After many days of waking up early, we were all treated to an earlier wake up call at 8:00. We had a typical amazing breakfast provided by La Primavera. Then we prepped everyone with a mental warm up before we left to work with Manitos Trabajadores. Manitos Trabajadores is an organization that works with children who have to work to support their family. They provide lunch for them every Saturday and play games with them so that at least one day out of the week, the kids can experience a real childhood. When we arrived at Parque Maldonado, we met the children and set off on our journey to be in their shoes, and experience their hardships in working on the streets of Riobamba. We came back exhausted and emotionally connected to the children. We bonded more over the humble lunch Manitos Trabajadores provided for us, and said our goodbyes to the children we worked with.

We made it back to La Primavera and prepared our presentation for our CAP Project.  We nervously poured into the presentation room as we waited for Mauricio, the Carlos Garbay Farm head manager. We presented for Mauricio, who was enthusiastic to hear all of our great ideas. We were all successful in determining our priorities for the CAP Project, although it took longer than expected. This led to prolonged free time for everyone’s hard work. We had a nice pasta dinner at La Primavera, then headed to our nightly meeting. We all prepared for the Sun Festival tomorrow, and got to hear Michaela and Bri sing a beautiful song for their talent, and Sebastian’s cool double-jointed shoulder blade. We ended the night with some fun free time!