Written by: Morgan Mendonca
Today was our third day of work, and after an extra 15 minutes of sleep, thanks to breakfast being moved to 7:00 a.m. instead of 6:45 a.m., everyone was up and enthusiastic for another day of helping the community. There is no better way to start our day than with fresh French toast sticks at Violetta’s served with strawberries and bananas, and we can’t forget about the coffee! After everyone devoured our delicious breakfast, the groups separated and headed to the work sites. Group 2 includes Sean, Makynzi, Yorlan, and myself, along with our amazing guide, Eduardo, who spent the day at Santa Maria de Jesus with us.
Edwardo helped navigate us to our work site with a 20-minute bus ride and a brisk 15-minute walk up a few hills. Nothing gets your heart going more. After this journey, we arrived at a school called Jardin De Amor where my group has been working this week. The school is a non-profit that serves struggling families in the community. It is run by an amazing guy, Julio, who always makes sure his students have everything they need. For the last two days, we prepped and primed a classroom so that we could paint it yellow today. After getting our materials, we got straight to work. At around 1000, Makynzi and I took a break to play some soccer (fútbol) with the little kids. Sadly, we lost 3-2 for the second day in a row, but we are not quitters and will be ready for our rematch tomorrow. While we were downstairs Sean was upstairs making memories with another student, painting some funny faces on the wall. Once the children’s break was over, we returned to work, finishing the painting and working as a team to tackle each wall. After a hard morning, we headed back to Violetta’s for lunch, I used the 20-minute chicken bus ride to practice my español before class.
After heading back to the hostel, I got ready for Spanish class from 1:30 – 4:30 p.m. where we reviewed our previous day’s lesson and then, after a quick break, got to play a game with Mackenzie, Seamus, and Sean. We each wrote a famous person on a card and had to make guesses to figure out who the other person chose for us. We had to ask the questions in Spanish. I got Jojo Siwa and Bill Nye, while Seamus got Jennifer Lopez and Tom Brady. For dinner, Tanner, Sean, Seamus, Vincenzo, and I went to Puerta Once for dinner, where I got the 2×1 panini special to end the day.
