From different lenses

Today we started tutoring and the girl that I am tutoring name is Alyssa and I had just met her when she told me that she had decided that we were going to be great friends. It made my day totally worth while to know that she liked me and that she wanted to be my friend. 
Now I can't wait to see her tomorrow for some more fun and friendship.
-Rachel
At kids club today Hannah and I walked around finding out the names of the many kids that were there. For 2 hours I wrote name tags only to realize that I had already written about 50 names and had only gotten about 65% of the total names of the kids. It was a great thing to realize how many kids enjoy our company and wait for us to come every summer.
I cant wait until tomorrow when we get to go do it all over again! 
-Rachel

This is Paco talkin now, and I hope u can tell by the way I be typin, hehe, anyways, today at tutoring we were doin sumtin about a black renaissance so so and such and such, so somehow we came to talkin about rap and the teacher asks if anyone in the classroom can rap, so I get pointed I didn't even raise my hand, so I was pretty much forced into rappin something or anything in a couple of seconds, so, I came up with some random words that did not ryhme but apparently sounded good to the teacher and so she asked me to do a rap for tomorrow and I told her ild see what I could come up with, so now here is the first verse to what will hopefully be a full song by the end of this week, I do not promise this will be the same when I have the final result

We are here in saint loui
And so my mind went cablui 
Cuz the heat was mighty flamin
And yet we was still playin
And we be showin some new things 
While we sit here with the kids
As we pursue our happiness
And me sayin some rap - ness
And yet even though we've never met before 
We be likin each other like a metaphor 
So I kno we be havin a good time
And ild be glad to blow your mind 

Me ending will definatly be:
Now i hope you liked my rhyme 
Because now I am out of time 

... And back to Angela
We've had a great day. Well, most of us. Tate has been fighting a bug that took her out of kids club last night, and then Casey came down with something that had him out all of today. We're hoping both will be back on their feet tomorrow - AND that nothing is contagious!

It was really neat to meet the kids we'll be tutoring this morning. Some are really challenging, some are much less so, but all are a privilege to meet and to get to know.

For the afternoon, we split into different groups for yard work, visiting nursing homes, painting a mural, making cahones (wooden box drums) and picnic tables, and whatever else we were asked to do. Hannah and I and two other girls were assigned to help tutor English to two Afghani women - so neat. Hannah played with the kids, and the intern and I talked about colors and family relationships and whatever else they showed interest in. My favorite part was teaching them the word "fat". They started giggling and each saying that she was fat, and we all got the giggles for some reason. Just fun to laugh together when there's so much we're unable to communicate about. 

On to more adventures and stories tomorrow!