Aid and Development (No. 5)

Hola Familias y Amigas,

It´s Chloé reporting live from Costa Rica. I started the day by waking up at 6:30 to read outside while enjoying the view and listening to the birds chirp. I woke everyone up at 8 am for breakfast at 8:30. On the breakfast menu we had French toast, eggs with either ham or onions, and fresh fruit. The homemade mango juice was a 10 out of 10.

Shortly after breakfast, we had our CAP Seminar to plan our community action project for the next three days. During our seminar, we learned about the “White Savior Complex” which is when people go to other countries to volunteer for ingenuine reasons like, recognition and praise versus actually wanting to support communities in need. We also brainstormed ways to create sustainable change here in Aquiares vs. Americanizing it with change we think they may benefit from. Overall we are going into our CAP Project with open minds and a new outlook on creating change.

After our seminar, we had lunch which consisted of pork chops, sauteed potatoes, and salad. I´m not gonna lie, our Chef Diego put his WHOLE foot in that food and had some of us eating the plates… no names.

After this we had a guest speaker named Rodrigo who only spoke Español, so shout out to Shirley for translating through the entire workshop. Toward the end, we planted a plant in our backyard that could be used to help cancer patients. This was very emotional for him and hit home for some of the group members because he planted it with the intention of helping others fight cancer.

After this, we had some downtime, where some of us took a trip to the mini market down the road, read in the hammocks, played card games, and called home. I know you guys miss us just as much as we miss you all! For Dinner, We took it all the way back to Day 1 and had hamburgers with chips. Surprisingly this is the first day we haven´t eaten rice and beans for at least two of our meals lol. We ended our night with our nightly meeting, where I passed the torch to tomorrow´s leaders. I really enjoyed being the leader of the day and appreciate my peers for making this such a smooth process. We are super excited to begin our CAP Project bright and early tomorrow and are looking forward to setting the building blocks for sustainable change here in Costa Rica.

Last but not least, Happy Birthday to Vicmary who turned 17 today! I hope you enjoyed your small surprise celebration.

Pura Vida, Chloé