Pura Vida families! This is Alex and Prerita with a crash course of our day today. We had gallo pinto, fruit, eggs, salad, and bread for breakfast, and then got introduced to our CAP (Community Action Project) that we will be working on later next week. We learned that we will be starting to build a cafeteria for the local school! We also learned about what kind of mindset we should have going into this. We need to take into account each of our individual skills, and determine how we can utilize those as a team. Balancing the economic, social, and environmental impact of our project is crucial.

After lunch, we were lucky to have Rodrigo Mendez, an environmental and natural resource manager, over to give us a presentation. He taught us about the importance of involving the community to establish a sustainable cycle of resource usage. This cycle, called circular economics, allows products be recycled multiple times, resulting in less waste. As for our CAP project, Sr. Mendez mentioned that any community service projects should be what the community needs, not what you want to give it. We all enjoyed his presentation and learned a lot about researching and planning projects.

Rodrigo Mendez’ presentation

For me (Prerita) personally, I learned that I enjoy speaking and answering questions. I had the privilege of introducing our guest speaker and learned a lot about the community. We had a few hours of free time afterward, and I really enjoyed playing volleyball with the local kids! This was definitely one of my most memorable experiences so far, as all of us went down to the courts.

Us playing volleyball with the kids!

I (Alex) learned that I have the leadership skills to account for a large number of people, and also work as a team with Prerita to help guide the day along. I had so much fun playing new card games and going to the local store. Today, I definitely got closer with more of the group and learned valuable information about the environment. I also carried Ms. Denise and Colene on my back!

Ms. Denise on Alex’s back

Excited for tomorrow!
– Prerita and Alex 🙂

PS: Here’s the public google photos folder so you can see all of the pictures we’ve taken so far!