Hello everyone! This is Kathy blogging about our Working Like a Local Day in Esteli!

Today, I was ¨El Leader del Dia¨ along with Thuy. We started the day by waking ourselves up at four thirty in the morning in order to wake up everyone at five to get ready for our super packed day. This was actually a very interesting task considering the different responses we got after tapping on peoples doors. We had our usual breakfast at Buffet Esteli at six and then walked to the market five blocks away called Mercado Alfredo Lazo. The group was broken up into pairs for each stand. Each pair would be at a market stand and were to work with the owner to sell their products. The tasks varied depending on the stand. My partner was Sammy and we were assigned to work at a stand called ¨Las tres princesas¨(The three princesses). The woman there had three daughters who also help with selling the produce.

First, I helped with stacking vegetables and sweeping the area. Sam and I then unbagged and stocked up coconuts into the bins in the back. Unfortunately, there were many cockroaches and flies in the area making it a bit more uncomfortable to work. Then, we were assigned the task of chopping off ends of the yucca vegetable. We had to chop of the ends until it was free of mold and  completely white, or as the woman kept repeating ¨blanco¨. This was the hardest task for me because the pile we were working with were moldy and definitely anything BUT fresh so I ended up throwing away most of it anyways. Although fearful of cutting ourselves with the knife, we were successful with our task and did not lose any part of our body. (Don´t worry, parents.) Next, we washed cucumbers and shortly after we were given the task of sorting peppers into one tray for the ones that are still in good condition and the other for the ones that are old and wrinkly. Afterwards, we transfer bags of plantains into bins and stacked them on top of each other. Because my partner did not know Spanish and I understood very little, we had a hard time communicating with the lady. She showed us what she wanted to be done and we simply immitated her actions and it was quite interesting. This definitely did put my Spanish speaking skills to the test because I realized that I still have a lot more to learn. Our final task was to close huge bags of yuccas and sweeping the area.  Before we left, we had lunch with the family we worked with and gifted them a picture of us together with a small message on the back (Thanks to the other Sam for writing it for us in Spanish). Although the stand that I worked at had many tasks to fulfill, I was grateful for this opportunity to fully experience what it´s like to really work like a local.

At noon, we walked back to our hostel and had a bit of free time before presenting our CAP project to a representative from UCA Miraflor. Dressing in business casual attire, our groups leaders presented our CAP project and most of our ideas were approved. After the meeting, Thuy and I initiated the Action Plan chart where we wrote down when, how, and who are going to do certain tasks. We assigned roles and responsibilites for some groups to go out and buy materials for our project. Those who stayed in the hostel prepared for their English tutoring lesson. Following this, we had English tutoring lesson at Vida Joven. It was great as always to see the little kids that my group usually tutor show up with so much enthusiasm to learn.

At seven we had our ¨American Night Out¨dinner at Downings Burger. This was a great little change in our routine. There we had our nightly meeting and passed down the torch to Shenise and Hirmine to be tomorrow´s leaders of the day. Thank you for reading (or I hope you did) and check out my second and last blog post tomorrow!