Today was meant to be a similar schedule, another day of camp at the children’s school but rain gave us a change of plans. We all gathered in the main building when half of us went to pick up the children. I stayed and helped set up in the upstairs of the building. A wide opening with plenty of chairs and tables, we set up stations to wash and paint rocks and flowers. We even had an activity making structures out of sticks and marshmallows like we did when we were small. Musical chairs were put together in the far corner. When the kids arrived after a long-anticipated wait, it was immediately chaos, in a good way. For the next four hours the upstairs of the building was filled with Spanish, laughter, and music. The kids had so much fun even though it was an impromptu day as the rain complicated our plans for a nature walk. In the end, it didn’t matter and each kid found something they liked. Alejandro, a more solitary kid, loved to hang out with us and blow bubbles. Maria, an adorable little girl, had a ton of fun painting and coloring on the sheets of paper we traced birds and butterflies on. Dana, one of the older girls, was crushing musical chairs and loved building her marshmallow tower with her little brother. It was so fun to see their creativity. I’m often surrounded by kids as a tutor at my work, but I usually don’t get to see them having fun and being their creative selves. They began gluing parts of flowers to their drawings to add a 3D element, and they created a swing and, with some prompting, a person, out of marshmallows and sticks. The hours flew by as they did yesterday and we were finishing up lunch before I knew it. We said goodbye to most the kids and hung out with the rest as their parents trickled in to pick them up.

            After the camp had ended, we went back upstairs and hung out until an older woman and what I assume were her kids came by to teach us some traditional dances. They gave us beautiful, heavy, long skirts and we practiced a series of dances after watching the kids demonstrate. It was funny as we all tripped over ourselves trying to copy the children. Though I’m not very coordinated, it was an amazing experience that I think we all enjoyed. Afterwards we went back to the café we found about 20 minutes away. We got drinks and some snacks and by now it was fairly chilly so sitting in the sun was refreshing. We got to try a couple more new foods at the café including pan de yuca which I thought was very good. After the hike back I got some time to pet Rocky, the fluffy dog who lives in the main building we held camp in. He is adorable and I take every chance I can to pet him even though I come back covered in white dog fur. George and I are the clear dog lovers of the group, but everyone loves Rocky. We paid a visit to the cat next door too. Eventually we came back for reflection and some time to ourselves before heading off to dinner. That’s where I’ll leave off for today; three more days of Cerro Punta.