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Hello!  We have had yet another amazing day here in Nicaragua.  Today we had the pleasure of being introduced to our Community Action Project, also known as CAP.  Glimpsers in the past have done many things, such as building a playground and fixing up a mediocre museum.  This year, though, we will be giving back to the community by creating a sustainable project that will still be in affect after the Glimpsers leave. Today we talked a lot about the importance of sustainability in developing countries and why our project will provide the city of Matagalpa with something that will last.

Now for the big reveal of what our project is, drum roll please…a garden in one of the poorest schools in Matagalpa!  The school is called Escuela Juan XXIII and today we started the discovery portion of the project, which means that we found out what the project was all about.  We met with teachers and parents of the school to ask them questions about what they want for the garden and why they believe it is an important project.  They said that they want the children to understand the importance of healthy eating and be able to apply it at their own homes.  Many of the students live in extremely poor conditions and are given the bare minimum of what they need to survive.  After this was explained, we were so much more excited about being able to provide something so important for these students and their families.  The next phases of the project will be figuring out the design and actually executing the plan.  Much more to come about the Community Action Project!

Later in the day, after being filled up with lunch, we had our first free afternoon!  This means that we were able to do almost anything we wanted, as long as a Global Glimpse Leader accompanied us.  We split in to two main groups, one for exploring the city and shopping and the other for going to the internet cafe and craving the desire for wifi.  This was a lot of fun for us because we were able to have our first real shopping experience.  The list of things that were bought include shirts, ice cream, notebooks, food at the grocery store, and flip flops.  These long chunks of free time allow us to get to know the city, which will be important for when we are allowed to venture out without one of the GG leaders.  Being the leader of the day, I was nervous about people getting back to the hostel on time, but luckily everyone was responsible and arrived on time!

Overall, today was not very demanding, but learning about how we will be able to help the community was inspiring and we are so excited to start planning our project!  Although we are a bit nervous about being able to execute the project in only three days, I know that we will create a garden that, no matter what, will provide these students with one of the fundamental necessities of life: food.  More to come tomorrow!