Hey guys! It’s Sophia Hong and Jillian Buchmann! Today was a very eye opening and more emotional day than we think we have had so far. We started the day off by being able to sleep in a little bit!! Then we went to eat breakfast, and headed off to Fondo Negro. Today was a little bit different because instead of going to the work site, we got to have a VBS day- not to mention teaching all of the translators the Cotton Eyed Joe dance before the kids showed up. We played red light green light at the start and the kids absolutely loved it! Then, we got into the discussion of Noahs Ark, and the kids loved showing off their amazing animal sounds! Some of the little kids from the day care came and joined us too. After having fun with all of the different animals, we made a paper chain and asked the kids what they were thankful for as they put their piece onto the chain. Oh my goodness the chain was big! We wrapped VBS up with some coloring pages based on Noahs Ark!

After all of the kids left, we were put into 3 groups for the Cultural Immersion Experience. We loaded up on the bus and headed to a different spot in Fondo Negro where on the last mission trip they painted some of the local houses! We all got dropped off at one house and then split up into our decided groups from earlier. One group stayed at the first house while the others had to cross a highway to get to the 2 other houses. To be honest, when we first arrived in front of the families, it was very awkward.( On a side note, we were put into the same group therefore we are writing about our firsthand experience so it might be different than the stories from the other groups.) One of the only interactions we had with the family during the actual meal was saying our names to the father after awkwardly standing there. What was interesting is that when we were eating, the whole family wasn’t eating with us or sitting with us at the table. Instead, they were watching us eat what they prepared and making sure that we were comfortable at all times whether that’s getting us an extra chair or extra coffee. After 30-40 minutes passed by, the other two groups came to join with our group and we all started to play games. Being able to connect more was all thanks to playing games together. Once the dominoes were out, we were able to interact so much easier, due to having a language barrier, because we were all having fun playing a game that we all loved. However, the amount of excitement and energy from the kids was above and beyond with a game they have never even played before! We brought out the Spot It! game and attempted to teach them how to play. Most of them them didn’t understand how to actually play but they were having so much fun just showing us the same pictures on the cards and telling us what they see. Some of them did understand the game and were able to play very smoothly (if a younger sibling didn’t rip the cards out from your hands!) After playing around for about 2 hours, we were all rounded up by Miguel, the principle of the middle school that we were doing our service project at, we went down to the big Fondo Negro welcome sign. We took a little photoshoot with our group and all of the little kids we became friends with at lunch. Afterwards we had to say our goodbyes and go to the baseball field for practice and the daily salon treatment.

When we arrived at the field, it was the daily routine of kids’ immediate hugs, high-fives. Meanwhile, Micah and Ben (El Torro) were greeted in a quite different way: by getting tackled. Practice was going normally, until a sudden raindrop turned into everyone running off the field for cover! And for all the girls…the torturous salon treatment that had been going on since the start of practice, got quite the audience, hence making it more chaotic. The few of us that hadn’t yet received the salon treatment, were in for quite the treat of having at least 4 little girls tugging our hair in different directions all at once. Making it even worse, the little boys started to have tickle fights with everyone. In the midst of it all, the boys that had come in from practice were all getting handed some of the boys clothing and sports equipment that we had brought with us. Once we got away from the rainy baseball practice, we got on the bus and headed back for the hotel. When we were there we hopped in the pool, ate dinner and all got together to reflect on our day/trip.

That’s all for today folks, see you all in a couple days ;)