Good morning families! Much like yesterday, today was a packed day. It was another early wakeup call which many of the glimpsers weren’t too keen about but I tried to keep my enthusiasm while waking them up. Our day started off with an Aid and Development workshop (after Leeza stated we would be having “beans… again?” for breakfast) which made us break up into two groups: pro aid and anti aid. My group had a very deep discussion considering the fact that it was only 8:30am. Bryan, our new GG Leader asked the pro aid group, ” What if everyone was rich?” which later lead to a The Incredibles reference from Clara, “If everyone is super, then is anyone really super?” All in all the discussion was very enriching and our final whole group outcome was that aid is a great thing if whoever is giving it actually knows how and who to distribute it to. Franie later said something along the lines of  money being the easy way out of giving aid and that people should actually look more into what people need instead of just giving money to feel good.

Lupe, Leeza, Angelic, Frannie, Jenny, and Carla make recycled paper. The purple dye comes from red onions, which are an expensive import in Nicaragua. Group picture with one of the founding ladies of Mujeres Ambientalistas

Lupe, Leeza, Angelic, Frannie, Jenny, and Carla make recycled paper. The purple dye comes from red onions, which are an expensive import in Nicaragua. Group picture with one of the founding ladies of Mujeres Ambientalistas

We later went to visit the Mujeres Ambientalistas. They are an organization that started with about 20 single mothers who were trying to turn a dump into a beautiful place in their community. They started with some support but later their funding stopped so they had to find another way to raise money. As they lost their funding, 18 of the founding women decided they could no longer be a part of the organization because they needed to find jobs to actually keep their families on their feet. Somewhere along the way they learned about recycled paper and have been creating many items out of it in order to make some money. The women have also opened up their space for another children program, Eco Kids. This program teaches children at a young age about agriculture and recycling while keeping them off the streets. These kids don’t have much to actually play with so creating a sort or play structure for them is an idea we have for our CAP Project. Before we left we received an opportunity to buy some souvenirs (exciting!!!) along with the opportunity to make paper. trim.04405CA0-E309-4F25-81BC-A98F16125784 (Ant video)

Sonata presentation and some of the recycled material art that they are famous for.

Sonata presentation and some of the recycled material art that they are famous for.

After lunch at Buffet Estelí, we walked to the Sonati Hostel. Sonati is an environmental conservation organization that  creates many murals out of recycled materials such as: bottle caps, shoe soles, bottles, glass, tires, etc. While at Sonati we received a short presentation about all the different things they do in order to receive funds. They carry out events such as environmental awareness festivals, group retreats. They also accept donations, however, they do not rely on them.  This was actually a very exciting presentation because it gave us ideas on how to create our CAP Project.

Break dance lessons

Break dance lessons

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Video link to see our speaker, Bryan, doing a little break dancing.

Our final part of the day consisted of us having break dancing lessons. We walked about 15 minutes in order to get down to the recreational center in order to meet the dancers who had been dancing from 2-9 years. We broke into three different groups and each group learned a different “simple” routine. I say “simple” because simple for them was like advanced for most of us who had never break danced in our lives. Rocio, on the other hand, actually really enjoyed the dancing, the rest of us kind of struggled. After semi-learning our simple routines we all competed against the other groups. There was no winner but it’s okay because we are all winners on the inside.

After the break dancing we returned to the hostel and had our nightly meeting. In order for Sean to become El líder del día I challenged him to break dance; he did. As líder del día I’d like to apologize for the late upload. Right before the end of the night, we actually experienced our first power outage but here it is!

 This is it for day 4. The glimpsers send their love!

Jenny