Sandy Spring Friends School Puerto Rico 2025
March 15, 2025
First, we had to wake up early in the morning to make it to the airport at 5 am. The plane ride was good – we had tons of fun. Many of us took a rest on the plane, and then some of us enjoyed movies as well. The view flying into Puerto Rico was beautiful, and we watched as the JetBlue prediction skipped ahead very quickly, and then boom we were there.
After getting off the plane, there was not a cloud in the sky. The heat was beaming down on us. The humidity and thickness of the air hit us like a wave. We met Fernando, our van driver, and Lauren, our Global Works leader. The pizza we had for lunch was delicious whether it was the cheese, chicken, or pepperoni. The bathrooms in the restaurant, Pirlio, were distinguished by a rooster and a chicken, so that was hard to navigate, until we saw someone coming out. After lunch, we finally arrived at the Big Yellow House. It was big and yellow, and that was fantastic to see. There were a lot of animals on the property, including a big iguana. We dropped our things, found our rooms, and got ready for the beach. We walked to the beach, which was right up the street. There, we played water volleyball, and some people took a nice walk down the beach. They found a small brown tributary that flows in and out of the ocean. The beach was very beautiful, and the music was bumping. Then, when we walked back, some people went to shower.
Noel obtained three coconuts, with the support of Julia, and proceeded to open the coconuts by force, throwing them on the ground, and we poured the coconut water into cups. It was really fresh! Then we had an hour break before dinner, so some folks played Spades, and others did a group ab workout, with leg lifts and planks. We then had dinner which was grilled chicken, salad and potatoes. The potatoes were superb, and the honey mustard added a different dimension of flavor. We went over to the beach volleyball area, where the sand is really hard packed. We played a few rounds of organic beach volleyball, where we followed the rules for sure. Then we had a team meeting about guidelines and how we want to represent ourselves at the Big Yellow House and in Puerto Rico. We talked about what our plan is for the next day, which will be seen in the next blog tomorrow. To be continued…
Peace Out! Peace, love care. Live, laugh, love.
By CJF (aka Charlotte M., Jalynn S., and Finn B.)
March 16, 2025
Hello from Puerto Rico day 2!! We woke up bright and early this morning at 6:30 to get ready for our walking tour of old San Juan! We had an array of breakfast foods including assorted fruits, French toast sticks, avocado toast, and egg bites. We drove to old San Juan and met our tour guide Alvin (he was human, not chipmunk affiliated). While on the tour we learned about many significant historical events and visited the relevant landmarks like the wall and the governors mansion, and were visited by many stray kitties. Our tour guide Alvin was a bit of a jokester and kept us entertained for our whole five hour trek (lunch included). After a puerto rican lunch of tostones and chicken, we had the opportunity to explore the different shops in old San Juan and some of us had virgin piña coladas!! Alvin the jokester had earnestly mentioned he had only been working for four days, and we later came to realize he had been working for 18+ years. While at the fortress of el morro we had the opportunity to witness possibly one of the greatest bathroom views in the western hemisphere (IN THE largest fortress in the western hemisphere). During our walking tour, we got to cheer on the participants of half an ironman! But then, later on the same ironman caused a tremendous amount of traffic in the scalding hot van. on the bright side that extremely warm van took us to pick up our pal kenji, so we now have one more addition to our adventure. Later on, we went to the beach and played water volleyball (which we have greatly improved on since day 1, and were able to make it to 16 touches as a group). We supported a local ice cream vendor who had great coconut, passion fruit, and rainbow flavors. Then we came home and had an intense match of 4 on 5 volleyball, and some dunking practice on the low hoop. After this, we had a lively conversation about cryptocurrency over a very yummy dinner. Lastly we watched a documentary about food culture and politics in Puerto Rico by Anthony Bourdain. This short film sparked an insightful conversation about our role in improving the future of Puerto Rico (while eating cupcakes). Stay tuned for day three!!!
-Aria, Audrey, Noel
March 17, 2025
We woke up bright and early which is 7:55 for Marvin and 7:30 for the rest and we had some Eggos and an assortment of other foods. We then piled into the van to get hot and sweaty before embarking on our construction work. Our bus driver, Fernando, was in love with Julia’s music. Then Marvin met the love of his life and Natasha met her biggest opp—Eggy. He had a mischievous glint in his eyes that blinds you as you work with him. A man of dreams! We also met Willy and Angel and we were walked through every construction procedure and after that it clicked for us. Natasha started yelling at Charlotte to pay attention, Julia found interesting ways to cool down, and Aria focused on learning Spanish. After work under the hot sun, we headed to our favorite cook, Maria who cooked us our best meal of the trip so far. Natasha had multiple momentos de aura negativa. Our work consisted of moving cinderblocks, drilling in walls and reconstructing another wall. We then sped back and waited while Kenji, Marvin, and Finn took eons to get ready. We had a brief time at the beach where we discovered a freaky fish. We then hiked to a beautiful vista of the Atlantic ocean. Afterwards, we came back to the house where we reflected on our time so far here. Later, we had Salsa lessons, where Finn’s dance moves mesmerized Julia’s eyes and stole the dance floor. We finished a heated game of volleyball where an exchange turned into psychological warfare that had the power to destroy any and all friendships (don’t worry, we kissed and made up at the end ;)). Overall it was a rollercoaster of emotions with a hint of fatigue and eagerness for the next day. We know you love us!
