I woke up on Saturday morning very excited for the day ahead of me because the day before had been very rainy.

 

We started the day with a filling breakfast of bread, eggs, fresh fruit and fruit juice, as well as hot chocolate and coffee. After breakfast we headed to the Chocvi village and were all very excited because we finally had an idea of what a minga was.

 

On the way to the village we also got to drive by the town we went to on the first day and see that they had already made progress from the day before which was really exciting.

 

When we arrived at the Chocavi Community the people came right up to us and were very welcoming from the moment we got off the bus.

 

They told us that a lot of the community was not going to be there that day because it was a holy day and the president of the community was also not able to be there because he had a very important meeting.

 

We started out talking to the people that were there and they told us that the job we were going to be doing was cleaning out the cemetery.

 

I was kind of hesitant at first because I thought it was going to be really creepy but it ended up not being creepy at all.

When we first went into the cemetery we were not sure what we were supposed to be doing because of the language barrier, but we figured out what we were doing soon enough.

 

There were some men who gave us hoes and we looked at what everyone else was doing, then got to work. We soon figured out that we had to surface all the grass and weeds in the entire cemetery which was a much harder task than we expected.

 

After only a couple of strikes of the hoe I was already worn out as well as out of breath because of the change in elevation, but we kept on working to try to keep up with the people. It was really cool how everyone worked in a line together and it really gave everyone in our group a real sense of community.

 

The task of cleaning this cemetery that was bigger than a football field would be impossible for only one or more people, but with the whole community it was a lot easier.

 

After working for about an hour all of the people in the community were way ahead of us, but we still kept working as hard as we could.

 

When everyone else was done and we were still working a man from the community came out with a bucket of juice and started passing it out to people.

 

We were all kind of worried when this happened because we were told not to drink the water, but they gave us the juice anyway and we had to act like we were drinking it and pour it out.

 

When this was happening one of the girls in our group, Nicole, thought that one of the guys, Paul was actually drinking the juice. She was pretty far away from him, and she yelled out 'Paul….NO!!!!!"

 

Then I reminded her that they understand no, so she tried to cover up by telling him to grab his hoe, but it was too late and the people still heard her.

 

After we finished the first section of the cemetery it started raining so we stopped for a little while, but the community kept working.

 

There was a smaller half of the cemetery left to plow so most of the indigenous people did it and we helped pick up sticks. When the entire cemetery was finally weeded, it was time for lunch.

 

We went into the community room and there was a table in the middle set up for us as well as a bunch of chairs set up around the room for the people. They brought our entire group huge plates of food with corn, lima beans, and potatoes.

 

All the people around the room were just watching us eat for a while so we felt really bad, but then they brought in a huge bin of food and they all ran up to it and fought for the food.

 

We were not that hungry and we did not finish all of our food so we gave it to them. They also brought us juice at lunch, but it was boiled this time so we could drink it.

When we were done eating lunch some girls asked us if we wanted to go play soccer with them so we did.

 

The soccer field was concrete, but it was a really fun game. It was really cool to see how even though we could not understand each other soccer was a common language that everyone knew and we could just play it together without any barriers. After soccer it was time for the town meeting, so we went back to the community center.

 

At the meeting the town gave us a proposal to build them a computer lab as well as a proposal to create a sisterhood with them.

 

They then showed us what they used the money we gave them for, which was to buy a desk and a whiteboard.

 

We gave them a token of our appreciation which was a tile from Michigan and they gave us a poncho that they had made for us themselves.

 

Then it was finally time to leave the town.

When we left the community we went to Father Victor's house, who was a priest that had been with us all week. When we got to his house he gave us a tour and then we went downstairs and had some coffee and homemade bread. After we were done he gave us a tour of his church and then it was time to go back to the ministry of agriculture where we were staying.

 

We had a little bit of time to relax and then we had dinner which was delicious as always.

 

The night ended with a reflection as usual and we also got a chance to look at some of the pictures from the day. This was a great day that really took a lot of hard work, but also taught us a lot.