Mejor

Unfortunately, I do not have a report of full recovery but instead a day clouded by sickness. I woke up after 10 hours of sleep feeling pretty bad. I walked to school and all morning in Spanish class felt pretty terrible. I left class a few times thinking I would throw up but never being so lucky. I went home for lunch and mi mama prepared me some food that would be easy on my stomach including jello that she had me drink. I am in a different place. I took a long nap and headed back to school for the afternoon. I was uncomfortable all afternoon and felt my stomach churning. Tonight I felt weak but ate crackers, a banana, and was elated when I found some Gatorade at the pharmacy. Hopefully tomorrow morning will be better.

This afternoon we split into our two teams of interns and began to plan for our travels. My team, Impacto, is composed of nine individuals who all bring a fresh perspective and a variety of knowledge and experiences to the table. Today we worked on planning our consultation with La Era, a group of 8 women who want to expand their business of textiles in their rural village outside of Loja. Our task next week is to help them with team building and organization. After much discussion, we have a structure for our consultation including an ice breaker, the formation of a mission statement, creating an organizational circular system that allocates tasks, and finishing with personal goal setting. Our next task is translating our information into Spanish. I was nervous and did not feel prepared for a consultation but after discussing I was very empowered and excited about the job set before us. It was fascinating the different considerations we had in our planning and the communication of ideas. These women likely do not have computers, printers, or other such supplies. Some may not be able to read, others may have no sense of marketing techniques. I am eager to step into this new experience next week.

Thanks for reading!

Hasta Luego,

Cate