Hi! My name is Vicky and I am from the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts. I was the Leader of the Day for today’s half free day. Although the day was originally planned to include a trip to San Cristobal ( there is no accent key) for shopping, our leaders were unfortunately feeling sick. However, it was okay because we all got to chill out at the Rancho (and we still get shopping time on Tuesday!)

The day began with the realization that half of the camp did not have water, which was a little difficult as we now have the addition of 100 girls and even more groups to come. That meant that all the girls had to find a way to get into one of the 3-6 working shower stalls. However, we pulled through and had a nice hour to relax and prep for our CAP panel presentations for the community.
We then headed to the community and presented our ideas, which included fixing up the bathroom, the electricity, adding murals, and more. The members of the community were all eager to help out in any way that they could; one even ran out to buy a bag of cement! They all seemed committed and did not want us to have to do all the work. It was amazing to feel like the project was now ready to go; I am excited to start working on Monday.

Afterwards, we headed back to the Rancho and enjoyed a few hours of free time. Linda and Van had a nice nap, and Kitty, Eva, and I got to do some watercolor painting, which is always relaxing and very enjoyable. I did some paintings for my friends and family, and it felt nice knowing that I would have a personal gift for them when I come back.

We then hurried to our English classes because our bus had arrived a little late. English class was fun today; the kids were very active as usual and were eager to learn about how to change singular words into their plural form. A moment that stuck out to me was when Michael, Genesis, and Su, who were teaching a different class, blanked out and asked me how to spell “twelfth,” to which we all laughed about after.

After English class, we went back to the Rancho for dinner and our nightly meeting, which went smoothly despite the absence of Elias. It was interesting to be the leader of the day today, and I got to learn how to balance being a friend and just wanting to hang out, with being a leader and learning how to get the group moving along. We had a great day today, and it is hard to believe that we only have 6 days left.