Hey everyone! It’s your El Lider Del Dia, Sarry and Kimberly here to tell you about another day of waking up at 6 am. But this time we included music during the wake up call to get everyone pumped up for working like a local with the locals at the Santos Bárcenas market! Fun fact, it is the second largest market in León, Nicaragua! We enjoyed our breakfast at el comidor which included gallo pinto, hard-boiled eggs, Nicaraguan sausages and freshly made tortillas.

IMG_20160708_075135IMG_20160708_075528As you can see, Johann and Kassandra were very excited for their meal to help them take on our last reality challenge of the trip. After finishing our meals, we made our way over to the market which was five blocks over. We were immediately split up by two’s to work with different booths as well as different vendors and booth owners. A majority of the vendors work from 7 am to 5 pm daily. In the past, having a job in the market made a lot of money in comparison to now. Alondra shared a case where a woman gave up being a science teacher because having a job at the market made more money back then. Currently, the market business does not thrive like it once did but the workers still persevered throughout the day with a lot of smiles and positive attitudes. Once we were placed in our booths, we were immediately taught the different strategies that the vendors used to lure customers in. There was also a friendly competition of who could sell the most items, who the most creative was and who the most dedicated seller was. Various groups used posters and different selling mechanisms to attract customers to their booths.IMG_20160708_093256 As you can see, Oscar, who actually won most creative was advertising his sale booth which included the phrases “¡Zapatos! ¡Mochilas! ¡Sandalias!” The booth he was working at included all three of those items despite the fact that he demonstrated the most creativity and enthusiasm, he fell short when it came to selling the most items. The winners of that category, Tommy and Alondra, happened to be right across from Oscar and myself (Sarry). Tommy and Alondra came through with the most sales of the day, 19 items! The winner of the last category, most dedicated to the job, happened to be Marcelo.

Order from left to right: Haley, the booth owners and their family and Marcelo

Order from left to right: Haley, the booth owners, their family, and Marcelo.

He was instructed by the vendors to use a traditional Nicaraguan selling technique that included calling the woman customers “Amor” and “Bonita.”

The vendors informed us that their jobs were often competitive because of how close their booths were to each other and the fact that a lot of them sold the same items. The vendors that included food, candy and items for cheaper had the upper hand when it came to obtaining the most sales.

Similar to Living Like a Local, we passed out lunch and drinks to our vendor families. Together we enjoyed the meals and engaged in intriguing conversations about our homes in the United States.
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After coming back to the market, our finance manager, Tamika, and our administrative manager, Anthony, prepared a presentation for the vice principal of Centro de Educación Especial, Blanca Rosa. Each committee prepared a visual including questions such as what materials we would need and the timeline of the project for Blanca. The leaders of each committee went up with their posters while Anthony translated everything said to Blanca. It all turned out great as many questions were answered while both laughs and serious moments were shared.

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It was surely another proud moment that we as a group shared after our presentations were over IMG_20160708_153335because of the amount of preparation and dedication we put into it. Ms. Blanca even said how impressed she was with our presentations and couldn’t wait to see our passion and dedication come to life.

After our presentation we continued our evening by going to dinner and English tutoring afterwards from 6-8 pm. We then made our way back to the hostel where we had our usual nightly meeting debriefing the day. While ending our meeting with Big Love Shout Outs, Nancy, our GG Leader, even spoke out about our presentation to Ms. Blanca saying, “I felt like a proud mom!” This brought us all joy and a sense of accomplishment. Even after the nightly meeting came to a end, plenty of people still had energy after our hard working day! A few individuals went outside to the balcony with both of our in-country coordinators, Noel and Nancy, who taught them a Salsa lesson. There were moments where we exchanged moves that are done in the United States (whipping and dabbing lol). Even the little things such as teaching each other dance moves brings us closer together in our last week on this life-changing trip!

In all we both think it was pleasure being the leaders of the day during our last reality challenge of the trip. It definitely gave us an idea of what kind of leadership skills we already possess but also new skills that we didn’t know we had. It was no doubt a learning experience that not just ourselves but the remainder of the group will appreciate and execute in the future. Big love from Sarry and Kim here in Leon, it was a pleasure!

IMG_20160708_160345Love you mom and miss you fam. -Kim and Sarry