CCAK

One of the largest clubs on campus is Colby Cares About Kids (CCAK), where a Colby student is paired up with a child in town who is in elementary or middle school in a mentorship program. I have been paired with Brandon for all four of my years at Colby, and the experience has been incredible! I've watched as he has gone from a trouble-maker, refuse-to-do-homework, fourth grade boy to a responsible, caring 7th grader. Watching this transformation has been incredible, and I'm a little bummed that after graduation in May, I won't get to see him anymore.

Sledding event with all of the CCAK mentors/mentees. 

Paper airplane time.

Homework help

I'm so proud of him!

Johnson Day

Every fall, Colby students get together with PPD (the Physical Plant Department) in order to do a day of community service on campus, called Johnson Day. This year we participated in Johnson Day activities with Dave (PPD Representative) and the Spanish Club. Our task: clean all campus signs. We got really into it.

Made-to-order doughnuts at Kennebec Café to start the day

SO excited.

What happened to all the raked leaves?

Lunch with Dave (left)

Servicio Comunitario

Part of the Duke in the Andes program requires each student to spend 10 weeks at some sort of community service on top of the classes we are taking. I have landed myself in the cutest school of all, helping teach English. There are kids from ages 5-12 at the school, which is a public/private institution (I still haven't figured that one out...). But it's a very low resource school, and the English teacher, Mariana, basically has to buy supplies out of her own pocket. It's really sad, actually. And a lot of the kids don't have adequate supplies or the correct uniform size or their uniform has huge holes in it because their families can't afford to buy new ones at the moment. It's rough, but the kids are adorable and so sweet.

This is the outer wall of the escueltia. The murals are actually pretty cool.

This is the English classroom. It's an old auditorium, and the kids sit on church pews. It's not very conducive to learning, but like I said, they don't have much choice because of the economic situation of the school.

Today we learned the colors, and got to go outside and play with a big tent-thing!

Not much learning happened.

So yes. This is where I spend 10 hours a week. And it's worth it.

This weekend the program is venturing into the Amazon Rainforest (yep. that Amazon). Wish me luck. I don't do well with snakes.