CAP 3 Execution Day

For our third and last CAP day, we went to plant mangrove saplings around a beach near Santa Ana, Panama. We took a 5 minute hike in order to reach our destination, and once we arrived, it was high tides at the time. Our Peace Corps volunteer, Julia, demonstrated the way in which mangrove saplings are planted. Virgilio, who is a biologist residing in Chitré, Panama, also assisted us during this CAP day, offering his expertise on mangroves and their importance. 

We planted hundreds of these saplings, helping one another in every way possible—this includes passing each other saplings, helping each other dig holes, holding one person by the arm so that they don’t fall into the mud or water, etc. Some of us even named the seedlings, for example: Druski, Druski Jr., Himothy, Bambi, so on and so forth (shoutout to Amiyah and Autymn). After an hour of working relentlessly, the tides began to fall until you were able to see the other hundreds of mangrove roots that were planted four months prior by Julia and her team. We worked for two more hours planting ALL of the saplings until it was time for us to head back to the hotel.

Once we were back, the entire group reflected on our last CAP day. We then started to get ready for our celebratory dinner at Steak House, which was just around the corner from our hotel. The menu consisted of very, very, VERY well done steak, barbecue chicken wings, hamburgers, and chicken tenders. We danced, sang, played card games, and celebrated everything we had accomplished together. Over the course of our time in the community, we collected over 500 mangrove seeds (to be used for future reforestations), we planted more than 400 mangrove saplings, built three new raised garden beds for the agricultural program at Santa Ana Elementary School, constructed a table and bench to create an outdoor classroom space, and installed inspirational signs throughout the school to encourage and motivate students for years to come.

Lastly, we handed off our LDD (Leaders of the Day) totems to the following leaders of the day: Chace, and Yaretzi. 

From your Leaders of Day 8,

Jalen, Amiyah, and Solana