Day 3 - work day

Day 3: 1st work day in Esteli! Woke up @6:40, bfast at 7 in hotel. Headed out to Fabretto school up a really pretty mountain @around 8:15, got there and met the ADORABLE students, hard for me to speak spanish, but somehow I formed a coherent introduction. Then we got to work, some on digging the groundwork for sheds, and some- Lexi, Brooke, Mr. McGuire, and I- on digging up rocks to clear more room for the garden. Liz and Rachel also decided they are going to try and help design a mural for the divider being put up to split the cafeteria and library. We got pretty dirty, tried to clean up a bit, used the latrine (which happened to be most of our first times using a hole in the ground), then left to see the dump where the kids come from and their parents work. The dump was very large and a lot of the kids parents were at work there. We then went to the community where they lived and the houses were so dillapidated and looked sort of unsteady. On our walk, we met an eighty year old woman who seemed genuinely happy and made me really consider the experience as a whole and what being happy really constitutes/ takes. She greeted us with a warm smile and was introduced as one of the "founders" of the community outside the dump, and her happiness was radiant even living in a situation like hers. It made me realize how little it takes to just be content and happy with what you're given- as Maddi pointed out as well. From the neighborhood, hgh school aged kids have to walk more than an hour every morning to break the poverty cycle and go to school in the city of Estelí. Fabrettos entire purpose (in the area) stemmed from creating a good education option for those in the dump community so they can try to break out of the cycle and go to university or get a job in the city. We headed back to the school after and ate a pretty tasty packed lunch. Not sure why, but bananas taste 10x better here. Then we went to play with the kids for a while which was AMAZING. I never wanted it to end. We painted, made bracelets, played soccer, the look of joy on their faces even with a pretty big communication barrier was heartwarming. I struggled to communicate a bit but managed to elicit some smiles when I tried to speak spanish, and when I painted a butterly, car, flower, and watch on a boy named Fernando. The whole time I just kept thinking about how their life is so different from ours, but we can still smile at the same things. We went to visit AXIS after that and toured the other Fabretto center in the city of Esteli. We talked for a while to the middle/high school level students in the accelerated English learning program. Brooke and I were a little awkward with our group but the conversation was still interesting and none of us wanted to leave. They seemed pretty interested in what Mercersburg was like and I was just as interested in how they learned English pretty well in just 5-6 months. After leaving the school, we went to a cuban restaraunt for dinner and just being and walking in the city was an experience in itself. We ended the night celebrating Elizabeth's birthday on the roof with an Elmo cake we bought from the corner store earlier, and listening to spanish music while trying to identify some planets in the night sky. - Maddi R