Hey Girlies!

It’s Roselyn and Ashley here today for your daily updates. Today we woke up at 7, and knocked on doors at 7:30-45 (Yeah, I know, early right? Can you believe I woke up on time? – Roselyn) For breakfast we had eggs, salami, mangu, pineapple, and watermelon and everyone’s favorite strawberry and passionfruit juice.

After breakfast, we were very motivated to get the group to the CAP site on time for our second day at it, which we did and got there before 9:30. As we were getting people together, everyone was manifesting rain, and it came true right as we were about to leave. As we arrived at the site, we knew people were sore, so we decided to do some stretches to get everyone pumpin’.

Since yesterday our group was so efficient (Girl we finished like 70% in one day – Ashley), we only had 820 feet left to dig in our trench. The community members bought us some soda, which was a motivational gift, and because we were working so hard, it was the best soda we’d ever had. As we made our way closer to our target, we saw some friendly visitors who were not humans, who rudely kicked all of our water bottles, (They spilled my soda EVERYWHERE – Roselyn. They also kicked my new water bottle- Ashley). Guess what they were? You can see the picture attached. 🙂

We kept working for the rest of the hour and headed back to our base house where we had lunch which was sancocho, a chicken soup, with rice, avocado, and more strawberry juice. We had about 40 minutes of free time before we headed back to the trenches, where we napped and played games. As the weather cleared up, so did our minds, and we became determined to finish this project today, so we were super motivated on our second shift.

When we got to the work site, unfortunately, we thought we were done with the rain, but realized the rain wasn’t done with us, and we experienced another rain attack. (It was so bad, my pants turned a different color – Ashley) (JC ORDERED me to take his raincoat and it was HUGE on me – Roselyn). It cleared up for about 2 hours, and then we split into two groups. One group continued digging (Ashley was in this group), and the other group (Jenesis, Enrique, Valeria, Valerie, Kaylie, Roselyn, Marina, and Madison) was carrying, placing pipes, and filling the trench back up.

In Ashley’s group, we kept digging until JC told us to take a break because the community leader still needed to see where the pipes were going to connect. We realized we didn’t have our water, because our bus was transporting the pipes to our beginning spot. My group was being dramatic and was saying that we got the hard job and that we wanted to put the pipes instead. 🙂 JC said that our trench had to go under the road, so we (actually it was just Jerry, John, and Jose) had to dig into pure rock for about 10 feet.  We were starting to dig the last 60 feet when a MASSIVE thunderstorm came. We ran and got our raincoats, but were still determined to finish the job today, and we worked as hard as we could for the rest of the time.

In Roselyn’s group, we took the truck and went to the home of the community leaders of this project, and started carrying pipes to the truck. The truck took us to the start point of the worksite, where we were split again (Enrique and I with Teolfilo and his son (the leaders of the project)), and the rest of the split group. Enrique and I passed pipes to Teofilo and his son where they coated them in PVC pipe glue. We connected the pipes all along the aqueduct so far when I was ordered to switch roles with Enrique because Teofilo didn’t want me smelling the glue and getting sick. Once we switched, I helped Teorfilo carry more pipes when I also met one of the little boys in the community (see picture attached.) Out of working with these people, the most inspiring to me was Teofilo’s 14-year-old son and his dedication to not only helping his dad but also helping his community in which he lives with the goal of finally getting easier access to water. The storm came, and Teofilo was really caring and took Enrique and me to his house to take shelter while we waited for the rest of the group.

We came home and had a dinner of pasta, garlic bread, mac n cheese, pineapple, and watermelon. (Ursela always “eats down” with her pasta – Ashley) After dinner, we had a bit of free time (because we were super on time because we were AWESOME leaders of the day). We had our nightly meeting, and passed the torch to Valerie and Valeria.

After all the tears, sweat, blisters, rain, and dirt, we are still excited to finish our project and make a change in a very deserving community. We are looking forward to finishing tomorrow (on our first shift!)

Hellloooo, to whoever is reading this( family and friends). Roselyn here, looking forward to seeing ya’ll in a couple days but also very sad to be leaving this country and community. SO GLAD I WENT ON THIS TRIP. I miss ya’ll, I hope you guys miss me too. I love you all, stay safe.

-XOXO, Roselyn

Heyy everyone thank you for catching up with our daily stories. I MISS YOU EMILYY like girl I can’t wait to see you. I’ll show you the blog when I get home girlll. Te quiero ma and pa

-Ashley