Hey families and friends!
Day five was one of the most eye opening days this past week. It was the day where we learned about aid and development, which was the theme of the day, and all the things that were either positive or negative about aid. We all learned that aid to a developing country from the United States would be essentially good or bad for the country in the very beginning of our day, which started at 8 am. But first we had to have breakfast, we were generously offered French toast and papaya from the people that lived in the hostel. We quickly finished and we started an energizer upstairs. I had the idea that it would be good if we all played a common game called ‘Watermelon.’ Everyone enjoyed the game and we were all pretty pumped! Quickly afterwards we finally started our academic seminar. Thanks to all of our amazing leaders we successfully had our academic seminar and I could definitely speak on the behalf of everyone on this delegation that it was really mind blowing. It gave us all different perspectives about the topic since we all shared with each other our opinions. Which is pretty natural around here. In short, it was a great seminar.
After our seminar we had some free time before we started our next energizer for the day, which was a game called Córdoba Caliente. It is a game that was led by Roxana and Silvan. Basically it was the passing of a Córdoba, which is a coin, through clothing. The objective was to get it to Silvan and Roxana through everyone’s clothing, since they stood at the end of the line. It ended winner and we all got really competitive. Program Seminar started afterwards, it was led again by Roxana and Silvan, we learned more about our incoming CAP project. We learned what we had to plan and what we had to do to be successful in this project. It ended quickly and we were fed lunch, which consisted of chicken, tortilla, and white steamed rice. The lunch was really good, but the drink was something not everyone enjoyed. When we finished lunch we started a leadership meeting with the new leader of the day, which will be Christian and Me. We discussed tomorrows Fun Day agenda and prepared for the next day.
San Maria Sor was our next destination by bus, we partnered with The Hope Project, an organization that helps families in poverty by providing shelter and community houses for families living in poor areas. We visited this place and immediately saw what lied within Nicaragua and this was definitely not the worst we are to see. We saw the church/school and were kindly greeted by the locals and kids there. We toured some more and we saw the area and talked about our future plans with our CAP project. We hopped back on the bus and went back to the Hope Project office. Norman, who was the tour guide, gave us a guest speaker presentation, and gave us all the information we wanted to know about the organization. We presented Norman with a global glimpse bag as a gift and went back to the hostel to have our free time, which we used to plan our English tutoring session, which was to begin later that day, right after dinner.
At dinner we were fed an American meal, a sandwich and fries! This meal was delicious as well. We met in the front of the hostel to walk to our English tutoring session and we were ready to begin class. It went smoothly for the beginner class, we taught them using images that were drawn on the board. I’ve heard from others that class went smoothly as well, probably even better than the first day. We are still very eager to teach these classes and we will continue to for 8 more days. After our session we made our way back to the hostel to have our nightly meeting and it was honestly emotional for all of us, especially Ryan, who felt like he had a rough time teaching his kids. We all gave him our love and support since he did well, even if he didn’t think so. We passed on the torch to Christian and me. Our talent was a funny skit that represents our past four days here since landing in Nicaragua. Quickly we reviewed our schedule. Everyone was pretty excited for it, and we were finally off to have some free time before lights out, which is 10:30pm tonight. Tomorrow Christian and I will be writing the next blog for tomorrow’s day. Thanks for reading, we are all enjoying ourselves well and we are all being well cared for. Goodnight!
What a great blog post! Thank you for writing such a detailed post ! Sounds like you all had a FANTASTIC day! Very much appreciate all the details and thoughts!
Ryan – Dad and I were not surprised to read the post about you being hard on yourself regarding the English tutoring! You are always your toughest critic! Teaching is harder than it looks and I am sure all of the students will have a greater appreciation for their teachers when they return home! I am sure you are doing great – and it sounds like your peers agree! Loved seeing the pictures of everyone!
So proud of all of you and can’t wait to read the next entry documenting your adventure and the significant impact you will have on the community there!
Warriors back-to-back championships!!!!
Calvin Phung
Update: I remembered the pencils today, but I forgot the calculator. )): I’m running out of things to forget, so next time I am absolutely sure I will have everything. Have a good trip, tell everyone I said hi and I miss them!
We miss you lots Calvin! Hope you’re having lots of fun!! – Julia, Kate, and Lam!
Keep up the hard work everyone! You’re all doing amazing!!
For hockey fans, the San Jose Sharks lost yesterday. Pittsburgh Penguins win the Stanley Cup!