Service - RCCI

Today in RCCI a few friends and kids visiting from the RCCI community played in the gym. We spent the time throwing around a basketball and having a few laughs. There was one child, who's name I'm unaware of, that was extremely excited by throwing the ball around. He'd wind the ball up and try to do a few tricks with it as well as throw it over his back and kick it to us. The other kids that he had played with were also a joy to be around. I had spoken to a girl for a while about our hobbies and favorite classes in school while we had played. The boys had taken the majority of the visiting boys outside to play cricket. This seemed like a good idea because cricket is a favored sport amongst many of the kids in Sri Lanka. Although it was a great way to spend time I felt like the girls (with the exception of a couple boys) had been inside were getting a little bored with doing the same things. In order to combat the boredom I tried to lead a group game that involved all the kids instead of just a few. We all stood in a circle and passed the ball around while talking to each other. Looking back on today I felt like even though it was a small accomplishment, it was an accomplishment nonetheless and it made me feel good about reintroducing myself into the RCCI community. When I came back the kids smiled because they remembered me and it was almost as if I never left. From this experience I realized where I had become aware of my strengths and weaknesses and then assessed them in order to improve and strengthen certain areas for growth. 

In a way, today was somewhat challenging because I had to get back into the groove of working with the children. It was difficult to go from being very upbeat and fast paced all day to suddenly having to slow myself down a little bit more. I had to take their situation into consideration and this really helped me to learn to respect and consider their disabilities more and be more aware of them. Normally I like to treat everyone exactly the same as I'd treat my friends, and I don't have a hard time doing this but I realized that there were times when I got a little too comfortable treating them like they were a normal friend because I realized that with some of the kids you can't do certain things and maybe it'll take some time for them to get the hang of what is happening. They are all very smart kids and they're so much fun to be around but I have to learn to be more aware of their disabilities and try to structure myself according to their needs. I realized that many of them aren't as talkative or as excitable as the other children so I have to learn to work with that better. I have to be able to include all the kids without making them feel uncomfortable. I do like to spend time with the kids and I like to talk to them and play with them but I do have to understand that not all of them are the same.