On Friday January 27, the eighth grade team went on their advisement trip to Pattaya. I was part of it too! We split into three groups, which went to three different places. The daycare center, the blind school, and the children's village. I was part of the group that went to the blind school. Honestly, I was so disappointed at first when I heard that we were going to go do community service during our advisement trip. I had thought that advisement trips were for fun and doing fun activities, and not going to some blind school to do community service; but I was wrong.
Meeting the blind children was a new experience for me. I was so surprised at their enthusiasm and how tactful they were. They was also very smart; they could get around campus fine on their own, play Thai instruments, and speak English! They live their daily lives almost as if they weren't handicapped. To tell you the truth, I wasn't expecting that. I felt happy when I got to interact with them but at the same time I was shy and somewhat scared. I got to learn some of their names through an activity we did and some of the children learned mine. Even though some of their activities were quite embarrassing to do, I still greatly enjoyed them. There was this one activity that our team participated in, it was kind of like a sport for blind people. I didn't play it but some of my friends did. There were two goals and two teams. Each team consists of three people. Everyone playing must be blindfolded and the two teams must sit down/ kneel down in front of their goal. Then the game begins and everyone must remain silent, for this game using hearing. The coach/ referee throws the ball to either side of the court. The teams must listen for the ball and try to catch it before ti goes into the goal. If caught, then they must through it to the other side where the other team is. It was a very fun game to watch. Especially watching our member play since they weren't really good at it.
In conclusion, I had a so much fun at the blind school besides the fact that I was really offended by something this one person said (I'm not going to say any names). They said something so rude and right in front of the blind children. If I were the blind children I would have been so offended and so sad. That angered me very much but there wasn't really anything I could do about it. Overall this was a very fun trip and I wish we would do some community service once again!
