Day 4

Hola!

Today was an eventful day. It began at 7:00 AM with a wake up call from Jason (Kim's husband). We had a work out on the beach led by Jodi's husband Matt. We did some football drills along with running along the beach and in and out of the water. The only downfall of running on the beach is the winds are 50 mph and the sand is blowing in your eyes haha. After our workout we washed up, had breakfast, and sorted our donations.

We took our donations to various destinations in the morning starting with Casa de Mujeres (the women's shelter). The shelter was built to help to give women their own voices and to provide a safe haven for them during any problems they may encounter. This shelter is a non-profit organization for women and children and is supported mainly by donations such as ours. They are able to give women and children what they need to make it through. Also a womens soccer team was founded through this program and there are about 21 players ages 8-adult. The soccer balls that we donated will greatly help them practice and give them a sense of unity. After we visited the Casa de Mujeres we went to a pre-school for children ages 4-6. It was soooo fun to play and color with all of the little kids and show them what we had donated. It was helpful to have our spanish speakers (Sarah, Sadie, Rachel, and Serena) to help communicate with the kids. While some stayed at the pre-school to play with the kids, others went to the public school for children ages 6-15. Seeing this school was definitely an eye-opening experience. The school has two classrooms for over 50 kids and only two teachers. The government does not give any money to the public schools except for the teacher wages and the materials they have are horrible. The teachers were excited when they saw a small globe in one of our donation bags and it really made us think: while we are learning about the world through google earth, these kids are learning through a hand me down globe that is smaller than each of our hands. None of the kids were at the public school because this time to them is what would be like our summer break. After the school we went to Galleria del Sur and donated art supplies to keep their art classes going since funds have recently been cut. They teach art classes to women and children and greatly appreciated what we brought.

After all of our donation stops, we went to lunch and then had about an hour of free time. Some people went shopping, some napped, and some went and hung out on the beach. Unfortunately during this time we had our first casualty... Rachel got stung in the foot by a sting ray. Fortunately she is OK and in good spirits and is happy that she can now say that she was stung by a sting ray. Unfortunately Rachel did not get to participate in our afternoon activity of teaching kids how to play volleyball again, however she did get to sit in her room and watch TV while Jason brought her ice cream (how nice).

After we taught kids how to play volleyball at the same clinic we were at yesterday we went out to an spectacular dinner. We had a choice between fish and chicken and it was amazing!! We ate on their porch and had a beach view at night, it was beautiful. After dinner most went and got ice cream again (not losing any calories here!).

Tomorrow we begin our day at 10 delivering more donations and enjoying the warm weather! Hope everyone is surviving the Wisconsin/Minnesota winter! Love you and miss all of you!

Dani, Jenny, and Sadie