Last night, we accepted a challenge to take a shower with just a bucket. It’s something’s different from what we experienced in the states. When part of our daily lives changed, we took time adapting to this new environment. Half of us went to the garden and pumped water into their bucket; whereas, the other half went to bed. Although some of us decided to shower in the morning, the great part of this was that no one gave up on the challenge. Before we took the shower, we were afraid that we wouldn’t have enough water to shower. Turned out, it was not bad at all; we still have one third of the water in the bucket. Our trip won’t be fun if we don’t have any challenges.

Today was a long day for us, we woke up and get ready by 7:45am to head out to Imabite for breakfast. Our food will be simple for today so that we’ll be able to have the full experiences of living like a local. Just by having rice with beans, that doesn’t sound great at all. Well, let’s not judge anything by its name. It actually tasted amazing. There were no complains from anyone, but laughs and conversations. We then heading back to the hostel and got on the bus.

The ride was not long at all, approximately 15 minutes to get to a community where families survived under two dollars a day. When we got there, the mom and her two kids were waiting at the front for our arrival. She dressed simple and her sweet welcome make everyone felt like home. The conditions they lived in were far different from us. The houses were small with dogs, chickens and horses. We’re so glad to be on this trip to have to opportunity to experience all the things that we can never find in the states. One of the families made tortilla for a living and she can make so much in one day. Getting to witness her making tortilla had open my eyes, I would never expected that it’s looked simple but take a lots of skills to spread the dough out fast and placed it on the hot pan. The community there were so nice, everyone knows each others. It’s crazy how we don’t have that community bond like the people here. In the states, people don’t actually get out of their house and have a conversations with their neighbors.

The people here doesn’t have a lots, but what they hold strongest was their kindness and love for just a simplest things. A little kids can just picked out a fruit and use it as a soccer ball to entertained themselves. From them, we learned to appreciated every small things around us. Around 12:00pm, we brought lunch for the all the families and enjoyed having lunch with them. They love what we had for them, and we had a long conversations with them while we ate. A little later, we hung up piñatas filled with candies for the kids. Everyone took turns to hit the target, the kids make the community filled with laughs and joys. Saying goodbye to all the families as we heading to the bus, they told us they were glad that we came to spend time with them. With those words, we felt very welcome by the families.

We started our CAP project, which was a project that we will do to improved the kindergarten school. Everyone came up with great ideas and eliminated all the ideas that was not possible to do. In results, we decided to worked on fixing the chimney, painting the classrooms, and giving them food supplies. Last but not least, we head out to a college for English Tutoring. Every students here had a desires to learn English. They learned English from us as we learned their cultures from them. As a teacher, we love teaching students that were willing to learn. The class filled with two different languages, as we tried to communicated with each others.

Today was full of activities, where we make every minutes worth our time. We love spending time with the local people, so we’re looking forward for tomorrow with the focus of Poverty.