Kate C. (Tepeyac)

Welcome to the Tepeyac blog! It is the fifth day and today we have begun our work. The Tepeyac group is separated between two work sites, the road, or “Roadies” as we proudly call ourselves, and those working at the classroom. For some reason, I had a feeling I would be placed in the road group, and though I was disappointed at first, as soon as we began to cheerily sing on our way to the work site, I began to trust my small group of Roadies, and I right to do so. We had a blast today digging up rocks from the road and throwing them to the side or lifting 130 pound bricks and carrying them up this hill that seemed to get steeper every time we had to bring a new one up. The true highlight of my day came after lunch though, when we resumed working. I hadn’t really gotten back into the groove of working again yet, but before I could pick up a shovel I hear my name being called. One of the chaperones, knowing my like for arts and crafts and playing with children, called Andrea and me over and gave us the tip that there were little girls at the house across the road wanting to make bracelets. We happily obliged, grabbing a huge pack of pipe cleaners and beads. For the next two hours or so, we sat on the ground surrounded by these girls and some other kids that had heard of our bracelets and had come to join us. Ben and Payton soon joined us in helping to crank out more product, and we soon ran out of both pipe cleaners and beads. I ended up playing tag with the kids for a bit just before we had to leave the work site as well and they seemed to be having a lot of fun as was I. Though my Spanish is very broken, I was able to connect with these kids through just playing around like a goofball, which is much easier and natural to me than learning another language. Today has been an awesome day with my Roadies and the Nicaraguans I’ve met, and I’m so excited for what tomorrow will bring.