Day 6: Kids and Bugs

Learning Festival in Fluvanna, VA — 0 mi, 0 ft

Today I woke up to Tatiana’s usual wake up call of her muttering “good morning my cuties”, despite my best effort to try and get an extra 15 minutes of sleep. After having Pam’s generous breakfast of biscuits and grits, we decided to be proactive and get ahead of any mold that might grow in our camping gear, since we had last packed it up when it was still wet and delightfully mildewy. Except, like the intelligent MIT students we are, we unfolded and laid out our tents and sleeping pads on the forest floor, which of course is home to every type of bug you could possibly think of. Here’s a picture of one of the spiders we saw crawling on the hammock. The white abdomen must be a sack of about 100 million spider eggs, which will hatch and release thousands of carnivorous spider babies. So I doubt I will ever get in this hammock again.

After letting the forest bugs clean and dry our camping gear, we headed to our second learning festival at the Fluvanna County Public Library. Most of us got another nap in on the ride over.

It was our first time doing a learning festival at this library, and I am so thankful to them and to Tatiana for making it happen. It went incredibly well, we were able to teach 70 kids from all over the county. I learned that this library is a local hotspot for families in the area to take their kids to for summer programs. Even though the Fluvanna County public library does not receive enough funding from the state to host these educational events, they are so dedicated that they’ve created an exceptionally successful nonprofit, Friends of Fluvanna, to raise money for them.

Once the learning festival started, Aarushi and I got to teach the middle and high schoolers first, and so with them we ran our chemistry experiment lesson. All of the kids were well engaged, despite their half hearted threats to eat the chemicals and numerous questions about if they could create explosions. I must admit, this happens every time we do a chemistry workshop, regardless of the age or background of the kids. Blowing stuff up must simply be human nature.

Ultimately their chaotic questions simply revealed their curiosity, as many of them wanted to go deeper and learn more about the specifics behind this reaction.

This seemingly neverending curiosity was almost overshadowed by the excitement they felt over having pizza for lunch. On their lunch break, I was told, they decided it would be a good idea to race Drew and Nate, who of course lost and as punishment had to do pushups with the kids on their backs. They even decided to make nicknames for some of us, Best Guy Nate, Weird Guy Drew, and for me they chose Bacon Carmen. I couldn’t tell you why. Although now that I think about it, maybe it is because of my hair, it has a slightly bacon-y wave you could say.

After lunch I was able to interact with the little kids, and help them make felt monsters for our other workshop on genetics. Often they would ask for help, whether it was for cutting or gluing eyes down, things that they could do themselves with the right encouragement. They taught me that that’s all they needed. Just someone to keep encouraging them to try.

Initially, I had gone into the learning festival preparing to be exhausted by the end. But being able to watch as these kids cheer and shout as their experiment changes color, and leave our station with a unique googly-eyed monster created a feeling of inspiration mixed with nostalgia. They are all fascinated by a world they are trying to understand, and simultaneously I relived a time when I was just as mesmerized. It was rewarding to assist them in their reach for understanding, since it’s such an expansive time, filled with that good type of uncertainty, where you don’t know where you’re going but you have enough optimism to explore.

After cleaning up thousands of tiny pieces of felt and parchment backings strewn across the floor, we celebrated our successful learning festival by getting ice cream at a local place. 

Let it be known that we are fans of team meetings. Team meetings everyday keeps the interteam fights away. The importance of communication and all that. So, as we ate our “spokes financed” ice cream, we had yet another team meeting. We decided that Drew and I would go pick up food for lunch, and then after, Caroline and Aarushi would go finish their blogs at the once place on the commune with wifi, and the rest of us would roll up and put away our now dry but bug infested tents. 

It was both Drew and I’s first times at Wegman’s, and I’ve decided it’s the midwest’s version of Whole Foods, or maybe a fancy Fry’s. Sometimes you just want the cheap carcinogenic deli meat, and yet they won’t sell it to you. And they’ll always have a sushi chef in the seafood section making delicious looking sushi for Concord Market prices. Anyway we got enough food to feed a family lunch for a week, or us for two days. As a source of carbs, we got another pack of gummy worms and gummy bears, just ensuring all of us get cavities by the end of the trip. I’m sure none of you, dear readers, expected your generous donations would go toward our future dental expenses.

When we got back to Pam’s house, we got in formation to spray ourselves with bug spray, inhaled the aerosols so no bugs would fly into our lungs, and started putting away the camping gear. There were a few high pitched screams here and there, but no one got bitten by a snake so I think it was rather successful. Luckily, I escaped halfway through to work on the bikes in the greenhouse and forced Nunu, Nate, and Tatiana to fold up the rest of the tents where the largest ants known to man decided to make a home in.

Every night before a ride involves a huge operation, and honestly by now I think we have it pretty much down: pack up the car, shower line, dinner, etc. etc. And so that was how the rest of the night went. Apart from when Aarushi and Caroline were abandoned at the community center ~1 mile away, and instead of walking back in the pitch black over hilly gravel roads, waited for half an hour for one of us to pick them up. Very nobly but also rather guiltly, I drove them back, since I was part of the problem as well. 

After a day of warning kids not to eat all the chemicals, I was ready for a delightful 8 hours of sleep. We’re all trying to be the goated spokes team and wake up early (6 am), to finish the ride before it gets too hot out. As a result, sometimes 8 hours is a little unattainable, especially when you get lost in writing a blog. So I think I’ll end it here for now.

– Bacon Carmen 🥓