We had a pretty eventful day today. We started out at breakfast at our usual place, La Favorita. During breakfast, we were assigned groups to go work with some local Nicaraguans at the market. Some students were selling shoes whereas others were out in the streets selling bananas or helping out at a hardware store. This experience ended up being a competition to see who would sell the most products, and who made the most Cordobas (Nicaraguan Money). This was an extremely humbling experience to see how hard many locals have to work to provide for their families. Today, business was a bit slow to start out with because we were caught with some rain which caused the usually lively streets to become more quiet and laid back. Afterwards, we visited Café de la Sonrisas where we met with Tio Antonio, a global business owner who focuses on hiring those with disabilities, especially hearing impairments. We learned about his business where he sends hand woven hammocks all around the world. One monumental moment during our visit was when after our meal, the workers had us put in ear plugs and not speak for five minutes. On the package the earplugs came in, it said “Bienvenidos a mi mundo”, which translates to “Welcome to my world”. Today, we also had our first real meeting for our Community Action Project (CAP). We discovered how hard it is to try and collaborate on a project when you have a set amount of resources but an endless amount of ideas. Together, we came to the decision that we wanted to focus on creating an overhang outside of the school we are working with to provide shade for the children while they are waiting for classes, and we want to focus on repainting parts of the school and creating a mural. After lots of planning, we had dinner and went to our English tutoring classes. Overall, everyone seemed to have a great time interacting with their classes and the students are amazing people to work with because of their love and desire to learn. Coming from Tania, a leader of the day, Big Love to Amalia for coming out of her comfort zone and singing for the group to showcase a talent. Big Love to the whole group for collaborating after a frustrating meeting. We are all on our journey finding out what true leadership means within ourselves.

-Amalia and Tania