Hey guys, my name is Dung and today is day 15, the first day of the phase three of the CAP, where we deliver the project. CAP, Community Action Project, is a project to impact the community in a positive way. We chose Chacraseca as the location for our project. Chacraseca is a developing community that is dedicated to promote education for kids to graduate highschool so they can move on to college. However, their classroom lacks school materials for the students. Therefore, we decided to help them by building them tables, providing them with lights. We will smooth out the concrete floor because the current floor has given the students cuts and injuries due to its roughness. We are going to paint the inside of the class with a brighter color to give them a more lively environment for learning. Also, we will be doing a mural outside the classroom to give them inspiration to continue to go to school.
The day started off at 6:30 with gallo pinto, tamale, cereal and carrot juice. Everyone was ready at 8:00. We loaded the bus and off to execute the CAP project. We arrived at Chacraseca at around 8:30. We unloaded the wood, paints, water and other materials off the bus. Then, we cleaned out the classroom and discovered some rats, scorpions, and gigantic spiders. Meanwhile, a couple people started on measuring the room to find a fitting size for the tables. Others painted the wall outside white as a primer for the mural. After that, it was painted blue for the background. The area outside the wall was shaded with dark blue and then gradually turned lighter as it reaches the middle. The students who were assigned to paint the indoor started on priming the wall white.
Soon afterwards, we ran into the problem of having not enough paint and other materials. Aaron, one of the coordinators, went to the closest hardware store to get the things needed. The people who were in charge of building the tables, also had problems with the measurements of the table top. The room turned out to be smaller than expected, and the wood was cut for a bigger room. Also, the electricity people ran into problems. The parents who volunteered to help accidently burnt two light switches and the fuse. Aaron ended up having to go back to the same stores three or four times to get what we were missing.
After we had lunch, everyone was energetic to continue on the project. Aaron came back with the paint ready for the indoor painters and mural people. The table people cut the wood into smaller pieces so it would fit the room. The mural was coming together very nicely. However, the indoor painting group was running out of paint again. They decided to add water to the paint so they would be able to cover the whole four walls. When they used up all the paint, the wall didn’t turn out how we anticipated. The color wasn’t solid and there were too many cracks that we weren’t able to cover. Then, as a group, we decided to buy a new color that is cheaper and start again the next day. The work we did today turned out to be a great primer so we figured it will make the work much easier and look good with the new color.
By the end of the day, the mural’s background was finished along with the stems for the flower. The electricity group was able to install 2 plugs, and 2 lightbulbs. They were also able to fix one of the lightswitches. The tables were all cut and put together ready to be installed into the classroom’s wall the next day. The rain was coming so everybody cleaned up and made sure anything that could be damage by the water was secure safely inside. Everyone went back to the hostel to rest and get ready to finish the project the next day.

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