After an early start the day before, day 11 started relatively chilled for most of the team. Having gotten used to late nights and early mornings, the sudden lack of any sort of direction this morning left most of the team feeling at a bit of a loss for what to do with themselves. We’d been forewarned to not expect much sleep during these three ‘D-Days’, but ironically we’ve had the least to do so we actually had the opportunity to catch up on sleep lost over the past few days.
So anyway day 11 started out fairly soggy, and despite some enthusiastic attempts at the sun dance by Du (it’s all in the hips), it continued to pour quite heavily in the early afternoon. After a quick pasta lunch with the mentees, we were off to Alaska for the adult education component of our program. Janet R had prepared us for the possibility that the turnout for the event may be poorer than expected, but I think it’s safe to say that the reality had everyone pleasantly surprised.
We’d arrived at Alaska Elementary at about 1.15 pm to find a handful of parents already waiting there under one of the three tents. The clock marched on and anxiety turned to relief as the steady stream of parents (or more accurately moms) continued as we approached the scheduled 2 pm start time (phew looks like we’d meet our 60 people target after all). This fear however would subsequently prove to be completely unfounded – the tents filled up with people but more and more parents kept walking in! Pretty soon desks were being brought out of the nearby classrooms by the elementary school students (think ants carrying a caterpillar) to be used as makeshift chairs. A cunning signatory count by Ms Belle would later reveal an attendance of over 200 people!
The workshop itself went about as well as we could have hoped. The team had been waxing lyrical over our high school mentees from the day we arrived, and still they managed to blow us away with their performances today. The general emotion among the team was that of proud parents, as we watched Fidel and Mia impressively take the stage as the emcees of the day. This was followed by equally outstanding performances by Mark and Naressa, Rieland and Inah, Joni and Patrice, and ended emphatically by Dan Dan and Annrey. If they’d shown any sort of hesitation before, none of it was evident today as they took to the stage and worked the crowd as confidently as if they’d been doing it all their lives. The contributions of Jea and Kayla should also not be forgotten, as they stood amongst the enthusiastic crowd facilitating their participation – by no means an easy task with such large numbers. Throw in a few renditions of our hit song “No GI” (this one’s going to plague us for a while) and you’ve got a recipe for a successful event.
Needless to say, despite the rain all of us left the school and day 11 in high spirits.
-Alex Teo
