August 23rd, 2006: Courage and Bubble Tea

• Edu tells his story: (I still need to get his permission to write this into the blog. Let's just say it's an amazing story of overcoming major obstacles. Hopefully I can add this later)
  
• This afternoon we had our community service project at the Courage center, a rehabilitation program for adults with physical and mental challenges. After a tour of the facility (very nice…leagues ahead of even NECC) we had an audience with Emmanuel, whose story we had seen via movie just last week. He was the gentleman from Ghana who had ridden across his country on a bicycle with one leg to show that those with physical challenges can have impact in his country. It was amazing to be in his presence. He’s like a modern day hero. In his country, people with physical challenges are basically left out to die or to beg as children. Thankfully his mother did not do this and she decided to educate him. His strength and resilience had shown through at an early age as he worked to compete with his peers in sports. Now he is working to try to pass legislation in his country to give those with challenges the same rights as those without challenges. He is also attempting to put together an athletic team to compete in the Paralympics.

After his amazing speech, we ate with several residents, gave a brief BTS (which was, well, interesting as we couldn’t hear the beat track), and we were off to help out with their road race. I was paired with Kirsten from Canada to help guide the racers safely across a busy highway. Thankfully, most people stopped for us, though there were definitely some who could have cared less that there was a race going on and that they could potentially hit a human being (in the crosswalk no less).

The race went well and the racers were very appreciative of UWP’s efforts to help. Kirstin, Nicolina, Will, and I had the fortune of having to walk back to the Courage center in order to allow some injured racers to travel back in the vans. Though inconvenient, I was glad for this opportunity. While we walked, we were joined by a gentleman in a wheelchair from Georgia (formerly of the Soviet Union I think). It was really great, taking time to walk back to meet everyone, having the chance to get to know each other a bit better and to meet a man from yet another culture. He is currently studying at an American university for a degree in IT.

We enjoyed our walk too much, apparently. As we arrived, the busses were leaving! They almost head out without us. Thankfully Nicolina was able to get them to stop and let us on.

Upon our arrival back to the high school, Jane and Kristen picked Yamil and me up and took us to uptown Minneapolis. We walked around town and drank bubble tea. It’s like a sweet drink with tapioca beads on the bottom. I had had it once before and thought it was gross. Today, I liked it. In addition, I rather enjoyed the time to hang out with Jane and Kristen.