XOXO Gossip Girlz Julia , Marvin, and Natasha. 😘💋
March 18, 2025
Puerto Rico day 3! We started off the day with some bomb pancakes then hit the road. After speeding through the winding streets some of us went down with car sickness, but once we arrived we jumped into the work! Today we got a lot done on the site! We helped put up wood panels that will work as molds for concrete that will eventually go in. Our Master Driller, Jalynn, helped nail all the pieces of wood together while some of us cut metal ties to connect the rebar and others put reinforcements into the walls. Aside from almost getting crushed by a wood panel it went pretty well. We had delicious chicken wings courtesy of Maria for lunch, then returned to the work site where we played elementary school hand games. Once they found more jobs for us, we got back to work drilling and hammering. We were hoping to finish all the wood paneling for the walls but unfortunately ran out of materials before we could, though we did get close! On the ride back, graciously (and gracefully) Matthew and Lauren went to get some sweet treats for our large appetites. We then went back home and got ready to go to the beach. At the beach, we broke our water volleyball record of 22 touches! Our game ended after Julia got bitten by the same freaky fish that has been tormenting us. But we bonded with the locals who had also gotten attacked by the same fish! The rest of us went back to the house while Aria and Matthew read their books on the beach and stumbled upon some ice cream. After returning, Natasha, Marvin, Aria, and Jalynn had simultaneous meltdowns after Audrey’s twelve serve run during beach volleyball. Our neighbor decided to play music at a volume that is only equivalent to a rave but we persisted anyways. Then we ended the day with a pasta dinner where the community we worked with came over to join us and say goodbye as we are moving to a new service project tomorrow. We played (less aggressive) volleyball with them, Natasha got sassed by the children, we played with slime with the kids, took many photos with Willy, then said our final thank you’s and goodbyes 🙁 Before we go to sleep, Aria’s volleyball team will make a comeback (Not!).
– By Natasha VB, Audrey DG, Desta M
March 19, 2025
March 19, 2025
Welcome back DMVers, hoy es el Cinco dia (the fifth day) y el ultimo dia aqui (the last day here) in the Big Yellow House which has so many memories 🙁
We started the day bright and early with breakfast at 7 in the morning. We had French toast again because it was our favorite breakfast. We then drove in a all-black, air-conditioned, sprinter van to Barceloneta listening to Bossa Nova, where we had the honor of working with Decenia, who runs an amazing female-owned and operated cacao farm. After a tour of the farm, we split up into three different groups and got to work. Finn and Marvin dug a trench for irrigation in the field. Julia, Natasha, Charlotte, and Aria had the pleasure of working with one of the most amazing souls in the world who was an inspiration and wise man, Cesar. He and the girls fertilized cacao plants and helped him set up his irrigation system. He shared plentiful life advice and inspired us all. Everyone else in the last group worked on cracking open cacao pods and extracted the cacao seeds to start the fermentation process. At noon, we had a delicious lunch made by the farm owner’s mother, Carmen, and we then got to the best part of the day—the chocolate tasting. In wine-tasting fashion, we smelled the chocolate and then placed it on our tongues to enjoy the full and tutti fruiti flavors of the chocolates. While we ate them, Decenia told us about all the different alcoholic beverages that it would go with as well as water and cheese. The chocolate was so gosh darn good, our girl Decenia might make the best chocolate in the world!!! Shoutout Cocao 360 and head to her website, www.cacao360.com. Afterward, we cleaned the forest to help them prepare for planting new plants. We then left and returned to the big yellow house where we played volleyball again. The best team, which consisted of Julia, Noel, Finn, Audrey, and Kenji, beat the breaks of the other team so badly that we had to switch teams. We finished our day with MFW and hiking to a vista to watch the sunset. We had our last dinner made by Ricky, which of course was chicken, rice, salad, with a side of memories como siempre. which was soooooooo good. Tonight is our last night in the Big Yellow House forever. With the cookies to help exacerbate the bittersweet feeling, the sun sets on our time in the beautiful community of Cerro Gordo in Vega Alta. The memories, tears, laughter, and more memories will be cherished and so memorable forever.
In peace and with love.
Julia, Finn, and Noel (the best members of the trip)
March 20, 2025
This morning we woke up sad about leaving the Big Yellow House. It feels like we just arrived yesterday. We had pancakes, fruit, and eggs for breakfast. We then finished cleaning our space and were packed and ready. We then took a long drive to El Yunque, and took a short walk through the forest and swam for an hour in the local river. We learned where it was deep and we also quickly learned the consequences for jumping off the rocks and into the water. Then, we drove to el Turruño ate grouper fish (not just chicken) and we also got to eat fries and plantains. Finn and Aria set a record for the fastest plate cleaners at the table and everyone followed soon after.
Afterwards were able to shop up and down the street and buy souvenirs and snacks. We got ice cream, piña coladas, and souvenirs (of course). Then we went to our new hostel for the first time and started unpacking. There, we swam in a different river where we used boogie boards. We played a quick blackjack game before Lauren blessed us with some pizza and soda for dinner.
After an hour of down time we left our hostel to go bioluminescent kayaking. Fernando got us there in record breaking time as per usual and we were off. For some of us, kayaking was a real hurdle, at least in the beginning. We kayaked a mile and a half to the main lagoon and back and got a beautiful view of not only the bioluminescent water that surrounded us, but the stars and constellations as well. We were provided with amazing guides that helped us at every turn (or tree) we hit and were kind and encouraging through out it all. We hope you enjoyed our tales of Puerto Rico, thank you for reading and goodbye.
By Marvin, Jalynn, and Desta
