Arturo, 17

The past four days were somehow very difficult to me. First of all, the four to five hour drive to Yorkin wasn't the best. Sitting in the bus made me feel really frustrated at times while people made too much noise. However, when arriving closer to Yorkin, the boat ride was definitely one of the most stress relieving things we did. For some reason I felt like the boat ride was one of the most exciting things we did on the trip. It gave me a lot of time to think and feel the freshness of nature. I believe it was one of the best things we did because it was one of the first times that I was able to be alone in a way. By the time of us going to Yorkin, I felt I needed some time to think alone and canoeing to Yorkin made me feel great.

As we did our service work in Yorkin, I definitely thought it was much more challenging than what we did in La Carpio. It was challenging because not only did we have to deal with the work but with knowing that we were in the middle of the forest and other minor things. As for me, one of my challenges is being in places in nature. By this I mean going camping, taking a walk to the park or being anywhere that is outside of the city, makes me feel depressed. However, in Yorkin, I thought I overcame that challenge because I did not feel any awkwardness in me. I tried to interact with some of the students more to keep my mind off thinking too much. We played cards about every day which helped even more and it became a routine.

Otherwise, after all, I felt really proud of myself because I knew I worked hard. We all worked hard and made the Stribrawpa community feel proud of us too by seeing us doing challenging work in the hot sun. Some time in the future I would actually like to go back to this community and see how much it has grown and how their projects are improving.