DSCN0398Hey guys, it’s your girl Taya here giving you an insight of another marvelous day here in Nicaragua. To start off our day, we first had to wake up at 5:00am. FUN!!! Then to switch things up, we ate breakfast, our favorite Gallo Pinto, on our bus ride to Robledal. In Robledal, we all broke into small groups and had the opportunity to stay with a family from the community. While staying with the family that we were assigned to, we had to help clean the house and cook their traditional meal, TORTILLAS!!!

 

DSCN0435These families’ lifestyles are very different, so some things were a bit difficult. But we found a way to step out of our comfort zone, try new things, and learn the similarities and differences between your lifestyle compared to most Nicaraguan people. Speaking of trying new things, today I learned how to build an oven Nicaraguan style. Okay let me break it down for you. Since we didn’t have cement to build the oven, we had to make our own. Now this might disgust some of you guys, but the cement that we used was made out of horse and cow poop, mixed with cactus fiber and water. I know what you may be thinking, YUCK. But to be honest, it wasn’t that bad. I just imagined that I was playing with clay or mud. But overall, it was an interesting and mind changing experience.

 

P1140148While spending the morning cleaning and getting to know the family that I was assigned to, the family then took the group (Sammy, Cici, Cameron and myself) to their church that they attend. Even though they were praying and singing in Spanish, I really enjoyed the service. Then finally to finish off the day, we thanked all of the families for welcoming and allowing us into their homes by bringing the kids piñatas. As soon as the kids saw the piñatas, the became very excited. We allowed each child to get a turn to hit the piñata. This was very difficult due to the fact that they wanted to break the piñata on the first hit. But we managed to find a way to get each child to have a turn to swing at the piñata and get candy after it broke open. After all of the candy was distributed to all of the children, we then took a group pictures with all of the families and had to say our goodbyes.

DSCN0389We then took our bumpy bus ride back to the hostel where we had an early nightly meeting. During our early nightly meeting, we did our usual discussion and shared our thorns and roses. Some thorns that were said during the meeting was the fact that not everyone was able to speak Spanish so there were only a handful of students that was able to communicate with the family. Another thorn that was said during the meeting was the bumpy bus ride. It was very very difficult to take a nap on the bus. As for the roses, many enjoyed trying new things and seeing how even though the families didn’t have much, they still manage to not complain and be happy. And lastly, I was then challenged to bring out the Marcus inside of me (which is changing my voice into a man voice), then I was pronounced leader of the day for poverty day. So be sure to look out for my blog tomorrow. Overall, today was an very eye opening, inspirational, and enlightening day.