Today started off like most any school day. Wake up, eat breakfast, drive to school, and meet in the classroom. Despite us having three hours of pe today, no less than five people wore jeans, showing the American listening skills we are so well known for. Our first activity was art with the younger kids. We got into groups of 8, and created a (quite easy) riddle describing an object. Watercolors, markers, pencils, paper, and crayons were taken up in a frenzy of creativity. Between laughter, Spanglish, and new freindships being formed, watercolor elephants, crayon dogs, and colored pencil spiders came to life. The riddles were then shared with the group to a chorus of cheers as one by one each animal was guessed and revealed. After a short break, we were headed off to our second activity of the day- one that would test our acting and improvisation skills. We were tasked with creating a performance in 30 minutes (it was more like 20) for a primary school class based on Spanish picture books. We got into groups and quickly created a rocky but entertaining and broadway worthy performance with a scarf headed pirate, a very realistic treasure chest (a purse) and actors who couldn’t help but laugh at the performances, about a pirate looking for treasure and a kid looking for our friend were excellent. Everyone involved did a great job and the kids ate up every minute of it. After that, we walked to their classroom to help write about their day and draw the performances. Lunch was wraps with some concoction of chicken and vegetables, along with papas fritas (fries) and a strange sweet potato soup, along with the typical salad and bread. For dessert, we could choose from alfajores, cake, or fruit jello. The signing shenanagins continued today, with the Cary academy students not able to walk anywhere without being swarmed by tiny children asking for our signatures. This, Ofcorse, gave me a chance to continue my game- saying increasingly bizarre things when asked for my signature to see if the children question it. My favorites of the day were (in Spanish Of course) “I cant it’s illegal”, “ sorry i can’t I have curly hair”, and “no thanks im allergic to colors”. After lunch, it was time for some games outdoors. We started off with team sprints, followed by a game of dodgeball (ish). The rules werent exactly explained clearly, so I spent most of the game trying to figure out what was going on. After about an hour of that, we moved on to football (soccer), which was fun aside from the insane amount of mosquitos. After that, it was back home to rest and get ready for the night. We spent a couple hours resting before heading over to someone’s house to celebrate a birthday. Happy birthday was sung in both languages before the “cake” was cut, which looked more like layers of cookies, whipped cream, and Dulce de leche. Surprisingly enough, it was one of the best desserts I have had this whole trip. Eventually, it was time to go home and we said our goodbyes before returning to bed to prepare for another day full of once in a lifetime adventures. –Mirella
I started my morning with a breakfast with my host family consisting of medialunas and coffee. We then got ready and took are daily drive to school along with our beautiful daily sunrise out the window. Once we arrived to school my buddy and I split ways as I went to meet up with our CA group. Our first activity of the day was a small group activity with the third level kids in which we made a riddle and an artistic representation of the riddle. My group’s was a giraffe and Keira and I worked together to sketch out and paint the giraffe with three of the little kid members of our group, while Callie worked with the other two members to write up a riddle about the giraffe in spanish. We then all presented our work and had everyone try and solve each other’s riddles. After that we had a break outside where we battled through a crowd of the younger kids asking for firmas. Our second activity was an acting activity. We got into two large groups and were each given a story in spanish to act out for the kindergarteners. They loved our performance a heartwarming story about friendship and my interpretation of a tree standing still was groundbreaking! After that we went to their kindergarteners class and helped them with a writing activity. We then filed out for lunch and enjoyed a delicious meal of fajitas! For our final activity of the school day we played sports for the rest of school. My favorite was when we got to play fútbol with the Argentinian girls. We all had so much fun and playful banter. After school I went with Sidney, Rey, and our buddies to a delectable cafe to merendar. I destroyed a mocha coffee, cheese pastry, and medialuna. I then went home with my buddy and we got ready for a birthday party. We walked around the neighborhood and ate a delicious Argentinian cake while singing feliz cumpleaños! Overall it was another great day! –Cecilia