Puerto Rico: Hurricane Relief, Session 2 2025
June 26, 2025
We awoke as the sun crawled over the eastern horizon, rejuvenated and ready for the day. We indulged in a breakfast fit for kings that consisted of fluffy eggs, sweet French toast, and juicy sausage. After the delicious meal, we packed all 25 of us in two vans and headed in to old San Juan. After the hour long drive, we stepped out into the blazing sun with tired eyes and motivation in our hearts. We then met up with Sara, our tour guide. She greeted us warmly and we started our tour. During the tour, we encountered brightly colored buildings, crazy sculptures, fascinating culture, bright historical facts, and interesting wildlife. Some of the most interesting historical facts we learned were that each building’s color in the city has to be approved before the owners paint it. Additionally, we saw many statues, each with their own distinct meaning. During our visit to one of Puerto Rico’s three forts we also learned that each of the main forts took over 100 years to build. Throughout time, the forts all had different purposes on why they were built. The first forts were primarily built to defend against the natives that lived on the island, then the last of the forts purposes switched from defending against the natives to then defending against other European countries that seemed to take over the Puerto Rico island. Finally, we discovered that under the church we visited, a crypt was buried, holding many bodies from the past.
After the tour had ended, we all headed to lunch— a great place to replenish our bodies to continue our adventure. We had a selection of meats to choose from as well as tostones, amarillas, and rice and beans. After lunch, we hit the town and started helping the economy by shopping! During our shopping spree, we visited a variety of local businesses. On the way back to the vans, we stopped for paletas and heard a talented street player playing sax, wrapping up our San Juan journey. Once our pockets were empty and our bags were full, we piled into the vans once again and headed home to the Big Yellow House. After a quick nap in the van, we stopped by the house to grab our swim suits and towels, heading to the beach to wrap up the day. Once we returned we had a dinner that consisted of juicy chicken, mouth watering rice, and refreshing salad. We finished off the night by writing a blog for our adoring fans and sleeping with the wonderful AC.
By John, Abigaelle, Julie, and Thora
June 27, 2025
In today’s episode, we woke up with a melody that all of us will remember when we leave Borinquen; a rooster singing it’s typical song. As the 25 of us gathered around the tables, we were awoken by the delicious pancakes and eggs. Our Luxurious chauffeur’s took us to the entrance of Villa Del Rio. When we got there, we were introduced to William, Angel, and Eggy. With the help of our translator Letty, we were tasked with taking down the wooden planks/molds that kept the cement walls in place. Although our work was safe and efficient, the Puerto Rican sun rained down on the skin of many, causing us to grow in hunger. We found ourselves in the dining room of Angel;s house eating his wife’s beautiful rice and chicken. As the group lounged between patio and living room, many of us found ourselves in a food coma—which has it’s negatives and positives. We headed back to the worksite and strapped up our helmets to continue our first day of hurricane relief service. We ended up reaching our goal of taking out all the wood planks and starting on the roof. We also played with their 3 grandchildren, Camille, Abram, and Brian, taking polaroid pictures of them and interacting with them. While Fernando approached us, we made our goodbyes to Angel, William, and their 3 joyful grandchildren. After arriving back to the Big Yellow House, some of us prepared to depart for the beach, but the others stayed behind to relax and sleep. The beach was fun with cool waves and fun and we managed to get ice cream to escape from the heat just a bit. When we returned to the Big Yellow House, we were met with a delicious dinner, pasta and meat sauce. All 25 of us played two games, one to learn more about one another, and one just for fun, Manhunt. After the game was over, we indulged in some free time conversing with one another, playing board games and simply enjoying the company of others. We will end our day in beautiful silence along with the sounds of nature as we drift to sleep.
