Hello outside world. This is Hazel and Joan (and Katya in spirit) with your daily update. Today was an eventful day in El Barrio, to say the least. We started off our day with a wake up call at 7:30 am and a solid breakfast at 8 am of scrambled eggs, toast, peanut butter, and a delicious fruit juice. At 8:45 am, we made our way back to the community to pick up where we left off. We started off similar to yesterday, letting the professionals take most of the lead. We eventually jumped in, forming the infamous dirt bucket line to help move things along. At around 12:00 pm, we headed back to our home away from home — Dilenia’s— for a scrumptious lunch of beef/veggie chili and white rice, which was definitely satisfying to fuel us for the rest of the day.

Quickly after, we headed back to our work site, where this time we got our hands a little more dirty; moving rocks, mixing cement, twisting wires, and MORE dirt bucket line. Shortly before our departure, we were treated to a sprinkle of rain that quickly turned into a monsoon that we escaped when the bus arrived. When we arrived back at Dilenia’s, everyone jumped in the shower to get squeaky clean after the big day at work. JC then surprised us all with the most anticipated treat of the trip, MANGOS! The wait was well worth it; they were amazing. Most of the group then decided to take a trip up to our beloved cafe, where we munched on churros, brownies, ice cream, hot chocolate, cheesecake, smoothies, coffee, and basically everything on the menu — obviously we are their favorite customers. During free time before dinner, some took naps, some painted nails, and some played card games (which we somehow haven’t gotten sick of yet).

Then we enjoyed a dinner together of mashed plantains, sunny-side-up eggs, and fried cheese squares, with some veggies as well (don’t worry, some of us are eating our vegetables). Then, like always, we had our nightly meeting to summarize the day and pass the torch to our leaders for tomorrow, Alondra and Anthony! They amazed us with dolphin sounds and another astonishing card trick on JC. Thanks for checking up on us again today. We miss you all very much, but we will see you soon!

Xoxo,
Joan and Hazel (and Katya)