Hey hey curious people, today was like all the others, except we finally began our CAP (community action project)! The day began like all of the rest — we woke up, had a pretty good breakfast– you know the usual. During the morning, before we got busy on our CAP project, we drafted our very necessary letters of appreciation to our lovely Global Glimpse donors (shout out to y’all if you happen to be reading this), sent a couple of Glimpsers with two of our fab leaders to go pick up the materials for the CAP project, and designed our specific delegation’s “Global Glimpse” t-shirts (p.s they’re pretty rad).  After all of that, we went to lunch where we ate some chicken wings, french fries, rice, and salad, with oatmeal drink which was the final step before actually executing our CAP project! And, yay, at last we made it. We were at Escuela La Villa de La Cruz where we began the process of finishing the construction of a classroom that was previously started by a past delegation.

Fortunately this is where the day picked up comparative to its prior slow pace. At the school we got busy in a relatively unorganized way. Because it was day 1 of the CAP project, we didn’t really know all the kicks and giggles that were involved with this project. Once we got there, we just began with what we could, meaning we were throwing it back to the stone age (literally and figuratively). We started to strip the open classroom of its dispersed rock and worked with larger and sharper stone to chip around the cement block so that we could identify the perimeter of the classroom. Acknowledging our high lack of tools, we were low key bummed out and wrongly doubtful of whether the community would come through with tools of greater aptitude. As a group, however, we stayed positive and hopeful which of course worked to our benefit, especially when community members began to show up with their handy-dandy tools and more experienced skill set. These people were absolutely astonishing and we really couldn’t have done it without them!

Taking a deeper glimpse (ha, that’s punny) at this project a lot of the groups passions and personalized skill-sets have surfaced which is incredibly amazing to see and be a part of. On top of that, the group undeniably demonstrates genuine care for this project and realizes the importance behind the construction of this classroom. I mean really you should see us in action; we’re impactful. We care and I love that we care. It’s a nice change from the commonly perceived and sometimes true image of teenagers. As El Lider Del Dia, I really think that my peers along with myself did a good job getting this project started despite its minor organizational problems. As a group we made it work and we made each other work.

I enjoyed being El Lider del Dia today, even though it wasn’t always easy, especially with the collaboration and team work we had to put forth today! It’s not easy to incorporate everyone’s ideas or thoughts, but with patience and flexibility one can definitely make it work. During our nightly meeting, I was told that I have a specific energy to myself, a “Gina Energy” as Andy (a fellow Glimpser and homie) put it, which I would like to think and hope kept the positive and flexible vibes abundant for today. I, just like all the rest of the Glimpsers, are so happy to have this opportunity. Making a sustainable mark on the community through our CAP project with the basic completion of this classroom is like a cherry on top of this trip, especially when we know that it will be more than well-appreciated and useful. I’m excited that I got to be the leader to kick start this amazing project and can’t wait to see how we carry it out to its success.

Here is the partially completed classroom on day 1. Check the blog tomorrow and Thursday for progress pics!

Gina lending Bianca a helping hand.

Jenny, Joanna, Diana, and Samantha taking a rest break.