25th of July, 2014

Intern Shareef's Blog #30:

  Today was the start of the final week of the Immersion program. We got up this morning and carried all of our luggage to the school. When we arrived the van was already there, so we got to put our luggage in right away. When I went to the van, I met Vania's cousins and as usual I wasn't very good with my first impression. When I first met them, they were sitting in the van so I stepped on to the ledge but apparently not all the way and so I tripped and fell right out of the van. It was really embarrassing because they were two pretty girls who are the closest to my age so I got really awkward for awhile. I hate making first impressions because I am so terrible on how I act when I meet people for the first time. After meeting them we all got ready and headed out for our eight hour car ride. Along the way we past by many brick houses, a lot of mountains, and I even saw a couple of soccer fields but it was really interesting because some were made of dirt like you would see in movies so I really enjoyed seeing those. Some of the fields were also on mountains so it would be really cool to go do some photography of people playing while the sun was setting over the mountains. On our car ride we watched a really sad but well-made movie (of course because that is pretty much the only kinds of movies my uncle has.) It was a movie about El Salvador and how the young boys would be recruited to the army. It showed how every night there would be gunshots in the towns because of the war going on. The main character is this boy named Chava and it shows his story of life in El Salvador's civil war. Many of the main characters companions were recruited to the army, or hurt, or even killed. It was very sad seeing all of these murders and it really affected me in a way that I really want to make a change about children going to the military. I don't think children's innocents should be taken away at such a young age. It is not fair to them or their families. It made me think about how I could change a problem that occurs in over 40 countries. I thought if I one day became president I would want to make sure that any country the U.S is an allie with they did not do this to any of the children or else I would make sure we were not allies with them anymore. As well as countries that were not allies I would try my best to make sure no children would have to go through that and make sure they are with their families.

  When we arrived to Zacatecas we got our keys to our rooms, so my uncle and I went up then went to go out and walk around and we ended up eating on this really cool restaurant with a balcony that you can eat out and you're directly above the street. After that we went back to the room and this street dog started to follow me and I really didn't want it to but I felt really bad. So it ended up following me all the way to the hotel. So we had to make stay out when we got in the room but it stayed at the front door for around 10 minutes. Then it finally left, so we just had to wait around for awhile until it was time to get on the tour bus so we stayed in our room, and I don't really enjoy just lying in the room so I went to the lobby to see if anyone was out yet and Vania and her family was out there, so I went and sat with them. After everyone arrived we went to get our tour of the city. It is a kind of small city but it is beautiful and has so much for the size of it. While we were on the tour bus there were people walking around, dancing, singing, and partying. Apparently they do it every weekend so we get to go do it tomorrow. The tour bus was really cool and even though I was freezing it was great. After the tour we went to go eat some tamales and my uncle and I got two green chicken tamales and two sweet tamales. We got them to go, so then we could eat them in the lobby, I didn't like the sweet one as much but the green chicken was really good. It was a little spicy but not bad at all, but as soon as the lady gave us the bag with them the little doggy came over and started to lick my legs. He ended up following us all the way back to the hotel again. So while we ate he just laid there. I felt so bad and he was so cute but I don't know if he belonged to someone or whatever. So when we went back to the room I felt bad because I didn't want the hotel employees to hurt him or anything but I don't know if he has flees or anything and he was really dirty so I wanted to bathe him but it was so sad that we had to leave him.