To The Zoo!

Day Ten – Friday, March 5, 2010

Today was out last day with the kids so we all went to the zoo! We took our own old 1970’s American school bus to the zoo. Most of the kids haven’t even left their small neighborhood and some haven’t even ridden on a bus so the ride to the zoo was filled with excitement. All of the kids had never even been to the zoo so all they talked about was the animals they wanted to see. Somehow one of the kids brought a balloon on the bus. Since all the windows were open the balloon was flying around the bus! We were all hitting and punching it. Everyone was laughing and hollering until the balloon flew out the back window and went soaring down the highway. Even though the balloon was gone, the children thought it was hilarious watching the balloon fly into the cars behind us! When we arrived at the zoo, all the children were in awe. After a couple of seconds of pure amazement, the kids began clapping. They were so happy to finally be there! As we got off the bus, our zoo excursion began. Izzy gave Guadalupe, our student, her camera and she took pictures of every single animal we saw. This zoo was quite different than the zoo in the US. For example, some of the animals we saw at the zoo were squirrels and raccoons. In New York, we see them running around everyday but in Nicaragua, squirrels and raccoons are uncommon. The raccoon was so friendly. All it wanted to do was to get out of its cage and snuggle with us. We also saw a lot of animals native to Nicaragua. We saw a tapir, which is an animal that looks like a mix of an elephant and a boar. It has a small elephant trunk but the body of a boar. One of the more exotic animals we saw was an ocelot. It is a small cat-like animal. It is the size of a house cat but has leopard print fur. Then we saw a chimpanzee. This was not any old chimpanzee. This chimpanzee did not want to be in a cage. When we were looking at it, at one point it leaped up and swung from the bars of the cage. He shook the bars of the cage so hard I thought he was going to break the lock! All of the kids, including me, freaked out and hid behind us. This chimpanzee was crazy, and also looked crazy too! He couldn’t close his mouth and all his teeth were extremely crooked. He did not look healthy at all and was dying to get out of his cage. This chimpanzee had the capability of killing us if he got out of his cage! We did not look at him for very long. At the end of our day at the zoo, we had to take our 1970’s bus back. Even though the zoo wasn’t quite up to par with the zoos that we have seen, it made the kids happy and that is what we are here for. We handed the kids out sandwiches and we were all surprised about how the kids saved their sandwiches and cookies for their families. When we got back to their school we all had to say goodbye to our students. It was very emotional. Donald made a speech to thank us and Ms. Del Favero cried. But we all left and incredible impact on our students and that was our mail goal. We will all miss them very much.

-Rachel

saying goodbye :(