It’s raining plants and dogs!

Today is June 13th, 2022, and the start of our CAP (Community Action Project) which is one of the true hearts for this trip. In this project, we took on three tasks at a local elementary school Colegio 9 de Octubre which include: fixing and fencing their garden, sanding and fixing their rope bridge as well as painting their soccer court, and adding new games. We began with a lot of prep work for solidifying our projects like weeding the garden, making holes for the cement fencing posts (..so, many, holes), and starting the outlines for the games and field. The rain was not our friend today and took away some of our time because we were stuck inside, but we still got a bunch of work done. The kids were so cute and little! And some kids were accompanied by neighborhood dogs that protected them and walked them to school…we fed them bananas (the dogs, not the kids). After a long day of lugging cement, shoveling gravel, and sanding posts (I broke two nails..past the flesh -Jadyn) we were all beat. On the ride back to the hotel, we all shared some Oreos and crackers….then we fell asleep right after, most kept napping when we got back to La Primavera. Then we had dinner which was chicken wings (which I drowned in hot sauce- Jadyn), rice and peas, and veggies. Then we had our nightly meeting, and that was a wrap!

To my Mom: Seven minutes wasn’t enough time to talk to you today, I miss you. There have been so many times throughout the trip I was wishing you were there to experience the day or the moment with me. You would love it here, it’s so green. I’ll be home soon, and I wanna get hoagies! Give me an update on Luna (the dog, not the person… or the dog and the person lol). I love you so much *virtual kisses* – Jadyn 

To my Family: This isn’t a spam blog, I swear. Calling you two (Mom and Dad) was nice, even though we only had seven minutes to talk, too bad I didn’t get a chance to talk to Ryan tonight, at least there are only a few more days until I get home. It was pretty fun today, lots of cute lil’ doggos all around the school to look at. There’s a full moon going on tonight, which is pretty neat for me to be able to catch on this trip, can’t tell if it looks any bigger than from home. Adios y te amo a todos. Also if my friends are reading this (I don’t even know if they know this blog is a thing), y’all have gone like two whole weeks without hearing me say Uranium. Uranium. — Ethan

Shoutout to Paco and Nacho for helping today by using tools in the garden, and shoutout to our bus driver Don Fernando for hopping out and helping with the gardening and driving us to the school!

Tomorrow will be day 2 of our CAP which will hopefully have a bunch more progress so we can get even closer to giving the community what they asked for.  More hard work, more fun, and hopefully less rain. The Leaders of the Day tomorrow are Ocean (they/them), super sweet and very funny, they’ve had their nose in a book every free chance they got and can fill the room with laughter (including their own lol <3) and Ximena (she/her), she’s been a bit quiet this trip but her smile and laugh is contagious and is always great to have around. Please look out for their blog posts tomorrow night! 🙂

You’ll hear more from your loved ones tomorrow and they’ll be home soon. To our families, we’ll be home soon!  Wishing everyone good health and happiness! 🙂

Big love,

Ethan Garcia, and Jadyn Polk