Olimpiadas Especiales



I had the chance to take a group of students to the Special Olympics last week. We went as volunteers for the day and it didn't take long to realize what a truely special event it is! All of us were amazed by the excitement, happiness, encouragement and sense of community we felt.

We were not sure what our volunteer experience would be like. It was an overcast, rainy morning when we arrived at the stadium and there was garbage EVERYWHERE. There was a big soccer game a few nights before so the place was a mess. The first job we were assigned was the long jump pit. It didn't sound like too hard a job until we actually saw the pit. It looked like a small pond and our job was to get it ready for the jumpers. So we gathered some helpful garbage (2 liter coke bottles) and began getting the water out. It seemed an impossible job but an hour later, with the help of some buckets we found, the pit had been cleared and was ready for jumping (see the pictures). I was so impressed with the good attitude my students had. I admit, we thought that our job would be timing kids or something similar, not cleaning out a dirty long jump pit. But even that turned out to be a fun time together and we all talked about how we prefered pit cleaning to a day at school. I guess we all needed a break from school!

We decided that we are going to put together a team for the next special olympics. My students said they felt they could help better by coaching a team and spending the time to get to know a team of kids. That is the plan, I think it is a great one so I'll keep you all posted.

The pictures were taken throughout the day. At one point, one of the althletes asked Karla what place he came in. She told him last place. He asked his coach if this was true and his coach said "You didn't come in last silly, you came in fourth". There were only 4 runners but it didn't matter, the comment made the little guy beam with delight!