This blog post is authored by Katie (Mimico Baptist Church).

Hello everyone, it’s Katie! I hope everything is good with everyone back home! Everything is great here aside from a few bumps and bruises a few people have gotten.

We started off our day with an amazing breakfast as usual. Today we stayed at the compound and did work there instead of going to the work site in Villa Altagracia. But we were still doing the same great work of laying bricks which is actually pretty fun and I really enjoy doing.

In the morning, we took a break from work for a little bit to go see the water purification system in Los Alcarrizos. This water purification system is located right on the property of the compound, so it wasn’t a far journey to get there. Seeing the water purification system that they built here in Los Alcarrizos was really cool to take a look at and have Felix explain a little bit about since we are currently helping to build the building that will hold the water purification system in Villa Altagracia. It was very cool to see how much of an impact the water purification facility has had on the community of Los Alcarrizos and to look at how the community of Villa Altagracia is now and how much that community will be impacted by the new water purification system that is currently being built.

Seeing the lack of clean water here has been really eye opening. The fact that we just have endless clean water that comes out of our taps at home while the people here have to walk to a water purification facility to get clean water has been really impactful on me, personally, and I’m sure also on some of the other team members as well. After seeing the water purification system, we went back to work.

Today was the hottest and most humid day we’ve had so far. To top it off, it was an almost cloudless sky all day which meant lots and lots of sunshine which made it even hotter and harder to work. Needless to say, we took a lot of water breaks. Ella, Julia and Aaron decided to have some fun while we were working and they tried to climb one of the palm trees. The pictures that we took while they were trying to climb were pretty funny, especially the one of Ella that I included.

During our spare time, many of us went to the pool to cool off, to the roof to relax and enjoy the nice breeze or to the rooms for some quiet down time. We also played a few rounds of Dutch Blitz which is always a fun game and everyone enjoys.

After dinner, we had another session, but this session was special because it was everyone who is part of the teams all in one meeting. Usually it’s the different teams all meet in different spots and have their own separate discussions but this one was all the teams together which was cool. Cristian told us about the Lighthouse Project and how it came to be; that was cool to hear about. Then we went in a circle and every single person (all 40 something of us) said what has been the highlight for each of us during this trip. It was really interesting to hear all of the different perspectives and views of what people have been taking away from this incredible experience.

Well, that’s pretty much a recap of our day! I hope that tomorrow will be just as amazing as today, or even more so since tomorrow we are going to go on a really cool adventure!