Hello everybody! This is Sara, and today Emily and I were Leaders of the Day. I would like to start this post off by stating the most important thing that happened today: it was amazing Maggie’s Birthday!! Despite being said multiple times today, we would once again love to say “Happy Birthday Maggie!”

We began this morning with a delicious breakfast of eggs, ham, and toast before hopping on the bus. Once we arrived at Monte Coca, we participated in a quick game of Steal the Bacon before splitting into our groups to go work on the house and floors respectively.  While I personally cannot speak for the floors group I can say with certainty that the walls group, made up of Angela, Jennifer, Sophie, Diana, Emerico, Hunter, Tatum, Israel, and myself, Sara, worked incredibly hard.  At the house, we met up with Mickey, Junior, and Kelvin, who had been previously working at the site.  We began by mixing a large batch of concrete, complete with sand, gravel, cement powder, and water.  One group then proceeded to fill the pillars of the house, previously enforced by the metal rebar we cut, with the newly mixed concrete.  Another group began digging a hole for the platform of the front stairs using pickaxes and shovels.

I, Emily, would like to speak on the floor group. This morning we worked all together to finish multiple small floors throughout the community.  After completing the second to last small floor and taking a break, the group hopped back on the bus to meet up with the walls group for lunch.  For lunch, we had potato salad, plantains, rice, chicken, and some different fruit.

After a great lunch, the walls group met up again at the house, where we mixed a new batch of concrete and continued working on building pillars and digging the foundation of the stairs.  There, we un-earthed a tire that had been buried beneath the house.  After working on the house for two more hours, we regrouped with the floors group and it was time to say goodbye.  We participated in a circle where we thanked the people we had been working with the past few days (thank you Mickey, Junior, and the Kelvins!!) and gave a thank you card to the Community Leader Don Roberto, drawn by Sophie Wall.  After forty-five minutes, it was time to give our final goodbyes and get back on the bus.  Once on the bus, we drove to the site of the floors to say goodbye to them there.

After lunch at the floor site, we moved locations and started working on our final flooring for the trip.  We briefly visited the wall site to help them clean up and finish, before returning to the floor site to say goodbye. We gave lots of big love to the workers and families that we worked with throughout our 3 CAP days.

Once we returned to the accommodations, everybody took much-needed showers before meeting in the dining hall for dinner.  For dinner, we enjoyed spaghetti and meatballs (with eggplant for the vegetarians).  Once dinner was completed, the lights dimmed for a birthday celebration for Maggie, complete with a homemade, gluten-free strawberry cake, made by our wonderful Program Coordinator Christina, as well as students Alicia, Emily, and Sara.  Later that evening, students presented Maggie with a stuffed bear present.

Everybody is very tired after a long three days working on building houses and laying cement floors, but nevertheless sad to be done.  This has been an amazing experience traveling with Global Glimpse, and everybody is sad that it is so close to over.  We would like to end to post by once more saying “Happy Birthday Maggie.”  We hope everybody has a great night.

P.S. Tatum wants everyone to know that she was sick, so excuse her look in the last photo

-Emily and Sara