CAP Day 1:

What’s flinging folks? Izaak and Ibrahima here. Today was our CAP (Community Action Project) day 1 and a great start to our projects. We started with a later wakeup call at 8:00am. We had breakfast and collected the rest of the supplies needed for the project. At 10:00, we set off for our destination town, Paritilla, where we broke ground our project, making steadfast progress. Groups began cutting wood, painting environmental signs, planning workshops for the students, and preparing a hiking trip to Cerro Marchena.
While breaking for lunch, we played spectator to the final match of the local soccer tournament going on, which was lead by Ricky, the local soccer coach, and handed out trophies and medallions to the players for their valiant efforts. 

We went back to work. Our group conquered Cerro Marchena, the hill located in Paritilla, and began refining the trail which was once there. Others began implementing a composting program, starting with the composting pen.

After a hard day of work, we returned to the hotel where the students caught up on sleep and prepared lessons for the next session of English tutoring. We ended the day with a viewing of Ratatouille. 

Our day’s schedule was simple and effective; we made progress on our Community Action projects, went home, and caught up on some much needed rest.

Being a leader today was a piece of cake, but we did learn something valuable. In order to have others follow you, you must first do what you are asking of them. Our role calls, water breaks, and community meetings followed this formula, and resulted in us making headway as a community.

Tomorrow, we will continue working on the Community Action Project, and will be led by Sebastian and Hadleigh. We are excited to continue working!

From Ibrahima: Big shoutout to my family and my roommates Alex and Cameron. I sincerely miss the former, but the latter makes the experience here feel like I am at home. They were also a significant help both days I was a leader, and I had previously excluded them by mistake. Thank you!

From Izaak: Shoutout to all the Peace Corps volunteers that have made headway in the community before we even arrived and continue to help and guide us through our various projects. We are standing on your shoulders.

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Salutations fellow humans,

Sebastian and Hadleigh back and better than ever! Day 11 and Day 2 of our CAP is over! 🙁 We started our day by waking up at the bright and early hour of 7:30. We consumed a delicious meal of jacks of flap (or cakes of pan as they are more commonly referred to) for sustenance, and made our way to the bus in which we were traveling. We headed to Paritilla where we split into our three different project groups to continue working on our CAP. Our group, aka “trail crew”, worked for a fat 6 ½ hours up on the mountain, constructing a beautiful trail which community members can use to enjoy a  view of their province. While we worked hard in the humid heat of the dry day, other groups finished the compost system and discussed different ways to teach their seminars tomorrow in the elementary school.
We enjoyed a delicious lunch of sandwiches and fruit, prepared by a family from Paritilla and neared the completion of our project. Around 4:30, we headed back to the hotel where we were finally able to rinse all of the dirt and sweat off of us, taking some much needed rest. We enjoyed a quick dinner and immediately headed to English Tutoring at IFARHU. Because there were not many students there today (not all could secure transportation from their pueblos on a Sunday),, we created four different groups and reviewed common phrases and entertainment activities. 

Finally, we returned to the hotel, finished our nightly meeting, and slowly made our way to bed (after Sebastian did 500 russian twists). We’ve learned a lot from our work for the community of Paritilla and we hope to continue learning as we finish up our CAPs tomorrow. 

Cordially, 

your Lideres del Dia and bffs forever.

Tomorrow we will be turning the blog over to Emily squared. 

From Hadleigh: Hi Mom, I love you so much. I’ll see you soon. Tell Aurora that she knows what to do Tuesday without me. Ps 23

From Sebastian: Greetings to all of my friends and family at home, I miss you and I love you.