Vamos para el rio! Let's go to the river!

August 4: I was invited by the leader of the women’s group in my community to partake in a day at the river with her catechism class and was super excited to spend the whole day hanging out with people other than my family – who I absolutely love but you know how it is…

Dos Danielas!

So me, a couple adults and a truck bed full of kids bought refrescos – sodas – and headed for el Rio Inoa. The rivers here are completely gorgeous and the people here in the campo love nothing more than to spend the day swimming in them. We swam, ate rice and beans, learned English in the river and made a human pyramid three standing people high before crashing down, laughing too hard to support each others weight.

I was feeling a little sleepy after lunch so one teen made me a bed and a sleeping mask of leaves.

After lunch the teenagers and I we were talking about how much they enjoyed their experience in Scouts and I happened to mention that I can’t wait to start a similar environmental youth group where we live (actually I didn’t just happen to mention it, really it’s the bulk of what I’d like to accomplish during my time here but I have to be sneaky about roping kids in ;) to go camping, take trips, clean up trash etc…and, be still my beating heart, they said, “Well lets start right now!” and began collecting all the trash from the river bank. We finished a huge pile of trash, four smiles (though they don't typically smile in pictures) and a conversation about what color green our new club shirts are going to be - definitely a high point on the roller coaster of being pro-environment…in any country.