We are aware and apologize for the lack of pictures throughout the past few days. There have been technical difficulties but we can ensure that all students are safe.

Quentin: Hello, my name is Quentin Hillaire and I’m going to tell you about my experience being leader of the day. This morning, the dogs were barking and we could smell the Ecuadorian air when we woke up. We woke everyone up at 7 in the morning, and we went around the hostel made sure everyone had some hand sanitizers, sunscreen, and be able to dress to impress because we had to present our ideas to the principal for our CAP project. We came downstairs to make sure everyone was ready to eat breakfast and able to fill up their water bottle. During breakfast, we had to make sure that the people who were vegetarian, pescatarian, or allergic to anything that the food did not consist of the food they can’t eat. Everyone came together and met in the meeting room to speak about the day that we have planned ahead. We had a special guest speaker who was an indigenous woman speaking about women taking a political position. She encouraged that women need to become more involved in a political career. Her name is Carmen and she lives in an indigenous community, in which she is the president of her community. She is an engineer of business, and she had plenty of obstacles being a woman and indigenous. She had a daughter at 20 years and started working at 16 years old. One of the many inspirational quotes that really spoke to me is “Don’t let nobody take decisions, you make your own decisions.” I feel like this resonates with today’s generation because there are so many obstacles that we face especially peer pressure that people don’t even know what to do with themselves without somebody making decisions for them. Be you and do you that’s my advice. Lastly, thank you Ms.Finnegan for this amazing experience and I love you so much for it. At first, I was hesitant about the trip, but this was the best experience I had ever had in a long time, I learned to so much about culture, leadership, and most importantly about myself. So thank you.

I, Allison, was also leader del dia. When I was in the meeting to become leader of the day I was a bit terrified because I don’t normally like speaking in front of people I just met a week ago, but in the end it wasn’t so bad-thanks especially to my partner Quinten who supported me through the beginning. Moving on, I will be speaking more on the project we will all be taking part in. The CAP project mentioned earlier has three parts to it. We are all focusing on one school that consists of over 3,000 students. We plan to improve it through giving students a larger variety of food by gardening, making it more vibrant through painting murals, and putting signs on all classrooms so it’s easier to get around. Before anything, we had to get the principal to accept our ideas. We proposed these ideas to him and fortunately none got rejected, so we will soon begin our work.

For the gardening, we recall the principal saying that children at school get food boredom. Our solution to this is planting a fruit and vegetable garden which will not only do that but also give the school a more vibrant look, along with the murals. The murals will be something that represents their schools while also giving everyone the opportunity to feel welcome. Lastly, the lack of signs were one of the first things to be addressed as an issue, and because we are a large group, we decided to make a sign group. Our end results for all 3 parts of our project will be posted when we finish.

After our presentations we went to our english classes. We all either taught students their colors, emotions, or countries. Students in my class specifically are 8-9, while others have students in separate age groups of 6, 7-8, 10, 11-12, 13-15, and adults. Teaching can be a challenge but luckily I have Brianna in my group, as well as Ramiya and Edward, who are there to help with getting our students engaged.