!Pura vida! Today was another fun day full of adventures and hard work. We got up early this morning at 7:00 AM and had breakfast, which was sausage, eggs, french toast, and lots of pineapple and papaya. After filling up our stomachs, we headed down to the local elementary school in Aquiares. We got a tour by Memo, our amazing Program Coordinator, and we were able to meet his daughter, Catalina! After the tour, we engaged in sports such as volleyball, basketball, and soccer. We also had the opportunity to begin our Community Action Project (CAP) at the school and worked on digging out dirt using shovels. For our CAP project, we want to build a hallway and a bathroom for the students to host fundraising activities at their school.

We first had to dig up a ton of the soil so that we could level it out and add concrete on top to build the hallway. Unfortunately, the maestro de obras (master of works) was not able to arrive to assist us in our work for today, but Memo found another nice man who was able to guide us through our building process. After several hours of hard work and labor, we took a break for lunch, which was rice, chickpeas, and stewed beef.

Here, we found a baby snake hiding under a piece of concrete! We also found a few other snakes, spiders, beetles, and ants. LOTS OF ANTS and bug bites sadly. Tomorrow, we will be using a lot more bug repellent and sunscreen.

After our delicious lunch, we were able to spend time with the students at the school and play soccer with them! They were all so energetic and they beat us 3-0. It was such an amazing feeling getting to interact with the children at the school. 

After our tragic soccer loss, we decided to play badminton, and we even played a group game using the volleyball court. Today was definitely one of the most active and tiring days. After playing a few tournaments, we went back to work. We played some music while we continued digging. We actually had to move our entire pile of soil and rocks to another side of the yard, which took almost an hour to do. It also started raining halfway through our building process, but it did not stop us from working effortlessly.💪 😉 Shout out to Mikey and his hoe (his gardening tool) for hopping inside the ditch and shoveling up a ton of dirt for us! We worked from around 1pm – 3:30pm, but we had to stop once it started pouring. We walked back home and had some downtime, which we spent showering. After showering, we had dinner, which was rice, salad, and caldo de garbanzos con pollo y vegetales; all prepared by our chefs, Diego and Arelio.

We began our nightly meeting after our delicious dinner, where we discussed the highlights of our very busy day here in Aquiares. We spoke about our question of the day, that asked about what the most challenging thing would be for all of us Glimpsers and what the most rewarding thing would be. As Lideres del Dia (leaders of the day), we chose to recite numbers 1-30 in French as our talent. We passed the torch onto tomorrow’s Lideres del Dia, Hope and Alex. After our meeting, we prepped for this post. As we are writing, we are also eating chocolate chip vanilla ice cream out of the gallon. 🙂

To mom, dad, and Justin: I miss you guys so much! I am having so much fun here with all my new friends and exploring this beautiful country. Send kisses to Sailor and Luna for me. I cant wait to see them again. To Malika and Ashley and friends: hola from costa rica chicas. I miss you guys and can not wait to catch up on everything. I will get u guys lots of souvenirs and postcards. L unfortunately did come up once again in my conversations. See you all soon! xoxo Sonia

To my whole family: I miss you guys a lot and am looking forward to seeing each one of you again on Sunday to go on vacation. Hope you are excited about the souvenirs and costa rican snacks I’m bringing for all of you. – Esther 😊

To our amazing GGLs: we missed you so much today on your day off. You are making us write this.