By Casey Maguire

Today is filled with planes, shuttles, and introductions. Meg, Jess, and I left for the Newark airport around 6:00am, got right through customs and awaited for our plane. We spent our time eating, talking to family members, and looking around the stores until out boarding time. As we boarded our excitement began to blossom and things became more real. Our flight took around 4 hours from take off to landing. We arrived in Puerto Plata around 1:45pm. As we got off the plane heading toward customs a live band was playing wonderful music to welcome us into their country. We get through customs rather quickly, but it was also difficult due to our limited Spanish. As we walk outside it is very humid, and we look around for our Nobis World facilitator, LaVona. As we look we meet another woman part of Nobis, Christa. We wait for one more plane to arrive and when it does we meet Tricia and Alex. We all hop on board our taxi and head to the Humming Bird Inn. Driving through the town it was filled with resorts on one side of the road and then a more broken down community on the other. Motorcycles run the road in which it was extremely dangerous for them as well as being able to walk around. When we walk inside we gather to introduce ourselves and discuss where we will be staying for the night. We have about an hour or to for free time to unpack and unwind before its time for dinner. Freddy, Tricia’s husband, is cooking us dinner for the night and it is absolutely delicious. We take time to meet with Tricia and discuss the history and mission of Mariposa and the girls who attend there. After we meet as a group and discuss our ground rules for the week. We talk about how we can make our discussions a safe place to talk by saying we listen first and let other people finish their topic, to check in before every meeting to make sure we are present, to be open and listen through a variety of lenses. And these are just a few. When we were finished all these things we settle down for the night because everyone was tired from traveling all day and had some relaxing free time before bed.

Humming Bird Inn