This was the first activity day with the kids. There was about 120+ kids that showed up at the school. Some of them weren’t actually enrolled at the school, but heard that we were coming so they showed up. They were so cute! We broke all the kids up into four teams: Yellow (Nhan & Mai, Blue (Quang&U), Orange (Ann&Tommy), and Green(Alice and I). It was really hard to keep control. At the start all the teams were pretty even, but by the end Ann and Tommy’s team was only about 10 kids. Their kids would abandon their team because Ann and tommy couldn’t really communicate with the kids. They would join Nhan’s or my team because we kept winning.
One thing that was surprising is that the older kids were the best behaved ones. I had about 4 older boys in my team that I used as my helpers. We had to cut out some of the games because the kids couldnt understand how to play. I felt like the kids like the team concept and the activities that were completions, like the tug of war and soccer matches.
The water balloons were a bad idea. The kids had alot of fun with them, but they would never listen to us after they got their water balloon. Tommy got hit in the face with one. The whole day was soooo chaotic. The 3 leg race didn’t work well because it was too hard to control the kids to race one pair at a time. Also our plans kinda fell apart after lunch because all the kids went home to eat, and they all came back at different times.
We also gave out prizes at the end. The most popular one was the bubble blowers, then the color pencils. We actually ended early, about 1, but I felt like i just worked for a 12 hour shift. By the end, I was soaked in sweat and lost of voice and had a pounding headache. I did not feel like coming back tomorrow. The kids were no longer cute.
When we got back to the hotel, everyone showered and passed out except for Nhan, his cousins(Quang & U), and me. We played monopoly deal for a while, then snuck out to get some food. Later we woke everyone around 9 because we didn’t want them to nap too long. We went out to dinner and ate Lau. Tommy and I bought some Tiger Beer and drank it during the USA world cup game. I’m still amazed by that extra time goal. I spilled half of my beer when Donovan scored that goal. After that we sorted the toothbrushes went over what we were going to do tomorrow. Then I passed out.
– Vuong
