Today was an awesome day! We accomplished the first steps for two of the major components of our trip: our Community Action Project (CAP), and our English language lessons.

After breakfast, our first seminar had us discussing the many facets of culture; the second seminar began the Discovery phase of the CAP, in which we prepared to visit the site of our community project. We soon were in the bus and on our way to Ceramica Negra, to speak with the women leaders of the community and to see them in action in their workshop of black ceramic clay. We got to ask them questions in Spanish and English about culture and local businesses in Nicaragua…and then they put each one of us at the (pottery) wheel! They helped us make our own pieces of black ceramic pottery, which was challenging and really fun. Then we learned how to make rosquillas, a sweet corn tortilla biscuit, which was a great snack to hold us over until we got back for lunch.

Most exciting was seeing how we could help this community on this trip. They had bought a small piece of land and a shack near the road, which they would like to make into a sales hut in order to attract more business. They asked us for help in making this wish a reality. Everyone immediately began brainstorming and planning out ideas as they stood inside the hut; the excitement could be felt in there! We will be formulating a detailed Design over the next several days and will return to Deliver our action plan over a period of two days.

This afternoon, we received training for our first English teaching sessions, which we will begin tomorrow!

We agreed that it was an absolutely amazing day!!