Escuela y Piñas

After last night's blog post, we busted out the clippers and razors. Matias trimmed Justin's beard down to a goatee after a lost bet, and Arianne gave Kirin braids in anticipation of his birthday. While our laughter was loud during hairstyling, we couldn't seem to match the howler monkeys that screamed us awake at 6:00 am — between Justin waking us up early yesterday and the monkeys we might never get a full night of sleep.

After starting the day early, we split up into two groups  to visit two of the three community projects— an elementary school and an organic farm. 

When we got to the elementary school, they were having an art festival. We got to watch the kids present their art projects such as dances, puppet shows, and songs. All the kids were super cute, very social, and talented. They even said hello to us in English to show off their skills from English class. We also played musical chairs with the kids, who were very competitive and got us all out in the first couple of rounds. We also planned how to organize their garden and the kids even helped us draw our designs. 

On the farm side, we learned about Daniel and his incredible organic farm. We were awed to discover the differences between the large monocropping organizations — which use chemicals to increase profits, but destroy the land — and the organic farm — which hand cultivates vanilla, peppercorn, and achiote, replacing chemicals with love.

Today was a super hot day, but we cooled off in the river and had a chill evening. After dinner, Kirin blew out his candles turning one —they forgot the 7.

Off to go make frienship bracelets!
- K Debs && I ♡ NY(e)        











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