Deaflympics 2007: Friday 2/2/07

 

Ok so I was at the U for about 8 hours today helping the kids with their program for the Deaflympics Opening Ceremony. I am exhausted! They were insane and didn't pay attention or listen about as much as you'd expect for that age group, 10 and under, though my group was mostly 5 and 6.

I got there at 12ish and no one was there so I wandered around wondering if I was at the right place. People did start trickling in, and there was me and one other volunteer for another 45 minutes. In the next 2 hours everyone shows up and we help haul boxes of water into the gymnasium. The kids are all rounded up into a big group and
stretched out before breaking into smaller groups. There is about one interpreter and 2-3 volunteers per group of 15ish kids along with 3 U dancers going over the choreography. There were about 60%-70% deaf kids and the rest hearing and they were pretty cute. My group learned a pretty simple routine but they were very young and had a hard time with it so we worked on it for about 2-3 hours. I was dying, trying to help, interpret, answer questions, and learn the dance so I could show it better, etc. Those kids sucked the energy right out of me. I was sleepwalking.

 Pictures

At about 5pm, they brought in a lot of pizza and I helped line all the kids up and get them pizza and water, they wouldn't even stay in line for pizza! I had to keep rounding them up. There were several groups that would be best friends, then start playing, then annoying each other and then fighting, geez leave each other alone! It was like watching 2 kittens fighting with each other and then one kitten hits the other one too hard and the one that got hit gets mad and hits back and then they start pounding on each other until I break it up or one complains as if I haven't been watching the whole time.

 

Each group got a prop to dance with, except for mine, we did the harder routine. One used silver pom poms, another had flags and the last one had hoberman spheres they kept opening and closing and swinging around. Good times. All of the little kids wanted to play with the props any chance they got so if I turned around for a second,
3 of them would be running down the gym with a pom pom. So we all get our stuff down, as long as the U dancer is doing it right were the kids can see and we practice the whole thing together. It looks cool, and starts out with the U dancers and they finish, then another group of U dancers come in and dance.

 

K so we go over it and then get into groups and the kids get their costumes. Like the 2nd coming of Elvis, adult sized jackets with shiny silver sequins that hurts my eyes. And Deaflympics t-shirts. The jackets don't quite fit but they don't have anything else so the kids are rolling up their sleeves and trying to make it work. I ask them if they like it and they seem to... in costume they do it a few times with energy I can't see where it comes from and then we're done. Oh and partway through the practice a few of them decide to take a break in the middle of all the dancing and just sit down.

And we're back again Saturday at the same time.