¡Hola a todos! (Hello everyone!!) It’s Sophie and Didi here :))). Today was Environmental Justice Day. We started off the day with a 7:15 wake-up. Everyone was a bit slower to get up than usual, we were all sleepy- probably due to yesterday’s hike to the beautiful waterfall! For breakfast, we had a filling meal of beans and rice, fruit, eggs, and bread. After breakfast, we had a mental warm-up. During the mental warm-up, we reminded everyone of the quote and the question of the day. After that, we did a quick team bonding game to connect everyone earlier in the day since we would be home doing group activities for the entirety of the day.

Once we wrapped up the mental warm-up, we had a bit of free time before sitting for our last two Community Action Project seminars. Dianna, one of our wonderful PCs, led the seminars. We discussed the project we would be participating in, as well as the steps and materials for the CAP. One of the main things we all touched upon was the importance of mentally and physically preparing ourselves for the projects we would soon be collaborating on! We all agreed that with the right amount of breaks and support from each other, the CAP will be a great experience.

After our CAP seminar, we had a wonderful lunch! Some were saying it was the best lunch yet!!!! We had pork, mini roasted potatoes, and salad. Everyone was still very tired from the morning so we had everyone relax and rest as they needed. Most people took some quick naps and we were ready to take on the rest of the day!  We had a wonderful guest speaker come in to talk about our topic of the day – environmental justice! Andrés Zúñiga – aka “Fofo” did an amazing job helping us grasp the real importance of understanding our environment and making sure to keep it in mind at all times. In the end, we did a mock trial with our own mini-government with a local community fighting against the building of a 5-star hotel on a very biodiverse land in Costa Rica. It was very eye-opening to us about tourism and traveling.

After Fofo wrapped up, we had a lot more downtime which gave us more time to shower, bond, and go for a nightly swim! Many people went down to the market and the basketball courts to pass the long amount of downtime we had. Dinner came quickly and we ate yummy cheeseburgers. It reminded us of home. The second half of our trip is coming up and we are all ready to jump into the CAP project after tomorrow!

Big Love – Didi and Sophie 🙂