When I first applied for Global Glimpse, I’d had the assumption that it would be an organization with ill-intentions and little credibility, but I soon came to realize that the I was being prepared for potentially the greatest adventure I will ever experience! From the start, Global Glimpse provided consistent communication with Glimpsers to inform us about our trips and the expectations in place, but truly nothing could have adequately described everything that I would learn on my trip.
Upon arriving in country, my first observation was the incredible strength of the Dominican heat and humidity, enough so to the point where I began worrying about my stability. When we reached our accommodations, I was somewhat taken aback by the canopies hanging over our beds and the fact that we were essentially living in houses near each other. As the program continued on, I gained such a fondness for my house and the slight constant warmth that filled me, that is, once I’d gotten used to the heat more. As the necessity of the many fans and canopies became increasingly more apparent, I found myself developing a new fearlessness towards pests such as cockroaches, moths, and spiders, all while my legs rarely ever felt the effects of the mosquito bites that speckled my skin. Additionally, our accommodation had a pool that we would typically be able to swim in or dangle our feet in during any available free time we had throughout the day, making the heat and our itchiness much more manageable.
As for the program itself, each day was organized with a theme (culture, history, immigration, etc.) that we would learn about either the night before or the morning of. Throughout that day, we would visit places and listen to local speakers explain various aspects of their lives. For example, on one of the days, we learned about the life of a coffee plantation worker by working in the plantations and weeding the coffee plants before visiting the coffee factory and learning about the coffee making process from a worker there. Each day was formatted similarly to this in the first week or so with activities scattered throughout the morning and afternoon, and in the evenings, we would have time to relax or walk to downtown to get ice cream and shop. We also had a few days that were designated for our free day and our beach day, the former being open to anything nearby that we wanted, and the latter being a two-day getaway to the Dominican coast for a change of scenery and the pleasures of being at a tropical beach. Finally, our last few days were centered around our Community Action Project (CAP), where my delegation was able to visit a community and build a water system for some of the houses that connected to a central well. This project required everyone in the group to put in the physical effort to make a difference in the life of the locals as we dug pathways and laid down pipes under the dirt behind the houses. Aside from the focuses of each day, we consistently always ate every meal together and often had a fair amount of free time to be able to bond with each other through talking, card games, singing, or simply watching others pass by on the street outside (as plain as it sounds, this last one became quite popular in the second week of the trip). We also had a set schedule including a wake-up time and a bedtime, yet these times were never too strongly enforced as long as we weren’t being too loud and we were still safely inside of our houses. Because of this freedom, a lot of my bonding with the others came late at night after each nightly meeting, since a few of us would gather in my living room and share stories about ourselves to get to know each other better.
As for what I learned during the trip, most obviously I gained information related to the topics of each day, such as the history behind the Dominican Republic and its separation from Haiti, or the sense of family built within self-sustained communities. I also quite literally had a taste of the types of foods that are popular in the DR, such as plantains or the super fresh fruits. However, the thing I expected the least was to learn so much from my own teenaged peers. Through our casual conversations and downtime topics, my understanding of their lives grew rapidly as I started realizing just how differently we were each living from each other; people that I’ve attended high school with for years already were mentioning important events in their lives that had never even begun to pass through mine. Primarily, my peers grew comfortable around each other to discuss the disadvantages they faced due to their race or their financial status, which I have never seen before within my own home community. These conversations led all of us to connect on such a deep level and be able to properly set expectations and boundaries for each other that otherwise may have been voided. Of course, the extent to what I learned could reach as far out as new card games, like Thirteen and Desmoche, or even the trivial topic of which family members would regularly comment on our trip blogs. Yet throughout the entire trip, the growth I will carry the most with me will be my new sense of a global perspective and a true understanding of what it means to be less fortunate than others, whether that be due to race, nationality, financial security, socializing ability, or pure interests.
My experience in the Dominican Republic through Global Glimpse is something that I can’t imagine I will ever entirely forget about, and the memories I shared with my fellow JA2A friends will never be tarnished as long as they are held within the bubble that Global Glimpse created for us. Since my mother went on a similar type of trip in her youth that she used to tell me about, I hope that someday I too will be able to pass these stories down to future generations to continuously inspire youth to make a change in a new location. Until then, I encourage anyone with the opportunity to pursue this program to do so and to follow the illusion that I traced to create this movie-like experience of a lifetime.
