day3 community day

Hello from Costa Rica , this is Juliana , Cristopher Perea , and Amelia. We’re the leaders for today 08/13 and we were the first ones to take on the role! We had a great time spending the day with families in the community and we’re excited to share with you!!

We woke up our fellow Glimpsers in time to get ready and dressed for breakfast. Today, we had the typical Costa Rican meal, pinto which is rice with beans, fried eggs, salad and washed it down with jugo de morra, and berry juice. After breakfast and singing happy birthday to Izabel we began our mental warm up activity which was a game called Screaming Toes. Glimpsers formed a circle and dropped their heads. The aim of the game is to not make eye contact with one another; if they locked eyes with someone, they had to scream and leave the circle. After getting our winners we reminded everyone to get their bags and began the mini hike to meet our families of the day.

As we arrived at our family’s houses, we started with icebreakers to get to know them and the town. Heres how it went for each of us:

Cristo: I loved my group, we got competitive with the game, spit, and got to know the life of a hard working mother and her child, a young student at the local Escuela Santa Rosa.

Amelia: I loved my group! We made tortillas de maiz and empandas from scrach. My family were so nice and helpful.

Juliana : My group IS the best group, they were so respectful. We were all so intrigued with the conversations. We learned the difference in the schooling from Costa Rica , as well as traditions which we loved.

After leaving the families and making our way back to Finca Aracari (our home away from home), almost all of us got ready for the pool. We did a variety of things like played volleyball, chicken fighting (sorry Kam) and learning to swim (#Izabel&Norman LifeGuards); we had so much fun in the water!! We briefly met up after for our community action project (CAP) Seminar 1. Here, we learned a little more about our mission, the why are doing this and well as the how we’ll get it done.

Eventually, we headed to dinner and had a delicious meal of pastelito de yuca, which is like yuca lasagna with salad on the side. We spent the time laughing, eating and bonding together not only in our 3 small groups but as unified group of amazing people <3

Shortly after dinner we hosted our first and only nightly meeting. Not only did we officially celebrate Izabel with a cake but we also got to announce our new leaders for tomorrow! In nightly meeting we usually debrief the day. Happy to report that everybody only had positive feelings and events that they reflected on.

We are now ending our night with bonding games like uno, spit and even braiding each others hair! We are excited for tomorrow and cant wait to share about this wonderful experience in Turrialba, Costa Rica.

Reminder parents tomorrow we’ll be calling you guys through our leaders phones from around 6 – 8p. Be on the look out for WhatsApp calls!!!

Signing out Cristo Perea, Juliana R , Amelia L

P.s Mami la quiero y extrano muchoo , ya estoy contando los dias para verla , buenas noches ma la bendicion 🙂 ~ Juliana R

Mami, jacob and dad i miss you guys so much im living my best life right now!!- cristo perea

Mami es amelia la extrano mucho , igual la quiero mucho. Me estoy divirtiendo , no se preocupe estoy bien.

yayyyy had the best bday ever and now going to do bed check. I miss you guys so much wish you were here!!! i love you see you soon. send me lots of pics of mochi and maryland. hope its very lit bye bye -izabel m

Hi, I am the LDD/Group leader tomorrow. I am so excited for the opportunity to coach my peers and explore downtown Turrialba with them. – Norman S.

Hey mommy, dad, and Zhee, I miss you guys so much! I love y’all and just know that I am thinking about y’all everyday! I know you guys miss the queen (aka me), I’ll be home soon. Stay safe and positive, love you to the moon and back. AND HI AMINA., ALEAH, KECH, AND BRI LOVE Y’ALL -Christell <3