Day 7: Aid and Development

Hello everyone!

After waking up at 6:30, we all ate a hearty breakfast consisting of ham and cheese sandwiches, bananas, and tamarind juice. Following our first meal, we conducted our mental warm-up for today, which allowed students to prepare for an information session with Plan Yaque, a non-governmental organization situated in Jarabacoa that uses natural land deposits to sustainably improve the urgent water debt crisis in the Dominican Republic. Olmero Valdez, the speaker of the administration, did a great job at educating us on the importance of this issue.

After returning to our accommodation, our students ate a delicious lunch of rice, potato salad, pork chops, and pineapple. Following our meal, students had downtime to play cards and arrange our laundry. Our second preparation of the day consisted of a seminar, which outlined the CAP project that will be working on during the last three days of our trip. We crafted questions to ask the community; thereafter we embarked on our way to the place where our CAP project is situated: Atillos, a town of 600 people. During our second main activity, we interviewed the locals concerning the procedure of this project. We learned about who would benefit from this procedure, the resources needed to execute this project and the significance of having a functioning aqueduct system. Instead of only twice a week, the 65 townhomes will ideally have regular access to clean and drinkable water.

Following our CAP activity, our group had downtime to further explore Jarabacoa. We enjoyed ice cream and empanadas, then headed downtown to the supermarket to purchase snacks and necessities. While we were there, we were surprised by the other Global Glimpsers from California and Boston staying in Jarabacoa. Greetings to them if they see this! After about an hour, a heavy thunderstorm poured down on our rooftops, leaving two beautiful rainbows in its trace.

We enjoyed our dinner among these rainbows, then followed by preparing for our nightly meeting, which reflected upon the importance of aid in developing nations. I passed down my torch to Imogen, who will be the leader tomorrow for Working Like a Local/Global Business Day. I wish Imogen the best of luck being an individual GGL leader, although I am certain that she will do a fantastic job directing the team.

I want to thank my mom for consistently interacting with the posts and updates, and greetings to her when she sees this- I hope everything is going well back at home. I also hope everyone else that sees this is doing okay, and rest assured, because you will see your loved ones in about a week!