Uno, Soda, and Snakes, oh my!!

Last night we had our second LST party. The parties are meant to connect our readers with people from the church in hopes that they will begin to feel comfortable and welcome in the church building. We also use the party as another opportunity for readers to practice their English with people other than us. LST suggests that you plan your party around a theme, but we decided to go with a simple game party instead. Originally, we thought most of our readers would be business women who have very limited free time. We didn't know if our readers would even have time to attend a party. We did not expect to have so many young readers. After spending a week here we realized that an kind of party would go over very well with the younger readers.

We started the party with a very lively game of "Take A Hike." This is a great icebreaker game because it gets people up and moving around. It also helps the players learn different facts about each other including things they have in common. Did I mention that our large group of young readers is primarily male? Try to imagine 50+ young adults running around the room fighting each other for chairs. It was quite humorous.

Next, we broke the large group into 3 smaller groups and moved them through a rotation of game stations consisting of Bunko, Uno, and a paper airplane throwing contest. Everyone was so wound up from running around in the first game that when we split them up into groups they all raced to their stations as fast as they could. At this point, they must have thought that the entire party would be a competition. I was in charge of the refreshments. We had a table of cookies and bottles of coke, fanta, and sprite. When one group came down for freshmen's they were chanting "soda and snakes, snakes, snakes!" I said, "snakes, why are you talking about snakes?!" I quickly realized they meant SNACKS. Many things seem to get lost in translation... fortunately, I have not consumed any snakes while in Rwanda.

My favorite part of the party was the airplane throwing contest. Katie works for Southwest Airlines (my personal airline of choice). She brought some inflatable airplanes that you wear on top of your head. As part of the airplane throwing contest the thrower was required to wear the airplane on his or her head as he tossed his paper airplane over the balcony towards the target. It was hilarious! The hat went over very well.

I spent most of the party running around taking pictures. Most people would ask me to take their picture. Gildas asked me to take his picture and he posed very seriously, which I think is a cultural thing. Holly mentioned that the people here are taught to make serious faces when they have their picture made. As Americans, it seems we have our picture made so often that the goal has become to look as weird as possible in photographs (perhaps this is not the case for everyone... I am speaking from my own experience!). I asked Gildas if he would smile for another picture and he did. I showed Erin the picture and asked her which she liked better. She chose the smiling picture and replied, "You look like President Kagame when you smile." Gildas seemed VERY pleased by her conclusion and proceed to smile for the remainder of the party.

-Emily