Hello everyone!

My name is Quimay Nguyen and today I was in charge of being ELDD (El Leader Del Dia/Leader of the Day). The morning went off to a great start with many smiles on faces and things were just beginning. I was able to wake everyone up and create a positive vibe for the environment. Like usual, it was really hard to get everyone to wake up because we do so much during the day before that we all need as much sleep as possible and crave for it. The day was actually very hard and was super hectic. There were many unexpected occurrences and events that came up during the day, but they didn’t stop my delegation from pulling through with a positive attitude. Today was only the beginning of what would be our project for the community, known as the CAP Project (Community Action Project). The project that we had decided to work on was: Painting the walls for UNAN (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua) also known as Jinotega’s only public university. The principal had proposed that we help and paint their school’s walls because the color of the walls, as you can see in the pictures, are green. That green color is actually from centuries ago from when the school was originally a jail center and the school still kept its green color. In order to learn more and have a good education habitat, we believe that the school should have a safe environment  for students and even teachers.

To begin our task, we were split into specific groups and played different roles but because it was our first day, we were unprepared and didn’t know what to expect. Coming into the school with an open mind and open heart, we were able to take on new tasks and responsibilities that were given to us. Yeah, we might not all be professional construction workers but for sure, we all know how to have fun! We made hard work seem like a fun activity and the best part about it was getting some of the students themself come out and help paint the school. It was definitely a community project with many locals coming out and lending a helping hand. What surprised me the most was the outcome of today. I had expected everything to be a disaster but with all this positive energy, everything just came out perfectly fine and even better than I had expected. I feel like everyone is learning to commuicate with one another and understanding eachother more, rather than just ignoring and not taking things into consideration. We are learning to connect with eachother and coming to agreements, which is something that I really like seeing in a group.

Although there wasn’t a special presentation for today, I feel like each and every person is very inspiring to me. Most definitely the students who came out to help paint. It just showed their love and compassion for their own school and how they ALSO want to see the environment improve to help learning conditions. I am definitely proud of the outcome of our work today and with only an hour of work, we got a lot of area covered and I have open eyes for tomorrow’s results.