Aspen Community School Puerto Rico 2026
May 7, 2026
Day one in Puerto Rico was a blast!
First we stared with a delicious breakfast with everything you can imagine!! Then we packed up for Old San Juan where we meet our tour guide, Sarah. We toured the city and learned so much, finally wrapping it up with piraguas, then walked around the original fort that was built by the Spaniards 6 centuries ago. After visiting the Fort, we walked to lunch and had a traditional Puerto Rican meal from tostones/ amarillos, chicken or ribs. Right after that we, split into groups and went shopping. After a fun hour of shopping we get picked up by Fernando, our driver and we were taken to the Bomba dance class, a traditional African dance where the dancer leads and the drummer follows each movement that comes from the dancer because every move has its own beat. We wore big flowy skirts and had the best time! Lastly we got ready for dinner and had breaded chicken, salad and pasta. We returned to our house in the beach for a good night’s sleep before our service day tomorrow. Buenas noches!
By: Addy & Kayleigh
May 8, 2026
Day two in Puerto Rico was even better!!!!!!!!
We woke up to a beautiful breakfast in Casa Coral and got ready for the day. Next we headed to our work site. In the van, we played trivia about things we learned so far in this trip about Puerto Rico. Once we arrive at the work site we met Willy, Angel and Eggy. They taught us about what we were building and how to stay safe on the job site. We are building cement rooms for a family with three kids so they can be safe from hurricanes and have more room for their family. After placing rebar, we attached it with wire to prepare for the concrete pouring at the end of the trip. Addy and Kayleigh cut the wire. While they were cutting the wire, the rest of us cut the rebar. Once we finished at the work site, we went to Angel’s house for lunch. Maria made the chicken nuggets, salad and rice. After lunch, we left the work site and went to a local super market to buy candy and snacks. We then went to the big yellow house and unpacked our stuff. Then we went to the beach for an hour where we swam and played football. After the beach we came back to the big yellow house, collected coconuts, played volleyball, and ate a dinner of chicken, salad, and potatoes. Finally we had journaling time and got ready for bed. And that’s our day!!!!!!! See you soon.
By: Gray & Ava Marie
May 9, 2026
Day three in Puerto Rico was even better than day one and two! Three is the magic number! We started our day by waking up at 7:30 to Satya’s song:”Buenos dias” Next, we ate a delectable cooked egg yolk, French toast and beautiful fresh fruit. We finally got our butts out of the door and headed back to the work site. We took a detour to Willy’s house to load wood into a truck to bring to the house we are working on. Next we enjoyed a really exquisite home cooked meal. Once we finished lunch we headed down the street to start putting the wood so we can mould the wall. After this Angel gave us a motivating speech about teamwork and communication. Then the work morale seemed much more accomplishable so we plowed through the rest of the work day. Something we learned is how to put on crab claw clamps to fasten the wood to the metal ties. All of these materials and work created the molds and tomorrow we plan to pour cement inside. After our work day at around 4 we headed to the super market to get some snacks and then went to the beach. We enjoyed that for about 30 minutes and then cleaned ourselves and enjoyed our delectable home catered meal. Our salsa class unfortunately got cancelled, but we will have it rescheduled for tomorrow. So we played volleyball instead. We journaled our hands out till we couldn’t write anymore. Then we got ready for bed and hit the hay. Goodnight and don’t let the bed bugs bite! P.S. IT’S FINN’S BIRTHDAY TOMORROW!
By: Cece & Rowan
May 10th, 2026
Happy Mother’s Day!
