Hi, everyone! My name is Weimin, one of the leaders for today. And my other team leader is Michael. I am from Thurgood Marshall Academic high school in San Francisco. I am so glad to be the leader of the day for our amazing trip with my amazing trip mates. Today was our Community Action Project (CAP) day 1 delivery.

Today we woke up pretty early in the morning so that we could get ready to start on our CAP delivery. We took the bus together and went to the community center in the section of San Cristobal called Jeringa. Some of the ideas that we had from the community members were turning the community center into a child daycare center for the community children. We decided to make a mural on the outside of the community center as well. We are also making a mural inside of the community center to decorate the room for the little kids from childcare center. Because the center is kind of old, there are some other problems in the building: there are no electricity for the light in the building; the lockers on the side are dirty and old; and also the bathrooms have plumbing issues.

As we arrived the community center, the first thing we did was to clean up the whole building since the building was not been cleaned for a long time. Some of the community members brought their cleaning supplies that we needed and they all came in to help out. After our leadership team bought the supplies that we needed like paint and brushes, we all started painting the walls and the fixing the hole that we had on the wall in order to paint mural on it. Then our inside team started to clean the bathroom for the community center. Because the bathrooms have not been using for a long time, it was kind of difficult to clean it because there was hot and dark inside the bathroom. Our teammates were having a hard time working inside, but because we didn’t have bleach for the toilet, we only did some basic cleaning for the bathroom. Some of the people started on painting the walls to make it looks nice. We also moved the stuff inside the building to the outside so we can be more flexible to work inside the area.

One the challenge that we faced was that at first we didn’t have a good organized plan for the things that we would be facing so we were confused about tasks that we should do at first. But later on, as more supplies were bought and students got more organized, things ran more smoothly. At the end of the CAP Day1 delivery, we finished painting all the walls inside the community center on the first floor, fixed the exterior wall that had holes on the outside and did base painting. Also we cleaned up the whole first floor including the bathroom.

Then we headed to Limon for our English class. And it is always the best time for us to meet and get in touch with the kids in the Dominican Republic. We always have teaching the kids in the school and are so happy to have met them. And we also we told the kids that we are having a talent show on the last day of English class, which is this coming Wednesday. The kids are so exciting about the showing off their talents. And we are all looking forward to seeing those kids again and their amazing talents on Wednesday!

Tomorrow is our CAP Day 2 Delivery, we are all excited to work again in the community and finishing up all the plans that we have for this project. And also looking forward for the free time that we have to shopping in San Cristobal after we finish the CAP project. And it’s time so say good night to you all! See you the next day for the new leaders!

(In addition, Skyler asks for a shout out for her parents:)