Welcoming and Adventure at the Zoo

From the perspective of Ben and Eric Kyle:

Yesterday I didn’t believe that things could get any better, but today proved me very wrong. We started the morning off roughly as we had to wake and pack up early in the morning so that the university students could attend their class. As we waited for the bus to come back with some other contingent members, as they had been dropping off all our medical supplies, we walked through the farm just a stone’s through from where we slept. We met the horses, goats, cows and

alpacas. When the bus finally came back we gathered all our stuff and went to the zoo. I was miserable for the two hour-long bus ride there, due to the soreness from yoga and training the night before, as well as the little sleep I got because someone was snoring like a machine, all night long.

When we got to the zoo I felt a little better but not a whole lot. We wandered the zoo for hours and it became clear we were almost a bigger attraction than the animals. Everywhere we went we were greeted by a chorus of children giggling everything from “hola” to “gringo!” By lunch we were tired and frustrated by the lack of food consumed during the day so far and after many, many distractions we were finally directed to a nice little restaurant where we ate chicken, salad and fries. We wandered around a little more after lunch where I continued a game I created, to see how many people I can get to wave back to me. We had gotten to the aquarium area, the last area of the zoo to explore, where I waved to a girl who looked about my age. In the end she continuously asked for my number and hit on me, and I had to tell her I had a girlfriend. She still didn’t end up leaving me alone until we left the park. Also while we were in the aquarium, a little girl walked up to me and stole my nose. So I chased her away as she screamed with laughter, and stole my nose back later.

From the zoo we traveled to a mall where some of us bought air mattresses and pillows for the hard floor we are sleeping on. To finish off the day, we detoured to a park with water fountains all over and paid to ride around in a little train, which was great fun. On our little ride around the park we spied a few people playing in a fountain, set up as a big circle, with hundreds of little jets of water that would periodically spray up. We decided it would be great fun to run to the centre of the fountains and firmly believed we were skilled enough that we wouldn’t get wet at all in the circular labyrinth of jets. We were so, so wrong. Ryan slipped and got absolutely soaked and none of us escaped the wrath of the fountain and guard controlling it. We were all soaking wet and decided to go to Starbucks, where our bus abandoned us. After a wait that seemed like forever in our sopping wet clothes the bus came back and we returned to the farm on the university campus that we’re staying. After changing into some dry clothes, we sat down to play a game of Roses and Thorns, where you say one good thing and one bad thing about the day, but our Roses seriously outnumbered our Thorns, proving just how amazing a day can be, even when you are soaking wet.

Written by Ben and Eric Kyle