Our second day in the DR was one of relaxation, per se. We got up early this morning to have an
amazing breakfast served by our wonderful staff at Hostel—Casa Grande. After breakfast we had a culture and safety
seminar where we were divided into two groups and get ourselves out of the
human knot…yeah you can imagine how that went.
Although no group got completely out…our group by far had many more
people out of the knot…yeah group 1!
After our seminar had finished we literally had to pack our
luggage and prepare ourselves for the 3 hour bus ride to our home city of San
Juan de la Maguana. It was a long but
scenic bus ride, and getting know a little more of what the Dominican Republic
has to offer. Of course we stopped half
way at rest stop for a pit stop…LOL! Once we made it to San Juan de la Maguana
we arrived to our temporary hotel for one week—Hotel Tamarindo. There we were situated into our rooms and had
a brief time to have some down time to relax…even though it was 30 mins, it
felt awfully short. Thereafter, we made
our trek to the restaurant Onaei where we had an amazing lunch and had welcome
drinks waiting for us, decorated with a fruit slice and umbrella…SWEET! The drink if
you are wondering was an all natural fruit punch blend.
After our lunch we had a city walk tour of San Juan de la
Maguana where we visited el palacio de bella artes, city hall, the first church
of the city and a local park that was dedicated to Prof. J. Bosch…a president
of the DR whom only lasted 6 months!
Then out of the blue, we decided to watch and little league baseball
practice at the local park, where we met Don Victor who coincidentally is a PE
teacher at the local public high school and university and he gave some history
and background of the DR and their national pastime, or shall I say their way
of life—BASEBALL!
It was an amazing opportunity for us to interact with the
locals and get to know more about them and the city itself. Some of us even got the opportunity to play
catch with some of the kids and ask them questions. After our time at the baseball field it was
time to get to the hotel and prepare ourselves where we GG Leaders conducted
the first seminar on history. Although
we were limited for time I think we did pretty good, but know as a team we can
definitely do better. After our history
seminar we went back to the restaurant to have dinner and were able to relax
and have some needed rest.
After dinner we had to get everything ready for our regular
nightly meeting where the next student of the leader had to prep themselves
since they were going to get bestowed the “Crown.” Yeah, and as the luck of the draw would have
it…it would be me! Yeah, I’m the leadership coach this time around on the trip
and therefore will be the ELD—El Líder del día.
The nightly meeting went pretty well, the students got to
see a different side of me…and we wrapped it up with a unity clap and of course
the word I chose…was “rhythm” since we’ll be taking dancing lessons tomorrow!
After the nightly meeting the students had the opportunity
to conduct their self reflection and that led to bedtime and nights out.
The overall experience is good thus far, not the same as the
Nicaraguan Global Glimpse experience, it truly is a new adventure that we are
all a part of.
Time for bed…it’s 1 AM here in the DR!
Buenas noches!
No comments:
Post a Comment