Today we started the day by going to Tejerina to help locals who are in need. Tejerina is a very poor community who lives off of $1 or $2 a day. Some students helped by walking up and down steep hills to assist families that don’t have access to water in their home. Because of the family’s disadvantage of running water, they have to constantly go up the hill to have enough water for the day. They also helped with washing laundry by hand, cleaning beans, grinding corn, sweeping, doing dishes and making tortillas. Some students realized that they have taken many things for granted in this trip which caused them to truly engage in their activities. Even though many of the families were poor, they were rich at heart and welcomed every student into their family.

We then continued our adventure by going to Familias Especiales which is an organization that helps Nicaragüenses with disabilities. The organization’s focus is to help the special needs families to obtain a job and daily medication. They learn different skills that focus on their disability such as painting, creating piñatas, sewing bags and more importantly they are treated equally. Many of the resources there were recyclable materials that would be waste roaming around the street. There we started to learn about our action project which will be a project to better the organizations physical appearance even though it’s internally beautiful.

During our nightly meeting there was an enormous discussion which consisted of the students’ emotion towards Tejerina and Familias Especiales. “I almost cried twice when I was at the family’s home but, then seeing them be happy with just having each other and seeing us coming in and being excited, really put a smile on my face.” -Ellis who is a glimpser that was moved by the family he stayed with in Tejerina. At the end of the night we ended it as a family by playing monopoly, slap and working out our core. Every activity has helped the glimpsers unite as one to make the best of this trip.