Frisbee, Fires and Fun

Time is winding down before the Alzar students take off for their South American adventure. Students recently found out the names of their host families and Ines has helped many students in already contacting these families. Both parties sound extremely excited to meet. Wesley is particularly lucky to be hosted by Ines’s older brother, a senior student Wesley’s own age. This week Ines, Crosby and Grady took charge as our LODs. This team has worked hard to maintain the routines that make Alzar School days efficient, while also initiating fun new afternoon activities…..

“2 weeks before Chile!! That is how me, Crosby and Grady started the week. The first day of this experience we had to plan the outdoor activity, and we decided as a group to go to the Cascade football field to play a little game of Ultimate Frisbee. We divided the group in two, with some people staying here at campus studying, and the others that went to play. After that we had a nice chore time and as always we split the group in our respective crews to get everything done. Our day finished with a very effective study hall (something that everyone really needed because of the busy WFR weekend that we had).

The second day of our experience we started with a normal breakfast at 7:30 and a common day of classes. For the outdoor activity we went to town to do a little bit of SHOPPING AND LAUNDRY, and then we came back to do chores. Another normal evening of Alzar School!!
On Wednesday for community service we divided the group in two, one group stayed in campus working on the trail, and the other went to the Cascade field to pick up some trash around a pond in the local park.
All this week has been awesome for all of us, and everyone is super excited to go to Chile!!!”
-Ines

This past week also marked the inaugural use of the yurt stoves. This process started with a How-to-build-a-fire lesson in Sean and Kristin’s own stove before trying the process in each student yurt. The boys were off to a good start with a successful fire that kept them warm throughout the night, a skill that will come in handy when we return from Chile to full on winter at the end of November. The girls had one night where excess smoke brought the wraith of their blaring fire alarm. A problem they solved by opening both doors to clear the smoke, while also launching a yurt dance party to further encourage air flow. Fire building is definitely a learning process, but with trial and error the girls have now developed a technique to minimize smoke escape, satisfy their touchy smoke alarm and keep their yurt warm throughout the night.

SJ Byce
Teaching Fellow