Cathedral School Puerto Rico 2026
April 11, 2026
We started at 6:30, when we were awoken by a rooster. The food crew had to hurry out of bed to set up breakfast for everyone. For breakfast we all had scrambled eggs, sausage, french toast sticks, and a wide variety of fruit. Then we had a 45 minute drive straight to San Juan where we met our tour guide.
We had the best tour guide, Alvin. We started off by walking the section of the city that was encircled by a huge, protective wall. The wall protected Old San Juan from the natives and foreigners from around the world. We viewed the magnificent bay from cool vantage points that were built into the wall.
We learned that in some sections of the wall it is over 20 feet thick. We learned about the inspirational story of how the Puerto Ricans caused invading Europeans to retreat. The story goes that the women, slaves and Bishop of San Juan had a torch parade to pray to the gods for good luck and guidance. Inadvertently, the Europeans saw the huge line of torches and were scared off. We walked to the great fort on the edge of Old San Juan to explore the views and the rich history that were involved in protecting Puerto Rico.
The Puerto Rican flag had a light blue symbolizing independence and the US militarily forced Puerto Rico to change the light blue to royal blue to show they were part of the US. Now, Puerto Ricans will fly the light blue flag during times of protest and resistance against corruption.
We ended at the fort on the end of San Juan island where we then marched across the city to a traditional Puerto Rican restaurant where we were either served: meat, pork, or chicken with a side with rice and beans, or fried plantains.We also tried mufongo, mashed plantains with butter and garlic.
After lunch we went to get souvenirs where people got delicious gelato or sorbet. All the flavors were delicious and tasty.
After souvenir hunting we made the trip back to the yellow house where we had “tranquillo hour”. Afterwards we walked only a block to the beach where the water was incredibly blue and clear. We body surfed waves and did tricks in the water as we played monkey in the middle and ball tag with a volleyball. After about an hour the salt consumed us and got into our eyes and dried us out. We walked back to the little yellow house and showered to get the salt and sand off our bodies. We spent the rest of the time before dinner playing baseball with a random cone. For dinner we had garlic chicken, fried/ sweet plantains, and salad. Then we played basketball and slowly went to sleep. Buenas noches!
By Trent, Richard, and Stanley
April 12, 2026
We woke up at 7:30, and had delicious breakfast at 8 which was pancakes, eggs, and fruit. We prepared to head out to the worksite and left at 9. After a 30 minute drive we arrived, and met Angel, Brian, Willy, and Eggy, who all explained the work to us.
We first cut rebar and hammered cangrejos in, cangrejos (crabs in English) are pieces of metal that hold 2x4s together. We all loved the work and can’t wait to keep partnering with the Puerto Rican community. We headed to Maria’s home for delicious spaghetti and meatballs. We worked some more before heading back to Big Yellow House to relax before the beach.
Next we went to the beach and hit some waves while body surfing. After some fun play we went back for a huge baseball game with a traffic cone for a bat and a volleyball for our baseball. We then had bolognese for dinner with salad and fruit on the side.
After our delicious dinner we played two games, “cheers to the governor” and “headbands”. When we finished our fun games we journaled about our day talking about our rose, thorn, and the differences we saw from Puerto Rico to San Francisco. Hasta mañana!
By PJ + Peter
April 13, 2026
We woke up at 7:45am, and had breakfast at 8am which was French toast, fruits, eggs, and sausage. We prepared to leave for the worksite and left at 9:20am. After driving for a while we arrived. Willy explained the work to us. We had to first cut rebar and then tied it to the rest of the rebar. We then went to lunch at Maria’s house and ate chicken nuggets, delicious rice, and salad.
After eating, we returned to the worksite. Then we worked on getting the wood on the walls and finished with hammering more “crabs” to the walls. Getting the walls up was a huge task! We had to lift a 40 pound wood slab to line up with 18 pegs that had to go through it. Then we got to use power tools like drills to secure 2×4’s to the slab to hold it in place.
For dinner we ate grilled chicken, roasted potatoes and salad. After dinner, we has a fun salsa class and learned it like masters! We did roses and thorns, and for thorns some people said they didn’t even have one! That’s how you know the day was good! The roses on the other hand were all over the place (another good sign). Some said their rose was the work sight, salsa dancing, frozen grapes, and how well we worked together. We were all so proud of the teamwork we put into today!
By Justus & Oliver
April 14, 2026
Today, we woke up at 7:30, and had a banging breakfast which included eggs, pancakes, turkey, and fresh fruit. We got all packed for the day and ready to go for our final day of creating the wall mold before pouring the cement. The work started with adding the wood for the molds which was a team effort and ended up actually going quickly. By that time, it was already lunch, so we headed off to Maria’s for some delicious tikka masala, rice, and salad.
After lunch, we headed back to the worksite excited to work. We had to reinforce the interior wood wall molds, so we had to add “crabs” to the metal pegs. Then we would put in a 2×4 piece of wood in between the wall mold and crabs, which kept the wood molds connected together. Once we demolished that task, we drove back to the yellow house for “tranquilo” hour, but it wasn’t really calm because we played baseball the whole hour while waiting to go to the beach to catch some rad waves.
