Sioux Falls, SD

This week I am in Soiux Falls, being hosted with Maggie from Connecticut, and we're staying with Laura and Andrew Ellsworth, a young married couple that are really awesome. When we got to Sioux falls, we had Home Team Olympics. Our Home Teams are a smaller group that you are assigned to within the cast that meets every week or two weeks just to have a group to support you if you're having trouble with anything, but the home team olympics are a competition between all of the home teams to see who is the best. We had musical chairs, pictionary, an UWP trivia sheet and a few other events in the olympics, and even though my home team didn't win, it was a lot of fun, and we won some of the events.

Also this week was the Hunger and Poverty workshop, which really made me sad. There is so much hunger in the world, and in America we waste so much food, its just sickening. With the workshop we had a "Hunger Banquet", where the cast was split into the proportions of the world and fed what those people would eat. 14, who would all be American, were "High Class" got a three course meal.35 were in Middle class, and got rice and beans. 50 were in Poverty, which was where I was, and got a handful of rice and salty water. It was really an emotionally trying event, because we were on the floor, with almost nothing to eat, and right next to us was the high class, you could smell their food, and when they didn't eat all of a coarse, the leftover was thrown away right in front of us. Its a really harsh reality that I hadn't realized is such strong terms.

This week I worked with Meals on Wheels, and was really excited to get to work with that organization. I was kind of homesick though, because it made me think of Mama K and my ABBS group. Yesterday I got to work at Volunteers of America, and painted a mural that had a native American theme. I had a lot of fun and am glad I've been added to the list of artistic painters in the cast now. Today we're going to visit my host mom's family in Minnesota, so I have to go! Update soon...