Learning Festival in Fallon, NV — 0 mi, 0 ft
Last morning, we woke up in a ditch on the side of highway 50, wearing unwashed day-old bibs, jerseys with an extra layer of funk pressed into the already stained nylon, and I had the privilege of squirting eye drops on contacts so dry they were peeling off my eyeballs.
This morning, we woke up in an air conditioned room with a carpeted floor, a ceiling, wearing normal clothes, and I to blurry vision. What an incredible thing it is to have a roof over your head.
When I say we, I mean it in the general sense. In reality, we were all scattered to the wind, sleeping in so many random places throughout the Fallon Youth Club that when I fell asleep last night, I was the only person in the Learning Center we had littered with our stuff. Although this morning I found two more. It seems the Learning Center became the freshmen’s bedroom as Caroline was sprawled on the ottomans next to me, which had separated as she slept so she began to fall through the cracks like Pangea during continental drift, and Drew was splayed across the other longer ottoman, sleeping under (not in) Caroline’s sleeping bag. I was on the floor using one of the communal blankets as a pillow, which combined with Drew’s theft, apparently robbed Caroline of anything warm to sleep with and so we found her under the picnic blanket that desperately needed to be washed. I’m so sorry.
It was quite nice to stay in the same place as our learning festival. Combined with it being our very last one, it seemed like everyone was slightly less stressed than usual.
What added to this luxury were the hand delivered breakfast in takeout boxes from our LF hosts. All of us gathered around to reveal the treasure that was pancakes, bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns.
In what has become our pre-LF tradition, the coffee drinkers (everyone except the guys) went to get lattes at this log cabin cafe. The sizes were hugee and Aarushi and I decided to split a 32 oz iced latte (which was only $8.50, just saying). Caroline, Nunu, and Tatiana got their own fancy drinks in a smaller size and ended up paying ~$10, so really who won?
We all got back to FYC and started setting up for the last learning festival of the trip. Just as Aarushi and I were discussing how we could go about doing the chemistry workshop with even the littlest kids, Tatiana came in with the news that the LF might not even happen. Today was mandatory school supply pick up day, and all but four of the kids who had signed up have called in to cancel. Only one kid had arrived. And so this might turn into a day of teaching to only one single kid.
Aarushi offered that we teach him first, out of the pure goodness of her heart, but also, just maybe, so we could be done with the day before it had even started.
Tatiana offered to join the kid so he’s not alone, and then we managed to rope Caroline and Nunu into it as well. Caroline was a wonderful student, answering all of our questions to the best of her ability. Nunu was horribly distracting, somehow worse than any other elementary schooler, old enough to have the audacity to ask for a latex glove in the middle of the lesson to make balloons with.
Aarushi took over the task of debriefing the experiment to the kid, a slightly long but rewarding task since after several back and forth questions, she was able to help him understand what chemical does what and which you’d need to add to get what effect.
That was our last time teaching the chemistry workshop. Sigh. Well as a reward we had a couple hours of break, until more kids were going to show up for our next workshop at 2. The school supply pick-up was only in the morning, so it meant a few more kids would show up at lunch. It was starting to look more like a festival and less like a one man show. Caroline, Nunu, and Tatiana would teach them in the meantime. Drew and Nate were still out at the laundromat, gallantly washing our clothes by hand from the past several days we were laundry-less. Aarushi took this opportunity to do something she had been waiting for since Kansas City…she got her eyebrows threaded. And I decided to make history. I sat down, started, added pictures, and finished a blog within two hours. The first and only time I will have ever done so.
At lunch, Caroline, Tatiana, and I learned about the Fallon Youth Club’s mission. They offer incredibly affordable and educational aftercare for kids around Fallon. They receive a lot of grants and have a friends of FYC group where people donate to help cover the costs for many kids. There’s a waiting list to join this club, since FYC has 10 employees and wants to maintain the faculty to student ratio, so everyone has a quality experience. Foster kids are automatically enrolled, and so they get priority in this waiting list. But they mainly serve kids with single parents who are at or slightly above the poverty level.
We of course do research about the places we teach at beforehand, but we get to learn so much more about the impact they have on their communities when we meet them in person.
Earlier today, we had decided that Caroline and Aarushi would speak on all of our behalfs for this event Tatiana’s friend was hosting. And so they took some time to give their responses at first to a zoom meeting of what looked like a couple people. Then the camera switched over and they realized they were talking in front of at least 400. I’m infinitely grateful they volunteered, because if I had to do that, I think I’d sh*t my pants live. From what I heard, they did great and managed to make us sound like the super awesome, amazing, genius, talented, and athletic student cyclists we truly are.
While Aarushi was busy divulging her academic career on zoom, I was running our Monster Genome workshop for the very last time. I genuinely had a wonderful time. All the kids were so engaged. One groaned that his brain was hurting and when I asked him if that was because he did or didn’t understand it, he said he did. It just required focus to learn. Does that mean their brains were stretching? Did I successfully inspire them to grow? Wow, what a great thought. I hope so.
The four of them made monsters that were really accurate to what the parents’ kid would like. One even made her monster’s arms move freely. They all decided on incredibly creative names, Billy, Timmy, Jimmy, and Lily, since the monsters are all siblings of course.
To celebrate finishing our last learning festival, we decided to donate most of our good LF supplies to FYC. Instead of having it sit and decay in milkdrop, we figured these kids could actually make use of all these crafting, chemistry, and electronic supplies.
It may have been the last LF day, but you know what we hadn’t yet experienced the last of…team meetings! While I was busy cleaning up, others had decided that tomorrow (barely) we were going to wake up at 1am in order to beat the heat, wind, etc. And to make all of us more efficient, we were going to sleep in our bibs! Now there was some pushback on that part. In the end we decided that we’d have our suitcases packed in the car tonight, and our bibs ready to put on. I really admire the motivation behind Nate’s proposal that we all sleep in our bibs, however it would only work if those who needed that extra time did not veto the idea straightaway. So I debated whether or not I should wear mine, but decided against it, since I figured it wouldn’t make much of a difference in the end. But Nate still wore his, and I still admire his dedication.
We got dinner for tonight and breakfast for the next morning delivered to us, all thanks to the generous people at FYC.
Due to this 1 am wake up, we all wanted to get to sleep around 8 ish. I think the most dedicated of us managed to, but I stayed awake for a bit to make the route with Aarushi. She was the driver for tomorrow and after went to Walmart to stock up on sodas and Arizona iced tea for our liquid diet.
Before she left though, she slightly angrily recounted how Drew was lying on the same couch she had slept on yesterday. I figured he wanted to move since the motion sensor lights in the Learning Center were incredibly aggressive and kept turning on every time one of us turned over. Drew and I kept taking turns getting up like zombies and swatting off the lights, until 4 am when we just gave up. So Drew was peacefully scrolling on the couch. And then Caroline discovered that Nate took the same blanket I took from her the night before. She, very reasonably, flipped out and so in retaliation Aarushi offered to buy the white cheddar Cheezits that only Caroline likes. She ended up getting salt and pepper white cheddar Cheezits and this snack mix concoction similar to Chex mix. The next morning, Nate would be incredibly excited to enjoy this novelty.
See you next time in the last. blog. ever.
– Carmen
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