Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Tuesday: Hands On





Colin and Lillian reporting:

            Today was hot, humid, and hands on.  We started off by enduring a two-mile walk along muddy sidewalks to get to Escuela Cristo Rey. When we got there, we painted two-square and hopscotch courts. We also dug up and shoveled weeds and unwanted plants to make the garden a fertile place to grow food for the school. While this was going on, another group read to kids at the school and taught them games like Hot Potato and Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. We had a lot of hands-on fun with the kids. We played soccer with them, gave piggyback rides, and played with them on the teeter-totters. It was a busy, tiring morning of pure service and fun.

            In the afternoon, we set off to zip-line, walk in the jungle, or cook. The cooking group enjoyed making yucca buñuelos (fried snack cakes). Yum! We started out with a few chopped pieces of yucca, peeled off the skin, washed the rest, and grated a mushy mess of the white, potato-like vegetable. Then we mixed in cheese and flour, put the cakes on the grill, and then put sweetened condensed milk on top. They were delicious. Another group interviewed townspeople in Chilamate about local problems by walking into their houses and participating in conversations in Spanish (which would be totally abnormal in the U.S.). Then this group entered the jungle. While walking, we saw red-eyed tree frogs, giant spiders, and a few howler monkeys. We even went hands-on and held a frog so we could take pictures.

            In the evening we participated in a crazy water balloon fight for a team-building activity. All in all, today was the most hands-on of all. We even had our hands on some pineapple!