Today was better than day one, day two, and day three combined! We started off the day by eating some GOOD breakfast. We had some very interesting looking eggs, pancakes, fruit, and delectable waffle fries. We packed up and left for the construction site. Once we got there, we got a very inspiring speech by Angel, who is our leader, and conductor. We got off to our work. We were making and pouring concrete. We passed the concrete that was made in a fire line, and then handed it up to the people that were pouring it into the walls. The boys (there are a small amount of them) were sweating bullets. They were so sweaty, it almost looked like they dumped a bucket of water on their head. Then we went up to Maria’s house to get some nutritious, good food in our body! We had something besides chicken and rice. We had pasta and chicken! We got back to the construction site and started working again
Overall, we finished 30 bags of cement over the time we were at the worksite today. Then we got back to the BIG YELLOW HOUSE!! Then we got ready, got some ice cold popsicles from the freezer and walked to the beach. We swam around in the water with our awesome goggles, and we played chicken wars! (Yes, more chicken). Finn and Ava Marie won every single round!! Then we got (NA) Pina Coladas for FINN’S birthday! They were really good, and ice cold. They every much hit the spot. Afterwards, we walked back to the BIG YELLOW HOUSE. We hung around, and showered until dinner came around. We had some salad with pork chops. We also ate some fried plantains (called tostones), and some caramelized plantains (Amarillos). A little bit after dinner, our salsa teacher arrived at the BIG YELLOW HOUSE. She taught us how to salsa dance, and now we are in the professional salsa dancing league. After dancing, we talked at the table and journaled about our day. Then we went to bed. THE END.
By: Finn & Judd
May 11, 2026
I don’t know if it was mentioned but, we usually wake up at a good sunny 7:30 am. Not today. Today we woke up to Satya’s lovely voice AT 5 in the morning and headed to the beach to catch an early sunrise! After that we went back to the Big Yellow House and ate an amazing breakfast.
We all packed our day packs and got into big white van to head over to the Semilla cacao farm. Once we got there, we started with the work which included pulling weeds, filling bags with dirt, and planting plantains. Then for an activity we were going to do later, we went around with tiny plastic baggies and collected nature materials. Once our little gardening adventure was done, we all pulled up some chairs sat down and Delvin came outside with some bags of chocolates (we all got quiet when that happened.) Finally we got to try them!
First we saw a cacao plant. Then we tried the slimy beans inside that honestly tasted pretty good. It kind of tasted like a warm lemony slug. And finally Delvin passed out little square pieces of 40% cacao chocolate. We were about to take a bite when he says, “STOP! …Smell…what do you SMELL?” Honestly I just wanted to eat it because it was melting down my hand in the triple digit temperature. But sadly we had to smell it first and we low-key liked it. It made the piece last longer and taste much better too. Then Delvin leans in and says: “You taste grapes? It tastes like grapes doesn’t it? Go on see if it tastes like grapes.” It did not taste like grapes. Surprisingly it tasted like chocolate. But it was really great chocolate.
After the chocolate tasting we got to buy some! Some people even bought some for their families to try! Next we drove off back to the Big Yellow House to gather up our stuff for the beach. Once we got to the beach, (here’s what the random bags of nature was for:) we made sculptures on the beach inspired by the great Andy Goldsworthy and took photos (if you don’t know who Andy Goldsworthy is, stop right now and go look him up). The rest of the time we had at the beach we literally just chilled and swam and had a great time! Then, we went back to the community and had one last goodbye celebration with the crew we did our work with, we got photos and ate amazing food. It was over all too soon and we went back into Randall’s big white van and drove back to our Big Yellow House. (It’s big and yellow if you wanted a description). We were so tired we fell asleep before our heads hit our pillows (except for us who HAD to write this!)
By Fiona and Elise
May 12, 2026
Today was better than day 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 combined. First thing we woke up at 7:30 but some of the girls woke up before that. We got dressed, finalized packing and we cleaned the Big Yellow House. We had breakfast and loaded into the van with our driver, Randall, and went to Angel’s house to finish our service. Once we got there we started moving all of the floor tiles outside so they were more accessible to Angel. Once we finished hauling all of those across, we had lunch. Maria cooked us cheeseburgers today with French fries which were really good. Then we asked our final questions to Angel and he also gave us really good advice including that communication and teamwork is key to good work ethic. We said our goodbyes and headed to Luquillo to go shopping. Some of us got smoothies as well. Once we finished our two shopping spots we headed back to Casa Coral (the same place we stayed at the first night). We had a fast turn around and headed to the beach. We did have to stay in silence for 30 minutes but then we went to to the river beside our hostel. Then we gathered our notebooks and journaled for a few minutes. Then we ate pizza for our dinner. We are headed to the bioluminescent bay and we will get back at 11pm! Good night… Can’t wait to see you all tomorrow.
By Cece & Rowan
