I slept for 11 hours last night. And Sean slept even more than I did. We are staying at the First Baptist Church in Ely, Nevada. Our sleeping pads and sleeping bags are sprawled across the floor in several rooms on the second story of the church. It is so nice to stay somewhere with a fully functional kitchen, because we can make more sophisticated meals and can really clean our dishes. Tomorrow, we are hosting our first learning festival at the White Pine County Library. Today is all about preparation. After a breakfast of eggs, pancakes, and crescent rolls, I walked to the Flower Basket & Espresso Depot to work on my lesson plan. I ordered a mango smoothie but it was way too sweet. Cole and Asia showed up about an hour later to drink my smoothie and work on their lesson plans. I am going to teach about mindfulness and self-compassion, Asia is teaching Chemystery, Cole is teaching cosmology, Travis is teaching about the brain and memories, and Anna is teaching about electricity and circuits. It feels good to finalize the lesson plans, but it also makes me feel nervous in anticipation for tomorrow.
Walking back to the church, I got a better sense of Ely. It feels a little bit lonely, but also like there is a strong sense of community among residents given its small population. Especially in the church. I have to say, having spent hardly any time in churches growing up, it’s really interesting learning about the culture with such proximity now. People are so generous, letting us stay in the church facility, use the kitchen and sometimes the food too.
To be honest, the rest day was a little bit boring and lonely for me. There was a lot of idle, unstructured time and I spent a lot of it lounging around. My highlight was walking to the grocery store with Travis and Cole and browsing literally every aisle of the store. We bought a lot of grapes and tried to see how many we could fit in our mouth. 17.
Looking forward to teaching tomorrow!
Thanks for reading,
-Maceo
Asia, consistently clad in tie-dye manages to squeeze 17 grapes in her mouth!
Sean, always ready to eat more, easily fits 17 grapes into his mouth.
Clean-shaven Travis dazzles the camera with 17 grapes in his mouth.
I do just fine myself, managing 17 grapes in my mouth.