By Kiki, Melody, Nhon, Letti, Noel
June 28, 2025
The third day of the trip started off with a great agenda! We were given an extra hour of sleep. Some people used that to get ready for our work day and some took their sweet time with a nice nap. We were fed French toast this morning by Ricky, with a variety of fruit and some nice eggs with bell peppers. At about 8:30 we all got ready to load into Fernando’s vans, to go to the construction site. Fernando is the happiest person we’ve ever met. This was our second day of community service in Villa Del Rio. Today, once we got to the worksite the community members had finished preparing part of the roof. A lot of us were digging the dirt to loosen it, and moving it to a different location. We shoveled the dirt into buckets to transport it. We then broke for lunch at 12:00, and went to Angel and Maria’s house to eat chicken, rice, and salad. Then we got back to the workplace and continued our work. We got done around 2 pm. We returned to the big yellow house, to go to the beach, but before we were off, we made time to call home. Parents were excited to hear from everyone on the trip. We enjoyed talking to our parents, and then finally were off to the beach. After that we had dinner at 6 pm. Ricky brought us chicken, salad, and potatoes. Everyone ate a bunch, and then had to get ready for our next activity. After everyone finished getting dressed in their nice shirts, and nice dresses we began our favorite activity of the day, salsa dancing! Most of us got it down the first try, and some of us struggled, but we ended up doing well towards the end. After salsa dancing, we had our last meeting of the day, to talk about the plan for tomorrow. Eventually we all headed to bed.
By Eddie, Ben, Carla & Monet
June 29th, 2025
Our day began earlier than usual, at 630 am, as we awoke ready to conquer the challenges that lay ahead with a positive attitude. We fueled our bodies with fluffy pancakes and protein dense eggs for breakfast. After enjoying our breakfast of champions, we geared up in long sleeves and work pants to protect us from the succulent insects and harsh environment we would face on the farm. We filled our water bottles then loaded into the vans and headed over to Hacienda Bosque farm. The 1 hour long drive was full of music and laughter as our excitement was building for the farm work. After a quick stop at the Burger King restroom, we finally arrived at the farm. We met the owners of the farm, Keenan and Luis, who gave us a run down of how the farm was made to preserve the land and help out the community of Ciales. The farm was started specifically in the part of the community called “El agujero”, which translates to “the hole” in English. It is called this because the people who live above look down upon the people in this area because they are not as wealthy. We got to work straight away, working to speed up the process of helping the breadfruit trees get established, and making shade for the cacao beans to grow properly. We took a break and Adriana gave us a presentation on the history of agro-forestry in Puerto Rico. She also told us how the products the farm makes have been grown over the years, and help support the community. Then, they fried plantains in front of us, making delicious fresh tostones and amarillos. After that we ate lunch, which consisted of delicious sandwiches from a local Puerto Rican bakery. Right after lunch we took a group picture with a beautiful backdrop of the rock faces and luscious green trees surrounding the farm. After we captured the breathtaking and scenic view, we hopped back into the vans and drove to the big yellow house. The ride back was much quieter than the ride there, filled with snores after hard work at the farm. Back at the house, we refueled with gatorade and snacks and planned to head to the beach. We packed a football, soccer ball, and volleyball, and loaded up on sunscreen and made our way over to the local beach. The beach was very crowded, but we still found space to swim, throw the football and play soccer. We walked back to the big yellow house, and reflected on our community service, how it made us feel, and the purpose and many benefits for us and others of what we were doing. After, we enjoyed an delicious dinner of pork, chicken, waffle fries, and salad. We had a quick round of football and basketball, and now we are off to karaoke!
By Lucas A., River S., Milo M., and Kahlil N.
June 30th 2025
This morning we woke at the normal time of 7:30 am, knowing our day ahead was going to be the most physically and mentally challenging one yet. We dressed in our construction work clothes which consisted of heavy duty boots, long pants, and shirts we didn’t mind getting ruined. Due to the nature of cement focused days, we knew these clothes were going to be dirtied. We walked downstairs and energized ourselves with extra HARD waffles, ham, eggs, and fruit. We hopped into the vans with our backpacks full of all the supplies we’ll need for the work day. After suiting up in our construction hats and gloves, we jumped right into three main tasks. The first task was making the cement, rocks, sand, cement powder, and water were mixed together to create the perfect cement consistency. The second task was shoveling the cement into buckets and passed down an assembly line to end up on the roof. When it finally got to the roof we first poured the cement into the support beams. Just filling up these 6 beams took us 3 hours, finishing our first half of the day leading us into our lunch break. For lunch we walked 5 minutes to Maria’s house who graciously invited us into her home to feed us a home-made meal, spaghetti and meatballs. During this much needed one hour lunch break, we had time to rest, hydrate, and re-energize for the next 3 hours of work. When we got back from lunch we all rotated tasks, so everyone could experience a new position. During these 6 hours we stood in the sweltering sun and sticky humidity with sweat dripping down our face, chest, back, legs, and arms. Around 4, the last bucket was poured and with that we had finally finished the roof. The work crew erupted in cheers and clapping to celebrate our hard work. We changed out of our concrete filled clothes and washed off so the drive home would be comfortable. We got home to a list of chores and packing since we will be leaving the big yellow house tomorrow. After packing and organizing for a few hours, the community members came over to commemorate our achievement, ending the night on a high note!
