Today everyone was finally able to sleep in! I never thought waking up at 8:30 would feel so good. Breakfast was the usual, eggs and gallo pinto (yummy)!  We were given 2 hours to explore the busy streets of Matagalpa before returning to the hostel for lunch. We visted parks, street markets, bakeries, and clothing stores (yay)! It was also nice being able to visit an internet cafe and getting in touch with people and hearing our parent’s voices for the first time in awhile. In order to make sure our lunch was healthy,we were asked to come back to the hostel to eat which again was yummy. Once our bellies were filled up we were libre once again.

I really enjoyed talking to my mom for the first time in awhile and catching up with her. Hearing her voice in always nice. Once we were free again after lunch, I went on a mission with Hiu and Nina to find some good places to take cool pictures. We totally looked like tourists but the pics came out super good! I also visited the famous Mr. Coffee for the first time and the atmosphere was super relaxing. I was also able to translate for Nina (very proud of myself) while she was trying to buy a shirt and at the end I also ended up buying a Nicaraguan soccer jersey. All the walking, picture taking and talking really got to me towards the end though because I was best friends with my bed for the last half of free day. Sleep was definitely needed! English tutoring was the last thing on the schedule as usual and of course it was a blast! Being with lively children while trying to teach can be hard but it’s worth it! It feels so good seeing their faces light up when they learn something new and get an answer correct. Class was as usual ended with a random dance party! (Becca)

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During the first two hours of our free day, I went on a walk with Becca, Chasity, Jasmine, KJ and Victor. On the walk we went on a mission to buy a radio. Since we can’t have our phones, I haven’t listen to music in long time and I really miss it.  Then we went to a bakery for glazed donuts, but they didn’t have them so we tackled the next item on our list which was to find an internet cafe to call our families. I was so happy get to talk to my mom. It was really emotional to hear my mom’s voice after so long and being so far away.  I was notified that my family, especially my cousins have been keeping up with our blog posts and they are really excited to recieve me at O’hare Airport in about a week. That warmed my heart and made not thinking of home much harder. After that emotional call we went shopping at a store that was more expensive than I anticipated. After having lunch at the hostel, I ventured out again with Grace, Micheal, Peter, KJ and Callie.  We walked into stores to window shop then we stopped at Eskimo (a local ice cream shop) where I got some delicious caramel ice cream.  We got back to the hostel 30 minutes before dinner so I got some time to relax. After dinner, we went to tutoring class which is always fun because our students are always engaged, curious and ready to learn. The highlight from today’s class was a student telling me that he really appreciated our lessons because he felt like he is actually learning but he is sad that we only have three more classes together.  After teaching, we returned to the hostel for our nightly meeting and headed out to bed early as we have an especially early day tomorrow (4AM wake-up!!). I had a really fun day! (Karla)

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