Hello Glimpser parents, my name is Andrew Madrigal here with my co-leader Maria Avelar. Today we were working like local Nicaraguan commune farmers under the hot sun for approximately 5 hours. As soon as we got off the bus, arriving at La Garnacha, we were split into two groups and rushed off to milk cows and goats. Then we had a delicious breakfast of Gallo Pinto, eggs, goat cheese and tortillas to give us energy for the long day ahead of us. After breakfast the group was separated into three different groups: one was tending to the needs of the cows, another was clearing out wood from under the goat stables, and the last group was left to plant coffee beans. All of these jobs proved to be very labor intensive yet very fulfilling all at the same time. Going further into detail, for the group working with the cattle there was quite a number of things they had to do: lugging stocks of some sort of plant from the fields over to the stables where they were cut into small pieces and then distributed to the different lofts, as well as shoveling cow manure and just clearing the stables floors of unwanted items in general. Moving on to the goat stables, the group only had to clear pieces of 2×4 from underneath the stables, but still it very hard work as I’d hope you all could imagine. Lastly, we had the group planting  coffee beans with their job being: carrying coffee plants two kilometers from one of the commune workers houses to help plant coffee on planting grounds.

Finally, after having put our backs into all that hard work trying to simulate the everyday life of those commune workers, us Glimpsers had an amazing (relaxing) lunch with everyone laughing and reminiscing on the events that had taken place through out the course of the day.  To add to our joy, we had a guest speaker inform us on how the commune wants to get music classes started for the children of the community and entertain us with a little skit they put together accompanied by some music performed by our guest speaker himself. Furthermore, to all of our surprise, two of our Glimpsers ( Liam Hardison and Jasmine Stade) were invited to perform for us as to motivate the children in their pursuit for music  classes, and needless to say our two musicians beautifully executed “Under The Bridge”  by The Red Hot Chili Peppers. When offered the chance to play a second song for the group there was a bit of hesitation but sure enough Jasmine willing to take the offer, with Liam quick to follow, with the duo performing a song created by Jasmine’s band entitled Embryo. After, having enjoyed such a pleasant performance, we were set free to go sightseeing around the commune or go to the shops to buy souvenirs for our wonderful families back home.

As for the rest of the day, things went a little more routine with Tuesdays being one of the designated English tutoring days. So, as we returned home we had some time to freshen up, prepare for tutoring classes and just relax if all other duties were accounted for. Then, of course, we taught our English classes with everything running ever so smoothly as things have come to fall into place here in Esteli, and we topped the night off with another delicious dinner and our nightly meeting. Thank you all for your time and Maria and I would like to wish you all wonderful day.

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