Kenia in the Middle

I bet you’re all excited for this one based off the title but, let’s start out with what I did volunteering today. Today we went back into El Yunque to one of their local schools to teach young kids about what we do for the community and what they can do to help out on their own. Keeping the forest clean is a huge priority for those kinds of communities being so close to the rainforest. I don’t have any pictures from the school out of respect for the young kids but I will say they were ADORABLE! They all spoke Spanish so I did my best to understand what they were actually saying but either way they were so sweet! All of them were extremely hyper, running all over the place, just wanting to touch the shells we brought in as props. Yvette and Juan gave a brief presentation, took questions, then we all begun a painting activity. They were assigned to make a collaborative painting to hang in their school. I really struggled to communicate with the kids during this activity but I still had a fun time getting to paint with all of them. Once we finished up we cleaned up the mess we made and headed back to the rivers. Today they said we’d go back to the forest because we were so close by and they wanted to show me the cliffs we could jump off. On our drive back up we stopped on the side of the road to grab some mangos fresh out of the tree! Best mango I’ve had in awhile. If you look up things to do in San Juan the place we went is the first thing that will pop up. It is the biggest tourist attraction in the city. They have the natural water slides, a rope swing, and of course the cliffs. Most people schedule group tours to go on at this location. Once again, like yesterday, it’s a brief hike to get to the river. Throughout our walk juan was teaching me and having me try all the edible medicinal plants. For example I learned about natural insulin used to treat diabetes, I also ate multiple flowers. Juan put natural clay/mud on my face as they did during ceremonies back in the day. He also decided to rub it all over himself as a so called “exfoliant.” As we waited for all the tours to clear we hiked a little further up to have some privacy and swim for a bit. Once most of them cleared we got the opportunity to go down two slides, and jump off all the rocks! The slides go way faster than you expect and they don’t hurt at all! Once I got up there it was so much higher than it looked but as long as you don’t think about and just go it’s not that bad. We hiked back down when it started to get crowded again and went to lunch. They were gracious enough to buy my meal today and took me to this great vegan health bar restaurant. We had vegan empanadas and Acai bowls. The empanadas were so good, they had beans, quinoa, greens, and other things that I couldn’t really tell. A much needed healthy and filling meal! We drove back and they dropped me off around 4 so I still had a bit of my day left. I decided to just relax after a long day then went on a run once the sun started to set. Showered, did my routine, drank a huge glass of water, read, then finally went to bed. I’m looking forward to my 3rd weekend here in Puerto Rico after once again another great day!