Today we made the two hour drive to Communidad Ocatavio Ortiz. On arrival we were greeted by the elementary school students and preschoolers each holding their own banners of welcome. We each introduced ourselves and sang a song with the community.
We went to go see look around in the preschool and elementary school classrooms and found out that the students didn't have class that day since they had participated in a march in the morning to raise awareness of Dengue fever. Then we were sent off in groups of 1 or 2 to go have lunch and get settled in with our host families. All of the host families were very welcoming and cooked excellently. After we had time to eat and introduce ourselves to our host families we had time to talk with them and we began sharing stories about our lives.
I was in a group together with Julio and our host mother was named Guana. She had three amazing kids named Janette, Franklin, and Jonathan. Later that afternoon we got to meet with the Youth Committee. This was very interesting because we got to hear more about what it was like to be a youth living in this community and we got to hear some of the projects that the youth had organized and were involved in including a new sports center for the youth within their own community. After this we met with the Directiva who told us about the leadership and organization of the community. Here we got to hear about the Sugar Cane Mill Project which we went to go visit during the meeting in order to see the progress that had been made on the project. Later on we had dinner together with our delegation and our host families. After dinner it was time for reflections which gave many of the community members a chance to tell their stories or any words of wisdom to the entire delegation as a whole. After this we went home with the host families and we went to bed after more time talking with the families. Being with the host families was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Mark
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