My time spent in Ireland I have had the opportunity to do
some amazing things- things far beyond what I fathomed for myself. Of all those
things though, my community outreach project was probably one of my favorites
and easily the most rewarding.
I had the opportunity to work with children ages 5 to 10 and
be a kid again myself. We worked on craft projects like painting clovers with
marshmallows and making a little Easter rabbit out of a styrofoam cup. Playing
with the kids was all in good fun and I really enjoyed that instant and easy
bond you get from children, however my favorite part was meeting the workers at
the day care. Many were around my age, but I really bonded with Ashley who is a
year older than I and wants to go visit the United States. She loves her job,
her boyfriend, and was born and raised about 20 minutes just on the other side
of Spiddal.
Setting up this experience was (I’m not going to lie)
extremely uncomfortable. We sort of just meandered our way to the Day Care and
just walked right through the front door. In America nothing like that would
have been able to happen- three strangers just walking up and into a day care
in the middle of the day? The cops would have been definitely called, but they
weren’t in this case and we met Ashley for the first time and then Jane Marie
(the boss lady, which is literally what they all called her) we all chatted for
just a bit then set up the dates exchanged emails and looked forward to seeing
each other again.
March 28th was when we went back to the Day Care
to do our styrofoam bunny craft. The older kids there seemed pretty unimpressed
by all of it but the younger kids really enjoyed themselves. We chatted with
Ashley and Jane Marie for quite a bit and had some tea with them, eventually
they called us a taxi and we went back to Park Lodge for the day. The next day
we went it was down pouring so we showed up soaking wet which of course they
thought was quite funny just because the Irish always carry umbrellas and we
still haven’t learned that lesson almost 3 months into this. We stayed and
chatted and had tea which made us late (a word no Irish person truly
understands).
Overall it was an incredible experience being able to
connect with the kids and Ashley and Jane Marie, and I will cherish those moments
as well as my time spent here in Ireland.
Unfortunately due to the fact that we were working with children we were unable to take photographs at request of the staff of the daycare.