Hello Friends and Family,

Our names are Peyton and Avery and we were today’s Leaders of The Day! This morning we woke up at 7 am bright and early so we could all get ready by 8 am to eat breakfast. For breakfast, we had eggs, grilled cheese with ham, and pineapple. After breakfast, we headed to Proyecto Eco Azuero in Pedasi, where we learned about our Community Action Project (CAP)! We are going to be assisting Proyecto Eco Azuero in reforesting the Azuero Península’s dry rainforest! The Azuero dry rainforest is the home of the Azuero Spider monkey, which is currently endangered, and the rainforest- although it used to fill up a large majority of Panama- now is 2% the size of what it used to be.

We also met a cat named Spider Monkey. This work will begin on Thursday, and finish on Saturday, and our goal is to plant more than 700 trees a day! After the seminar, we headed back to Las Tablas and went straight to lunch, which was, in our opinion, the best lunch yet (although all the meals have been delicious). We then had 4 hours of free time filled with calls home, naps, charades, and card games. The games were a fantastic bonding opportunity, and we can happily say everyone knows everyone’s names now (we think). After free time we had dinner, and then we had our nightly meeting! Overall, it was a really successful day, filled with laughter and joy, and we are excited for the extra 30 minutes we have to sleep in tomorrow!

See you all soon!

-Peyton and Avery