Hi everyone! It’s Sydney here with day twelve’s blog. Today was an absolute blast! After waking up bright and early at 7:00 am, we were happily surprised with a pancake breakfast at Imabite. Then we headed back to the hostel for an energizing team building exercise where we contemplated what goals we wished to accomplish while working on our Community Action Project (CAP). Next, we hopped on a bus and headed to Barriletes, where we got straight to work on our projects. We stayed there for the better part of the day and even got the chance to each lunch with our friends at Barriletes. While Tim, tomorrow’s leader of the day, had a leadership meeting, the rest of the team prepared for our nightly English tutoring.

After that, we continued to work on our CAP before leaving Barriletes for dinner. Both the painting and construction teams worked incredibly hard today and demonstrated an inspiring amount of teamwork. While some staff and students kept the kids entertained, the painters created a beautiful welcoming sign in the front room, and also began the brave process of painting over an old mural at the front of Barriletes with something entirely new. So far, it looks great.

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Meanwhile, the construction team mixed up some cement and proceeded to cover two water fountains and fill in some holes in the ground outside. They also completed the painful, laborious task of breaking cement, digging a trench for a water pipe, and then filling in the trench once the pipe was installed. The construction team also installed plumbing, a functioning shower and a toilet, and finished priming the walls of the bathroom that they built.

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Following a traditional Nicaraguan dinner of chicharron and yuca, we walked to our English classes. As per usual, the halls were filled with screams of joy and laughter, and no one wanted to leave their classrooms when it was over.

The night ended with our nightly meeting. I passed the torch to Tim, whose incredible talent of folding himself into a human sandwich blew us all away. Lots of love and appreciation was shared around the circle tonight. So far our hard work, motivation, and effort is really paying off. Tim closed the meeting with a unity clap, and I think tonight’s word perfectly sums up day 13: Teamwork!