We kicked things off bright and early with a 7:30 wakeup call by our third Lideres del Dia (LDD’s), Cassidy Sutton and Dyani Marshall, and began part one of our Community Action Project (CAP).

After breakfast, at 9:00 am, we all jumped on the bus, and headed straight for Bajo Corral, a small pueblo of 189 people. Once we arrived, we began the discovery of our CAP project. We separated into three groups, one with the teacher and the students, another with the community members, and the last one with Kiera, a Peace Corps volunteer. Each glimpser had the opportunity to ask questions to people in the community as well as brainstorm ideas for the project. Along with figuring out what the community needs, we all got to develop a personal relationship with the students of the school.

We arrived back at the hotel around 12:30 for lunch. Shortly after, Dyani and Cassidy taught the other glimpsers a Panamanian hip-hop dance to get us energized for our lengthy, but important seminar. The seminar brought the experience in Bajo Corral to life. We sat and discussed all the challenges of the community and what our plan of action could be in assisting their needs.

Following the seminar, at 5:00 pm the glimpsers finished up their new lesson plans for English tutoring at IFARHU, the boarding school in Las Tablas. We ate beef and mashed potatoes for dinner and were all excited to get a break from the usual Panamanian dish–chicken and rice. At 7:00 pm we arrived at our third day of English tutoring; we are all sad that we won’t be back with our students until Sunday.

About an hour later we returned to the hotel for our nightly meeting where we discussed our commitment to be proactive, our compassion for the culture in Panama, and our courage to step up and ask the questions needed to make a positive change in the community.