11
Location: Santa Ana
After spending a night with our new and improved families, we all awoke to glorious platters of pancakes, bacon, and fruit for breakfast. Already feeling the drastic effects of separation anxiety, we nearly teared up upon being reunited on our bus and eagerly caught each other up after the long emo hours of the night before. Once Selena and I finally arrived (my alarm decided to turn off), we all piled onto the bus on our way to our next adventure at La Finca, an activity center for the children of La Carpio. When opening the door, four furry faces greeted us, and we all became fast friends with the dogs there, Ricki, Riley, Lucas, and Bamboo. From thereon, we proceeded to cuddle the dogs and call it service. Eventually, we realized there was more to do than pet the dogs, and we dove into our work by smashing down rocks and walls with shovels as a form of anger management. From 9 to 12:30, we continued digging out at the soil behind the wall until lunch when we excitedly opened up the packed lunches prepared by our host parents. Unfortunately, the camera died, and so my team leader duties were cut short. The work continued a little longer, and we all returned home. TJ (Tejas) threw around a ball with his “brothers” and had an early night turning in at 8:30. Rose and Neeti rolled around with their chubby dog and had a singing sesh while Selena, and I felt very much at home with our face masks and ice cream watching Netflix with our “mom.” We were all excited to spend more time with the dogs the next day, but we’ll get to that…
(Due to the popularity of our blog, I will be adding additional photos from previous days into the next few blogs. Enjoy!- Enrico)