¡Hola!

This is Sam and Leila reporting as lideres del día! Today, we finally began our community action project (CAP) at the farm of Unidad Educativa Especial Carlos Garbay 😁👍. After much deliberation, we chose to build a glorieta, or hut/gazebo, for the students, staff, and community of the Carlos Garbay School. After we spent only an hour on the farm, we realized that students with disabilities were working on the farm for hours each day under the sun ☀️ without a peaceful place to rest in the shade. As you may have read about in Monday’s blog post, we presented our idea to representatives from the school beforehand. The school was extremely excited to see and hear about our plans. Thus, we voted to build this glorieta in order to give back to the hard working community of Carlos Garbay, who have been supporting special needs students in Riobamba since 1972.

We began the morning by rising at 6:30 am and eating an interesting tamale with eggs, chicken, and carrots. Immediately after breakfast we left to travel to the site of our CAP project where we struggled at first to cope with the rain. It had been raining ☔️ all night and we feared that it would carry on throughout the day, hindering our progress. But the show must go on! We split ourselves into teams: one group worked on the poles for the glorieta, another worked on sanding the tables, and the third worked on transporting materials such as sand and rocks. Tomorrow, we plan to have a fourth team to produce paintings of the 4 regions that represent Ecuador (coast, Galapagos, sierras, and amazon).

Our work was split into two sessions. During the morning session we worked with younger students from the Carlos Garbay school to carry out the necessary tasks. Some students would help us push the wheelbarrows and others would help to collect rocks and soil. A particularly excited student, Eric, would say to students who sat off to the side, “¡A trabajar!” 💪with a giant smile. It was an extremely heartwarming and eye opening part of the experience because the enthusiastic students allowed us to see the true benefits of our CAP project. Their fervor and energy motivated us to work even harder!

In between our morning and afternoon session, we were given a snack of fresh cheese and newly harvested and boiled corn on the cob 🌽🌽🌽 by the staff at the farm. It was refreshing to have extremely fresh produce and a new experience for many to eat a farm’s freshly grown food on the actual farm! Then for lunch, one of our program coordinators, Joselin, brought us an assortment of empanadas, tangy guava juice, and sweet and sour plantain bread from our regular lunch spot, Nativa.

During the afternoon session, after the students from Carlos Garbay had left, we continued to construct the glorieta. At times we found the work strenuous and tiresome, but we always kept our spirits high by keeping in mind the image of the students enjoying, laughing, and resting underneath a structure of our creation.

Around 2 in the afternoon, we said our goodbyes for the day and headed back to the hostel. Everyone showered and napped after a long day of work, with more to come. At 3:30pm we drove over to El Colegio Miguel Angel Leon to resume our English tutoring 📓✏️. Everyone enjoyed their sessions, and we couldn’t believe how many more students joined us today due to the school’s advertising. We have been teaching our students vocabulary such as animals, greetings, pronouns, family members, and more. We can’t get enough of seeing their smiles and hearing their laughter whenever they learn something new! Each and every one of them is determined and passionate about learning English and we couldn’t ask for better students ❤️😊.

At 6 in the evening, we returned to the hostel for a dinner of rice, lentils, beef/vegetarian lasagna, and a nice cup of warm tea. We had our nightly meeting and reviewed and discussed the days events. Our takeaway was that while it was a challenge to complete all the days tasks and stay motivated and energized in building the glorieta, it would all be worth it in the end for us, the students, and the community!

P.S. I miss you so much Mom, Dad and the rest of the family! Los quiero mucho, y ya estoy bien😁. I can’t wait to see all of you again, and I wanted to wish dad an early HAPPY FATHERS DAY ❤️❤️❤️❤️ – from Sam

P.S.S. Annette, Steve, and Meeya, I can’t wait to see you soon, and I’m really starting to crave all the wonderful food at home 🍜! I’m having a great time here in Ecuador and can’t wait to enjoy and savor my last few days here in this amazing country! Love you, Leila ❤️