day 7-sept 7

This morning mom woke up around 3am, she couldn't fall back asleep so she's been up for quite a while. She's felt the energy she's needed today, but is feeling sleepy tonight. For breakfast we had rice, watermelon, some soup, and something else we don't remember now haha! 

On the drive to painting today, I talked to Stefi (she's from Mexico City, she had American elementary school teachers so has a very good American accent) we talked about interests and our fears and likes. She talked about how her fear was being alone, and her likes were being with family, friends, and eating(loves Tacos El Pastor) She has a really sweet spirit about her. For lunch we had fried chicken and rice and some noodles at the school with the kids. We were at the school to paint again. We painted for 4.5-5 hours, with breaks of course. We painted a mural together of the beach, I painted a saying, mom did shapes, and we did a color one together. We were able to play with the kids during lunch for a bit. They had some workout equipment and the kids were playing on them. We raced one of the kids and one of the little boys went and grabbed a water bottle and put water in it and shook it so that it made a twister out of the water 💦. It was awesome. I tried to teach him a game, but he didn't quite get it. Many of the kids said "hello, my name is ..." and would say "what's your name?" When were by the bathroom, two little girls were really happy to see us, they did the English-alphabet and mom helped them with a couple of letters, they counted to 10. Mom and I had a really good talk about our trip and our own expectations, supporting each other and communicating thoughts and concerns. It's neat to see how we keep learning things to help us grow as people. 

One of the girls from our group is named Noella, the kids loved her and gathered around and hugged her. It was so cute to witness. We were able to talk to other volunteers, Luigi(don't know how to pronounce his real 
name) he is from Tokyo, Japan. He just graduated college and is trying to learn about himself. We talked about expectations and how he doesn't always feel 
happy due to high expectations. He said that he has realized some things to change to bring more happiness. 

(I'm blogging and reading aloud to mom and she just fell asleep 😴! I'm talking to her and she wasn't responding, she's tired!) 

On the way back from painting we were talking to each other in the back of our truck bus. It was pretty awesome, we were singing songs, started out with "you're beautiful" by James Blund, here were 5 different people from four different countries singing the same song. We are definitely all so similar and connected. Mom was able to talk to Tina about the Bemer and get to know her more. It was a really good day. 

We got back and quickly thereafter has some dinner(rice, taco curry, greens and meat, and pineapple) I think I've said it but the pineapple here is so sweet! It's amazing! After dinner we showered, it was a pretty hot day so we were sweaty! After our showers, we went and hike around a bit. We saw tons of banana 🍌 trees, which is really neat. On our walk back, we ran into a group of volunteers who were walking to the local village. We 
went with them and played games as they had their drinks. We played "Werewolf" which is similar to mafia, they voted mom Major, they said she is the only trustworthy one of the group. She did great! She was unsure if they would want to spend time around her since she is older, but they loved her and didn't want us to leave when we headed back after a few games. The last round, the three werewolves were Mehear (an Indian boy who grew up in England), and Sarah (from New York) and myself. We totally fooled everyone and we won the game. It was awesome how it worked out. We headed back to our quarters and played more farkle with Sarah (Canada), she and mom won more tonight! It's been really funny writing this blog, I was asking mom the Indian boys name and she so confidently said "Akim" I have no idea where that came from. After laughing and her trying to explain it was from Aladdin,?? She realized it was a basketball players name. She is SO tired! It  has been a great day! It was a bit hotter today due to the sun coming out, it ended with a beautiful rain storm that just ended. This place is wonderful! 

Tonight as we were walking around, Nikki told us where another lizard was and we went over to the building and found it at last. It was baby blue with polka dots and about a foot long! It is awesome that that is wildlife here!