The waves were the biggest out of the entire time we had been here, so we all had so much fun! After being at the beach for almost two hours, we walked back to the yellow house to clean off the saltwater and sand. Then, we rested for a little bit and waited for a delicious dinner which turned out to be amazing pork chops with fried jackfruit, mofongo balls, salad, and more fresh fruit. We let our bellies rest and then we played some fun games of Mafia with some oreo ice cream to top it off. In conclusion, there weren’t many thorns today! There were a lot of roses like playing mafia, going to the beach, seeing our progress on the worksite, and having delicious meals.
By JD & Charlie
April 15, 2026
Today, we awoke at 7:30, like every other day. Ricky, our cook, dropped food off early so Stanley, Richard, and Trent needed to get out of bed fast to get breakfast prepared. We started our day with a hardy breakfast of eggs, waffles, and sausage patties. Once we were done with breakfast, we decided to pre-pack, a suggestion of Mr. Corrigan’s. We then made our way to the community.
We were met with incredibly hard work, laying the cement. On the site there were four main jobs: shoveling the sand and soil into buckets and carrying them to the mixer, shoveling the cement from the mixing machine into buckets, moving the cement via fire line, and finally pouring the cement into the wall molds. It was hard work, shoveling heavy material into even heavier buckets everyone was sweating and working their hardest.
We were working in a tight knit unit, buckets were flying through the lines and cement was flying, mostly making it into the wall mold, though quite a bit got on us. The beginning of the day started with sun but cloud cover quickly came. We were relieved at first but soon rain came despite the cloud free morning, halting the work. While it rained we went back to Maria’s for lunch, hauling our tired and cement covered bodies for one last lunch of tasty burgers and excellent fries. After saying goodbye to Maria and her dogs, we went back to the worksite.
We continued on the walls noticing our progress and rallying to continue with renewed energy. Rains returned, stopping work once more though we wanted to continue. Finally the rain stopped and we made one final push. With the final incredibly heavy buckets done (we finished over 90% of an entire room!) we packed up, changing into our spare clothes to avoid getting cement all over Randall’s van with minimal success.
Once we got back we had tranquillo time. Usually we would play baseball with our volleyball and a random cone but this time we just sat around a table and played mafia due to our fatigue. We hit the beach, the waves weren’t as big as yesterday but they were still good! Once we got back we settled back into our rounds of mafia after all of us showered. Around seven o’clock dinner arrived along with the people from the community. Ricky served us herbed rice and juicy chicken that was excellent. We had our final time all together with everyone. Willie thanked us for our hard work building an addition for his house and Angel reminded us of why they need our help but also what we can take from this trip. We had a bittersweet goodbye with everyone we had bonded with on the worksite. We went to bed thinking about the last six days, but also anticipating the new adventure the rainforest would bring.
By Stanley and Trent
April 16, 2026
Today, we woke up at 7:30am and we had breakfast at 8am from Ricky’s place. Then we packed our bags in preparation to head to the rainforest. Before we left though we went on a beautiful hike along the coast where we saw vistas of huge waves and palm trees. We came back and hit the road for one hour and thirty minutes after eating ice cream treats (yay!). When we arrived we met 3T and her staff who run the Casas de las selva (the house in the trees) and they cooked us incredible tacos. We played some games and then headed to work in the rainforest where we cleared the trails of bamboo. We cleared a path in the rainforest by demolishing everything in our way. It was very wet and muddy but incredibly fun. Then we played Werewolf for the first time before dinner. Dinner was spaghetti lasagna with a dessert of tiramisu! While we ate our tiramisu we enjoyed an informative slideshow from 3T about the history of the rainforest. Later we headed to bed amongst the sounds of the coqui frogs.
By: PJ and Peter
April 17, 2026
Today, we awoke at 7:30am and then went up to have breakfast. The delicious breakfast included frittata, fruit, and yogurt with granola. Then we got ready to work and plant endangered trees. We went up and took about 8 Pisonia horneae saplings, which accounted for about 10% of the whole population. We walked down a muddy path and got to our planting spot. We dug out spots in the mud and clay for the trees and carefully planted all the trees into the land. Unfortunately, we had to stop our service due to the rain. The trails became slippery so we had to carefully head back. On our way, we trampled ferns (as we were told to do!) and cleared the ferns to allow for all the water to run downhill. We waited around playing werewolf and showering with our extra time. Then we ate a delicious lunch of croque monsieur (hot ham and cheese sandwich) as well as salad. Because of the heavy rain, we had to end the service early. We played games, then we had a journal and had a discussion about the whole trip going over fun prompts, and roses and thorns. Tonight is our last night in the rainforest. 3T and Dougen will give a presentation about the history of the project and we will see a video that 3T made about Hurricane Maria. We will try to sleep through the very loud frogs and head to Luquillo!
By:Justus and Oliver
April 18, 2026
Today we woke up at 7:30am and then had a delicious breakfast which included pancakes, eggs, and yogurt. Next, we said our final goodbyes to 3T and her crew and set off for a long car ride to a beautiful beach in Luquillo. Most people had fish and fries for lunch, but a couple of people had mofongo or chicken for lunch. Everything was delicious! After that we walked down to the Kiosks in Luquillo where we shopped for some souvenirs. Then we drove to our hostel, Casa Coral, where we settled in and played some board games. After some chill time, we went paddle boarding in the brackish area by our hostel, where we saw iguanas in trees, a green sea turtle, and the leatherback sea turtle nesting grounds and learned some cool facts about them. Afterwards, we all played in the river for a little bit and then showered. Next, we all had some delicious pizza, and finally to wrap up the day, we journaled and said our final actual goodbyes to Luke and Randal.
By: JD and Charlie
