Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Day 2: Thanksgiving


The morning started with everyone enjoying a delicious breakfast from Mr. and Mrs. Bollings. Then we tried to leave for church, but the van got stuck in the mud. We got to enjoy an impromptu team building exercise by pushing the massive 12 person van out of the mud. It was exhilarating. When we finally made it to church, we were surprised by how small and closeknit the congregation was. There were about 18 people not including us, and none were below the age of 40. Additionally, everyone knew each other by name and everyone was very excited that we were there. 

After church, we came to Camp Laurel for lunch, another hit by the Bollings. Then, we drove to the Bloomin' Idiots Greenhouses, a ten year old wholesale distributor of flowers, herbs, and vegetables. They also own 500-600 acres of farmland, including Red Angus cows, goats, chickens, and ducks. They were nice enough to let us terrorize their chickens and take pictures of their livestock. Some of us were brave/lucky enough to hold some of their chickens. Kelsie became best friends with one of their cats. The cat jumped on her and wouldn't let her go, in a good way. The owners were incredibly nice people and even made brownies for our group. We all really enjoyed seeing the farm and hearing stories about the farm lifestyle. 

When we came back from the greenhouses, we were welcomed by the Bollings with a Thanksgiving feast, except instead of pumpkin pie, we had amazing peach cobbler and ice cream. Then, we all needed a short break to digest before our reflection time. We watched a short video presenting statistics on rural and agricultural aspects of poverty in the United States. We then got artistic and drew pictures that represented the terms community, service, and poverty. We compared the dictionary definition for these terms to our personal representations of them. Finally, we divided the group in half, and each team was asked to prepare a skit that represented a quote:

"Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be unlocked from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another either by argument or by emotional appeal." - Marily Ferguson. 

The other group prepared a skit involving a "cold" group member who didn't want anyone else's coat/help from anyone else. Rather, she wanted to make the choice to get her own coat for herself. Our group, clearly the better one, decided to represent the quote with the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Piggies. First, the wolf asked the piggies nicely for sugar (like in the Wolf's Perspective) and when they said no then he resorted to huffing and puffing to get past their gate. So in this case, the asking for sugar represented emotional appeal while huffing and puffing represented the argument. Either way, unlike the children's story, the gate (house) never fell down because the piggies never said yes. This then led to a discussion about the quote and how it related to rural poverty. As a group we decided that people can be given help, but they also have the choice to decide they want the help, and that's what really makes the difference. 

            BED TIME! at 9:30....................

            BUT WE'RE HAVING SO MUCH FUN! And we are really excited to actually go work with the community of Bland tomorrow!

-Rachel and Manpreet <3 

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