Sorry that I have not blogged the last couple of days, but they have been so busy!! I am now home from Cherokee and I am missing everything about it. I miss the children, Cherokee, and of course my classmates!
Wednesday I arrived to Dora Reed at 8 in the morning like usual. Whitney and I headed to our classroom of four and five year olds. We began by playing with the kids in their different areas. On this day the classroom was extra full. We had fifteen students in the classroom and Whitney and I had to eat at the art table with the children that could not eat at the normal breakfast/lunch tables. After breakfast, I began to help clean up breakfast with a child that would not stop following me around which was very cute. Right when I was about to dump some milk down the drain the child looked at me and proceeded to get sick all over my pants. I had never had this happen to me before so at first I was in complete shock. We stood and stared at each other for what seemed like five minutes, but it was probably around five seconds. I quickly asked if she was okay and told her that I was fine so that she would not feel bad about it. I quickly had to run back to the hotel and clean up so that I could be back to the school. This experience showed me that accidents do happen and sometimes you have to make the best out of a situation. I was able to laugh this off and have a good rest of the day. When I got back to the school all the children were outside on the playground. On the playground I watched all the children slide down the slide in creative ways that made them laugh. The rest of the day I switched to another classroom since it seemed that all classrooms were swarmed with children and needed help. This classroom was a 3,4, and 5 year old classroom and it had about twelve students on this day. I think Dora Reed was very glad for the extra help on this day.
After class today we were able to get a tour of the new Pre-kindergarten-12th grade school. This school is incredible and I was very grateful that we were able to get a tour. This school cost about 140 million dollars to build and this money was put to great use because this school has amazing opportunities for students to keep their culture alive. The size of the classrooms were huge! This school has a piano lab, an auditorium (the size of Appalachian's auditorium), classrooms for basket-weaving, wood-carving, pottery, carpentry, and Cherokee language building for the students to use and explore. I loved this school and I am so happy that the students at that school have all these options to help them explore their culture. After we left the school we went back to Soco Falls. Today I decided to climb about halfway down to the very bottom of the waterfall and it was so beautiful. I was skeptical at first about climbing down, but once I started I was very glad I went. Wednesday was very busy but amazing day.
Thursday-
Thursday was our last day in the schools. I will not lie, waking up at 6 in the morning this week has not been very fun, but when I see the children in the school and hear about their lives I realize that waking up at 6 in the morning is a blessing, and by me waking up at 6 I am able to see children who are happy to eat some days. This week has made me realize how grateful I am for the life I have lived so far and I hope all of these children in this school reach their full potential. Today a child told me about her house burning down, but yet all she could talk about was staying at the hotel with a pool. If I could live my life like this child and see the positive in a bad situation I would be a much more joyful person. This same child also asked me if I went to "big girl school," and I told her that I went to college. After she found out that I went to college she told me that she wanted to go to college when she got older because I went to college. HOW AMAZING! Nothing has ever warmed my heart like this child did to me on this day. I will never forget the conversation I had with her, and I really really hope that she does get to go to college one day if that is what she wants.
When we left Dora Reed we were able to have some free time to do whatever we wanted! So we decided to search all of Cherokee and beyond for supplies to make a thank you card and cookie cake for Dr. Bryant since he did such great job organizing this trip and allowing students at Appalachian to see a side of Cherokee that many do not know about.
Friday
Today we left Cherokee, but before we did we went back to the schools to say one last goodbye. I do not think any of us were ready to leave the children in this school, but we knew that we had to. After we left the school a group of us went on a scavenger hunt to find the panted bears scattered around Cherokee. We then went to eat at the famous Grandma's. The food lived up to everything we heard.
This week in Cherokee has been nothing but incrediable. I am so happy that I decided to take this trip for spring break. It has changed my outlook on many things and I could not be more grateful for the time I had with my great classmates, professor, and most importantly the children. Even though I was sad to leave today I will never forget this spring break and I would recommend it to anyone that is considering to go next year!
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