By Brianna O., Aaron C., Piper M., and Eliana A.
July 1, 2025
We woke up at 7am this morning to get packed and move out of the Big Yellow House once and for all. We cleaned the house which kind of took a long time but we pushed through. We had mini pancakes, ham, hash browns, and strawberries for breakfast and it was very delicious. We had a meeting in the front yard and we cleaned the front of the house and finished packing all of our stuff. We threw our suitcases in the vans and went on an hour and a half long car ride to El Yunque rainforest that contained a very beautiful river. We jumped in said river and tried not to slip on the algae-packed rocks. The water was very nice and so was the scenery. We packed up and headed back to the van to go to lunch at El Terruno. We had a choice between fish and chicken, with some sides of rice and beans, tostones, French fries, and Sweet Plantains. We indulged in the food and went off to finish our souvenir shopping. We loaded back on the bus and headed to our new hotel called “Casa Coral.” The new hotel was very tidy and more modern than the Big Yellow House. The girls took the upstairs and the boys took the bottom floor and we were separated by chronological order of flights. Some of us enjoyed the nearby river which flowed into the ocean. We unfortunately could not swim in the ocean because the rip current was too strong and we would be pulled out to sea. We indulged in the tasty pizza served with soda, and then we headed for the bioluminescent bay kayak ride. We packed up for the van ride with our favorite drivers Fernando and Jaime.
Our group enjoyed our last evening van trip while sharing eye-watering speeches with each other and we saw a glorious view of the Fajardo Marina (were we would be kayaking) from the top of a hill with a beautiful rainbow before we arrived at the kayak rides. The team unloaded and we breathed in the worst sulfur smell ever due to the decomposition of the Mangrove Tree leaves at the bottom of the river. After grabbing life vests, the group waded through the water and into kayaks. The people guiding us were very polite and cooperative with us. Our group, along with the adults taught us what to do in case of emergency and helped us to get ready for the 1.2 mile trip through the mangrove dense river. The team kayaked our way to the bay, but unfortunately we were not able to form a single file line with the kayaks. It was stressful and hard for the instructors to handle our craziness but we eventually settled and got to the bay in a timely manner. The kayaks were grouped up and tied down. A tarp was then placed over our heads and we were told to put our hands in the water. The tarp covered our vision and when we looked to the side we were able to see the spectacular plankton and fireworms. The tarp was taken off and we had free time to do whatever we wanted in the bay. Some of us rested, but others had action-packed races. We then headed back down the river in a single-file line this time and it was very chaotic due to the current pushing our way. So everyone was blazing down the channel and some even crashed in the rocks. Eventually, the group unloaded out of the kayaks and were provided with snacks and water. Our last night car ride home together was memorable and we took pictures in front of the van. We await our flights and will forever remember this once in a lifetime opportunity that was provided to us through Global Works. We will forever cherish the loving memories, the hard work, and the relationships we made while dealing with each other. Although it was tiring at times, the action-packed trip was an incredible experience that our group could not get enough of. Through the blood, sweat and tears that were spilled, our bonds only grew bigger and it will be very bittersweet going home. The group might forget each other over time, but every once in a while we will stop and think about the week-long trip on the tropical island of Puerto Rico. We could not have asked for more than we help others, have fun, and eat chicken and rice every day. The counselors did an outstanding job with us and the group adapted and overcame even the most challenging tasks. Our last day was sad but it is time to say goodbye. This is Puerto Rico Hurricane relief session 2, signing off once and for all.
By Saahas S, Van I, with special appearances by Arjun K, and Arjun J
