Monday, October 12, 2009

Changing El Remate´s Diet

Today´s afternoon class for El Remate´s youth was focused on nutrition. From talking with other people and making detailed first-hand observations, we have come to recognize that nutrition is something lacking. So we decided to change the dietary patterns of El Remate´s youth during one of our two-hour afternoon classes. That change was destined to take place today.

All was going well. We opened the class with our usual English lesson. The kids ate it up, as they always do. Next up, we conducted a highly controlled, qualitative, single-variable experiment. Kids ran around for ten, enough to get them worked up. After about ten minutes of various races, each pair of two kids shared a package of cheetos. It was great. The kids enjoyed the snack, but recognized that their thirsty bodies were yearning for something more. The kids re-did the exercises, but this time sampled some juicy watermelon afterwards. They made great observations about the difference they felt. They claimed that the watermelon was more satisfying. Things were still going smoothly as we approached the end of the lesson, compiling a list of the foods--healthy and unhealthy--that they eat on a daily basis.

That´s when the dog decided to steal Magali´s sandal! Darn dog. All attention was lost. Joe tried to cooly retrieve the sandal to calm the storm. Joe ¨no could do¨. It took an army of six village kids to ultimately get the sandal back, but no army could have regained the momentum we had lost. We limped through the end.

Tomorrow we solve Latin American environmental problems!

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