Arabian Nights Matinee

Today was the matinee, our first real performance. It went decently. There were many errors, of course, but you always have that in a show so I think we pulled it off quite well. It was a little scary beforehand but once I got up there I wasn't nervous at all. I think it'll be a bit more nerve-wracking tomorrow night when we have an audience from ISK but I hope this audience will also stimulate us to give a better performance. I felt the audience today didn't react very well to the piece. Either our performance wasn't very good or, as children, they were too afraid to laugh and were too young to be engaged or they really didn't respond well to story theatre. I think that story theatre is a very different type of theatre than most people are used to, what with the continuous breaking of the fourth wall and the narration of one's actions. It catches people off guard and is risky to try but I'm glad we're doing it because it gives me a whole other type of theatre to have experience with. Maybe (because the demographic will be a bit older) tomorrow night people will respond better. A lot of the ensemble work in Sindibad and the Envious Sisters worked well so I'm happy about that, however I forgot one of my lines in the end during my monologue so that was frustrating. Hopefully tomorrow night that won't happen and the performance will be as fluid and comfortable as possible. 

Interact OVC Party

Serving cocoa to the kids 

The gorilla one of the children drew at the Drawing Station

Teaching one of the kids how to write CAR

Walking Vivian back to the parking lot

Today we held the Interact OVC Christmas party. Unfortunately it was raining, so we couldn't go play in the playground or go swimming, especially since most of the children are HIV positive. So we altered our plans and divided the party up into 4 stations: the breakfast station, clothes & books, reading room, movie, and coloring. I was a group leader, so I took one group of children to each station. We began at breakfast where we made cocoa and served mendazis, hard boiled eggs, sausages and so on to the children for breakfast. Then we went to clothes/books and helped children pick four articles of clothing and two books. There it was quite hectic because some children didn't know what to do and some took too many things. There was one girl, called Vivian, who was shivering because she was cold from the rain and she wasn't sure how to pick out clothes so Rosa and I helped her pick her clothes. The next room, the reading room, was also hectic but A LOT of fun. We got to help the children read and I love reading to kids so I got really into it. Every time we came across a word I thought I could make a connection to I tried to teach the children it. I was able to teach Vivian how to count up to five on her fingers and I taught the children at my table how to differentiate between various colors. Particularly the color red because that was written in one of their books. In this room I found that the older kids seemed as if they were trying to get more clothes through the younger kids. They kept going through the younger children's bags and the younger children couldn't say anything. Not only were they too young to understand, but as their elders the older kids probably intimidated them. Also I feel like the language barrier contributed to this too. I'm planning on telling Ms. Henderson or Parijat on Monday so that this issue can be addressed. We went to the coloring room in the end where we had a lot of interaction with the children, as we saw what they were drawing, helped them think of things to draw and so on. There was one kid who was drawing a gorilla from one of the books he'd picked up and it was excellent! I was really impressed and I'm excited for the next OVC party we have! 

NHS

Yesterday during our NHS meeting I suggested that we do a cleaning supplies drive for the Home for the Aged in Runda. We visited this Home for the Aged when we did the Runda Feeding Program and on a walk with my mom we went and talked to the director, who told us that they needed fans, cleaning supplies and other things. I figured that to start off with it would be very easy for NHS to organize a drive of cleaning supplies to donate to the Home. These items are so easy for us to acquire and make such a difference to places like this, so I think this is a very important thing to do. I love how, being NHS, I have to resources/manpower to actually go about organizing something like this. I think it's great that I'm able to connect two of the groups I work with, Interact and NHS, to work towards bettering the community. I feel very at ease in NHS and am able to contribute ideas. I also gave the idea to do Christmas grams but instead we're going to do Thanksgiving grams. I suggested that we make cookies at my house, using the Autumn leaves cookie cutters that I have. This is my first true fundraiser with NHS and I'm excited to start working on it. I created the poster below for the cleaning supplies drive and will post it on the NHS Facebook page to see if it will work.

Just Write Competition

I submitted the following poem to Just Write:

Guilty eyes

Upon a guiltless man

Hearing the mother cry,

He’s eternally damned.

He looks down as she goes by

He has shattered her world

His actions cannot be rectified.

She turns and speaks her first words:

‘Go to hell’ she hisses

Her eyes screaming blame

She’s then gracefully dismissed

Her baby’s death was not his aim.

He begins his exit

Numb to his very core

Her words had hit him even

Harder than the courthouse door.

He walks out a ‘free man’

Lawyers are congratulated

This was not his life plan

Everything’s been complicated

Reporters surround him now

Is this what freedom feels like?

An escape he is not allowed

They all look alike.

‘No comment’ is mumbled

Through his weary lips

His spirit begins to crumble

His heavy heart’s been ripped.

He thinks of the flawless girl

Her face lifeless and still

The night’s events unfurl.

She should not have been killed.

He drove his truck

Headlights so bright

She was high on her luck:

Not meant to be out that night.

He casually changed the station

Wistful blues poured on through.

She focused on her presentation

And gazed in the mirror, while driving too.

Tires squealed.

And horns blared.

His vision is real.

He was there.

Through the crash he blacked-out

He now remembers only

His attempts to switch routes.

But it was not meant to be.

Guilt for the guiltless

This is where he lies

Who said freedom was painless?

To the girl he is forever tied.

I just found out I won 3rd place with the poem above! :)