Day 9: CAP Day 3

Constanza. Republica Dominicana. Early morning. The sun rises in the east over the green mountains, shedding light in the town, the motos and the animals. A beautiful morning. Us Glimpsers awake to the sounds of dogs barking, roosters crowing, and the high-pitched scream of the LDD alarm clock announcing the new day. At 7:00am, the LDD’s of the day, Lyla, David, and Luna, remind their fellow Glimpsers to begin their journey towards wakefulness and everyone gets ready for the final day of work on Dona Elena’s house.

After an amazing breakfast prepared by Margarita of egg, ham, and cheese on toast, we all pile into the beautiful blue wawa and head off to the Community Action Project (CAP) with the sounds of Micheal Jackson’s Chicago complementing the bustling life of the town and the fields. Shuffling through the alleyway into the courtyard, we survey the work to be done today. We’ve thus far finished the roof and painted the outside, and the final steps lay before us: to finish painting the last room and to lay the concrete floors. We decide to start with the painting. About half of the Glimpsers file into the second room of the house and begin to streak white paint onto the wood walls. We continue as some of the local children join us in brushing the walls, and together we sing and dance to early 2000s pop and Bad Bunny. Halfway through the morning, the real work begins: the mixing of the concrete. We pass the sand and concrete bags down the alleyway, and pour it into the center of the courtyard. Led by Nacho (cheese) and many of the local people, we add water slowly to the mountain of sand, and mix it together with shovels and pickaxes, the people using shovels directed to “ch ch ch” (stab the pile in order to get the water to as much of the sand as possible), and the people with pickaxes stirring the whole mix in figure eights. At the end of the endeavor, we have a giant grey mountain of concrete in the center of the neighborhood courtyard, and we can begin moving the concrete inside in shifts.

With about half of the pile left, it is time of us to bid farewell to the local children and take the wawa back to the villa for lunch. We arrive with 15 minutes to spare, taking the time to rest, decompress, and change into sandals before heading up to a delicious lunch prepared by Margarita of rice and beans, chicken, lettuce, and tomato. Lunch comes to a close at about 12:30, leaving us an hour to kill before piling back into the wawa to head to CAP, the sounds Dembow providing rhythm to the music of the town. The second half of the day is distinguished by card games, shade, wheelbarrow trips, and the games played with the local children. Doll clothes, a lesson in crochet, and a food fight of Spanish moss spaghetti all encapsulate the energy of the afternoon, of hard work, of summer heat, and of a certain inventiveness and imagination that is unique to childhood but universal to children all over the world. And as that mood descends upon the courtyard, we finish our work. The concrete has been mixed, distributed, and smoothed flat inside the casita. The outside walls are as green as the leaves of a mango tree. The inside walls are without an unpainted space (almost). The aluminum roof has been nailed down. Dona Elena, an incredibly important figure in the community, now has a stable house where she can live safely and comfortably, and help to increase the safety and quality of the entire neighborhood. And with that, it’s time to bid farewell. Those of us who bonded with the people of the neighborhood try with our broken Spanish to tell those we connected with how much they mean to us, and how amazing they are, and how much this experience meant to us, before taking our final looks and riding away in the wawa.

We take a quick stop at the grocery store to spend our last pesos on chips, chocolate, fruit, and souvenirs, and then head back to the villa. We survey our haul before having a final reflection on CAP day 3, where we share what we learned and what our strengths and weaknesses are as a group. After, we take time to shower, make smoothies, eat snack, and play games before heading up to our last dinner made by Margarita of pasta, alfredo, and beef, which proves to be so popular that the Glimpsers beg Margarita to make a second batch. After inhaling as much pasta as we can fit in our stomachs, we rush down to our last nightly meeting at on the balcony. We soak in the view of the town, share our thoughts on the Question of the Day and the Quote of the Day, and reflect on how easy it is to break something down, and how much courage and perseverance it takes to build something up. Then, our last LDDs of the trip make their premier with a magic trick, and the whole group joins them in the Macarena. We finish up the nightly meeting, and choose to save our last Big Love for our bonfire. The bonfire is characterized by marshmallows, s’mores, and popcorn, complemented by the entire galaxy shining above our heads. Beautiful music such as Stand By Me, Lorde, Beach House, CAS, and Little Green by Joni Mitchell (which I’m including in this list because I’m biased) provided the soundtrack to our final, tearful round of Big Love during which everyone shared the connections they made throughout the trip, the people they’re going to miss, and what everyone means to each other, and all the Glimpsers make a pact to connect again once we return to our lives in the Bay.

We eventually make it back to the villas, and say goodnight only a little later than expected.