Day ten

6/3/2015

I was happy that we had a late breakfast because we all celebrated our last night in Las Panitas. Our bus was planned to leave at 10 for Managua. The bus ride was two and a half hours long. Along the ride, boarder patrol stopped us and three of us didn’t have our passports. Luckily Kayla was able to communicate with them a little and they let us go. I was really relieved once we got to the hotel.   

         After we got to our rooms we got back in the bus to go to a mall which wasn’t that exciting. We ate at the food court which had a bunch of American food chains such at pizza and Burger king. Michelle and I got pizza. When we were done there we headed to this large market. Most of the shops sold the same things. I bought some coffee and a hammock chair.

         When we left the market we drove about 30 minutes to go on another boat ride. This tour was on the biggest lake in Nicaragua. He showed us all of the private islands owned by rich people and brought us to monkey island where we fed the monkeys bananas. I thought that was really cool. After we finished there we headed back to our hotel and had dinner.  I went to bed really early because we had an early flight in the morning.

Day nine

6/2/2015

         I brought my journal to the work site today so I had something to do when there was no work. When we first showed up there were a few boys kicking around a small flat basketball. I had to lug wood around them while they were playing.  Soon after they were done playing two of the boys that were playing were helping us mix concrete with the shovels. They are a lot faster than we are.  

         Soon enough we were ready to pour the concrete for the floor.  The buckets were really heavy to carry. We got into line and took turns carrying the concrete. Wilbert was leveling out the floor while we poured it.

         When we returned, Benito was helping Wilbert on the roof. There weren’t many jobs to do so I stood around handing them wood and nails. Benito asked me to come up and help on the roof. At first I was a little nervous of the height and moving around but I got used to it. I helped him hammer in nails which was a lot of fun.

When we were almost finished we took pictures of everyone in front of the two houses. We got three plaques for the houses we completed.

Day eight

6/1/2015

         I didn’t feel well at the work site today, I was dizzy and dehydrated. I felt better the second half of the day.. We were very close to finishing the house with Benito. We only have the roof left. The other house is very close to being finished as well. We have a couple more rows left and then we can start the roof. There wasn’t much work for us to do today. So there was a lot of standing around.

Day seven

5/31/2015

         Because the volcanoes were closed, we wee unable to hike them as we had planned. Instead we took the bus to these clay hot springs. A young boy took us on a tour around the hot springs. The whole area smelled like sulfur and was really hot. He told us that you can put the clay on your face for acne and they also make pots with it. He painted our faces with clay which I thought was cute.

         On our way back we stopped at a store that was similar to Wal-Mart. The lines were so long that we had to go to another one. When we returned to our hotel, most of us went to the ocean. Some of our group took surf lessons, which was fun to watch. I was to nervous to try it. Our night was pretty mellow. We had dinner and relaxed in our room.

Day six

5/29/2015

Today we went back to the same worksite as yesterday. I choose to wear a shirt because my back had burned from the sun yesterday.  A lot of the locals cover up by wearing pant, long sleeve shirts and hats. At first I thought they were crazy because of the heat but then I started to understand once my skin started to burn.

         We are accomplishing a lot on Erikas house. Peeta cant speak any Enlgish so he has to show me what to do with his hands. It was pretty simple to understand what he wanted. People work really hard here. After helping us on her house all night Erika biked to work at Playa Roca where we later saw her.

5/30/2015

         Today we had a day off from work. It is mothers day in Nicaragua. For the first part of the day we walked down to the beach and took two boats on a tour. The guides pointed out different birds, crabs, crocodiles and plants. I found it interesting to see the different creatures and plants there. After the ride was over we went to this private beach where they raise turtles but it wasn’t hatching season so we didn’t see any.

         Part of he group paddle boarded back to the beach but we had to tie ropes to them because we were running late for lunch. Today with lunch we had beef which was really tasty.  After that we relaxed on the beach and waited for dinner.

         At dinner a group of frat boys joined us. We were all told we were going to Leon after dinner to celebrate mother’s day there. I was excited to see how their culture celebrated. When we arrived to the square there were hundreds of people. Groups from surrounding towns were performing on stage. It was really cool to see how much attention this holiday gets in Nicaragua compared to the United States. Everyone stared at us when we walked around. At one point this guy came up to me and tried talking to me. He ended up kissing my hand and shortly asking if I was scared. Although I was a little frightened I told him no and soon after we walked away we ran into the frat guys came up to us. I was relieved because it was only me and two other girls. Soon after this we all left and headed back to Las Panitas.

Day five

5/28/2015

         Today was rough. I woke up with a headache because I didn’t drink enough water. There was no drinkable water at the hotel. After I ate, I felt a little better until 10:30 when I felt dizzy and nauseous. I was relieved that we were only doing a half day of work.

         I had to mix concrete by shovel which was really hard to do. It took a really long time to mix it well enough to use. I was amazed by how hard they were here. They don’t have many machines and have to do things by hand  a lot which is really cool.

         Lunches are the biggest meal of the day. After such hard morning of work it is so rewarding to get such a large meal. Today our lunch  had chicken, rice, corn tortilla, salad, chips, watermelon and a peanut treat.  After lunch we spent a couple hours at the beach. The waves were  a lot bigger than they normally are because we don’t usually go during high tide.

         Our dinner wasn’t that exciting. It was spaghetti with meat sauce, rice and salad. Because I cant eat pasta I just ate a lot of rice which was rather boring.