Today was a very busy day. Summers here in Nicaragua are known to be hot and stormy and that’s exactly what most of us woke up to today. We had the pleasant surprise of having cereal and fruit for breakfast which reminded us of home and gave us tons of energy.

A while later, we took our bus to the dump in the rain with our trusty driver, Federico (Props to his amazing driving in the rough terrain and floods!). The ground was very muddy and vultures and flies surrounded the place but we were really surprised to see livestock there! There were many people working there collecting scrap metal and other things of value. Some were rather shocked to see the poor conditions people had to work in but many of the people there were happy to see and talk to us. After exploring the dump more, getting our shoes covered in mud, and having to walk through a flooded area that got all of our shoes soaked, we had the pleasure of serving lunch to the workers at the dump. As we served them bologna and cheese sandwiches with delicious drinks, we were inspired by one worker’s story.

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A young man by the name of Jose-Luis told us about his everyday schedule. He talked about having to work at the dump, go to school, and take care of daily chores which inspired many of our glimpsers to work harder no matter what struggle there is and be more conscientious about what they use and throw out.

After coming back to the hostel, it had finally stopped raining and we spent a lot of time cleaning our shoes, taking showers, and just relaxing (We even met up with the other delegations and played basketball with them!). We also had a chance to clear the air with each other and grow more as a team and family.

Being El Leader Del Dia was very tiring and emotionally stressful for me today, but it was well worth it because we got to see how strong the community working at the dump was and how we could help them by serving them lunch and learn from them by seeing what a lot of people living in poverty have to do in order to survive. I feel as if our glimpsers have learned a lot about what it means to be a team and how we can really help the community out!

Sadly we were unable to take as many pictures as we wanted to but the stories we will bring back to the US will suffice!