Hola!

Today we focused on Deconstructing Poverty as well as Aid and Development. Our Question of the Day was, “What societal factors can contribute to a high rate of poverty?” Our quote was one by Eric Greitens in which he said “Alone, human beings can feel hunger. Alone we can feel pain. To feel poor, however, is something we do only in comparison to others.”

The first thing we did was visit the dump. Seeing people working hard to get money in order to provide for their families as they dug through the garbage looking for things to sell affected all of us deeply. Seeing people less fortunate than we are reminded us not to take the things we have for granted. We met Jesse who provides the workers with food, and we listened to his story. He told us about how, early in his life, he lived in America. He went to jail and was deported to Nicaragua, but in order to turn his life around he looked to religion and service.

We helped Jesse and his wife serve the workers. Half of us gave them their meals, while the other half talked with them. It was a truly eye opening experience for most of us.

After that we had our first CAP (community action project) meeting at the school Rebaño de la Alegria, our project partner. It was then that we started the first phase of our CAP project — Discovery. We discovered exactly what it is that Rebaño de la Alegria needs to improve as a school.

Then we had our second English Tutoring class! A lot of us had much better experiences with teachings today, as we had a better idea of what our classes wanted and needed to learn. Hopefully tomorrow’s session will be just as good if not better!

Then we came back to the Hostel for our nightly meeting, where we passed the torch on to Christopher and Ericson!