Anardo:

TODAY WAS THE FIRST FREE DAY! A free day is a day when we don’t exactly have anything planned such as a speaker or a tour. Today Elijah and I woke up around 8 to wake everyone up. I was so nervous about waking up late that I couldn’t stay asleep. I woke up at 5, 6, 7, and then finally 7:50. I woke everyone up individually by saying, “Morning beautiful!” since it was such a gloomy day. We left out for breakfast at 9 . The breakfast was the most American breakfast thus far. We had pancakes! They were really good too.

After breakfast we all came back to hostel to wait for the “money guy”. He’s the guy that exchanges our U.S. currency for the cooler Nicaraguan dollars. We waited the longest 10 minutes ever and eventually he came to restock our dwindling wallets. As soon as we got our stacks (The ratio is 1 to 28.5) we were out. My group went straight to the internet cafe. I debated calling home and eventually decided not to. I knew I would get really emotional so I decided to save that for another day. After the internet cafe we hit a couple other spots, such as the supermarket and the bakery. You can guess that we spent a lot of money on food, snacks, and even more food. My group made plans to go to the park to play soccer with some little homies but it started pouring rain so we ended up just getting fries. We finished the day off with the Nightly Meeting and reading some of the heart-warming comments under the blog. Leave more comments please!

Elijah:

Today we finally received our free day! Being leader of the day, I anxiously woke up almost every hour in anticipation for the next day. At 8 am, Anardo and I made the rounds waking everyone up in some way or another whether it was just knocking on the door or jumping on their beds (specifically Cesar). After attending breakfast, we received more money (and by the way, the money here is beautiful) and were out to explore Esteli and have some fun! As for me, I went out with Clara, Morgan, Raquel, Gab and Sophia and we went to the internet cafe where I was able to get in contact with my grandmother which I loved oh so very much, it was definitely the highlight of my day. We then went strolling around and stopping by the supermarket. Reaching the hostel, we had our first CAP project brainstorm. It was amazing just seeing how engaged people were with coming up with ideas to try and improve the school garden (which was our task) and how excited everyone was to get started. Once the meeting was over, I headed out again with Sierra, Gaelle, Tommy, Joli, Katey and Angie and we hit up the supermarket (again for me) to get some snacks for those times when we get a bit hungry in the hostel. After that, we managed to stop by the internet cafe where some more of us got to get in contact with our families. Sadly, Katey was not feeling that well and we dropped her off back at the hostel, as for us, we headed back out to the streets and headed for the bakery. The bakery had many delicious treats! I had bought a pastry with a hot dog stuffed in the middle and also a sweet cinnamon roll. Leaving the bakery, we were doing our best to avoid the rain, but we had caught a glimpse of a man selling bracelets which most of us purchased. Our night (or afternoon) on the town was amazing, but we had to get ready for English tutoring. At tutoring, my beginners class learned the parts of the human body in English which they seemed to pick up on fast. We them went to dinner and had a great meal before heading back to the hostel where we started our nightly meeting and Anardo and I passed the torch to Sean and Cesar. I just want to give a big love to my Mom, Grandma and the rest of my fam, I miss you and love that you leave me comments.

-Peace out, Elijah