Greetings, loved ones.

Today we got the opportunity to finish our Community Action Project, a playground for the little kids in Villa Poppy. At first we all thought that we weren’t going to finish the project because we have a short amount time, and CAP delivery day one was cut short by the weather. But after extra time spent working on CAP delivery day 2, even staying through rain, today was mostly finishing touches!

The playground is very lime-green and colorful. Because Villa Poppy is a new neighborhood for its displaced people, it looks modern, so the colors we chose complement the village. When we first got there, Santos had already dug out foundational holes, so all we had left was to spread out sand, painting all of the parts, and make more cement to fill in the foundations.

We had one team working on making more cement, one team painting primer first for the see-saw and swings, and then once we started filling the holes in with cement, we waited a little to fill in the rest of the hole with dirt and rocks. At that point people were starting to paint the benches and the playground itself. While they were doing that, Paolan was mapping out the log slabs for hopscotch and applying cement around them. There was also a team planting Jacaranda trees.

We took a lunch break at 12; we had bread, salad, and paella. After that, we started finishing up all of the painting on the metal pieces, and by the time we finished that, people had already started spreading the sand on the ground. We made sure to personalize the benches with our organization and delegation name: Global Glimpse C1B 2019. Then we surrounded it with our thumbprints!

We were a little off-schedule and pushed back tutoring prep for about 45 minutes. Some classes decided to do lessons, and others just celebrated. Then we had our Talent Show! In the Talent Show, there were a lot of dancing and singing; little kids did their ABCs, people spun their notebooks, and others slammed their desks. After the show, we had to say goodbye to our students, and cleaned up our classrooms.

Then we had self-reflection groups, a short nightly meeting, and got time to work on our Letters of Appreciation. Everyone was in their rooms at 10.

I (Madison) learned that I need to reapply sunscreen a lot more than I thought; now I have gnarly tan lines like my dad. And I (Atziry) learned to be very careful with my steps.  The whole group shared a sense of gratitude and accomplishment, and we are really happy that we did this for a community that identified this need. The playground provides a safe place for the kids to play, and also gives the parents a break.