Welcome to the Cap

Hi, its Alberto and Ari here and we were the student leaders of day 5. The first day of the CAP has come, our job is to dig a hole for the pipeline in the local neighborhood of where we reside. A bigger pipe is being placed to improve the water output of the houses near by.

The group had to overcome a grand obstacle… rocks. We were given a pick axe and a few metal rods to help break them, both were heavy but incredibly fun to use. Because only a few people were using them at a time, we’d call them over to help break up hard sections. We’d all cheer them on and celebrate when they got out a big rock. It was great bonding and super exciting. It was cool to learn new skills and techniques that I think will come in handy in life.

Our group paused halfway through the day to go back for lunch, during which it down poured hard. We came back to our work filled with water. We were working in a trench downhill, but some sections weren’t connected, so we decided to connect them and let the water flow into the pasture and road out of our way. We created our own mini canal, one that soaked us all in mud.

ASADA, our partner organization who is in charge of the management and distribution of water in smaller towns in Costa Rica, helped. They came and provided us tools, one that we (Ari) broke. Along with that they quality checked our work and set us up to start laying the pipe down and burying it.

Overall, the work was fun and very communal! Giancarlo, our GGL, set up a music playlist we all got to add to. We all worked together and learned new hands on skills we’ll have to apply to the next few days of our CAP project. We had an amazing time working together to get a section done today! We’re looking forward to continuing helping the local community.

P.S. It’s my brother’s 21st birthday tomorrow, Happy Birthday Xander 🙂 -Ari