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No electricity, bucket showers, and light meals: this is how we started the day.

Lisalot prepared bread and hot chocolate for breakfast. Meals were light all day because we wanted to make the experience of living like a local authentic. Once we finished breakfast, Juan Pablo picked us up, and we went to Bejuco Aplastado where we were separated into 5 groups and were assigned a host family. Our hosts family took us to their homes; there we were treated as part of the family. Our host families were hesitant to give us chores because they wanted to impress us, but all of us wanted to help and show them how thankful we felt for giving us the opportunity to spend the whole morning with them.

The families appreciated us helping them and our presence seemed to delight them overall. The families were very humble and even though they didn’t have much they wanted to “compartir” (share) everything they had with us.

It was a wonderful experience, and it is obvious that we’ve all found a home away from home. Some of us even found long lost siblings because all the kids were so welcoming and appreciated everything we did for them and their families. After helping the families with house cleaning and cooking, we went to the community gathering area where we were able to socialize with the families, play dominoes, and baseball. Apparently, our baseball team was named “Los Tramposos.” (The Cheaters)

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