It has been very difficult for many students on the trip to say goodbye to Isla Pucu. There were many friends made and great experiences had. These friendships will continue for a long time; they were real. The hard part for many was to put those thoughts aside and dive into the new.
Today we started our work in Santa Ana. Early in the morning, many of the students had their “walls” still up after being introduced to two new groups, the kids in the Centro Communitario and the students from the San Jose school. Domingo Alonso, one of the trip directors, began to break down those walls early on with exciting activities that got everyone more comfortable with each other. Of course, this meant everyone had to dance, but the results were immense.
Later in the morning, we all split up into our groups for the week: medio ambiente (environment), deportes (sports), arte (art) and informatica (information/technology). Then we set out to explore the community of Santa Ana and survey our projects and their needs. Walking the streets of Santa Ana, it all came back to me from last year. You could see dogs running wild, flooded water on the streets from lack of infrastructure, broken down homes and people sleeping on the street. These conditions shocked many of the students. Many were expecting poverty, but not to the degree they saw it.
This walk is really when the students began to put aside dwelling on Isla Pucu and opening up to the new. They saw that despite these extreme and sad conditions, everyone managed to smile and hope for a better life. They saw the young leaders passionately speak about the problems in the community and the projects to help fix them. These are the same leaders that inspired me to come back another year. Students saw the hope in the youth of Santa Ana and the amount of work that needed to be done, put everything else aside, and immersed themselves into these new endeavors.
-Nathan Herchenroeder
Teacher