split up into 4 subgroups, Manual Labor, Kids, Logistics and Community Organizers. Each group took about 10 minutes to present.

We came back to Onaney and prepared to surprise Jorge for his birthday. Everyone signed a card for him and then we came down and all sang happy birthday. Everyone had a good time, especially Jorge. After that we freshened up and had explorer time, two groups split up half went to get ice cream and then went to the supermarket. The other group went to the park played basketball and then went to the supermarket. I played basketball to show some diversity and how it’s always important to include females in all sports.

Overall this day was amazing and a great way to reflect on how our working conditions in the United States and how they are different from the jobs in Dominican Republic, which in my opinion are harder and they should be seen as hard workers and an inspiration all around the world.