A glimpse into youth fun in Cofradia!

So, remember how we had two teams from Houston come in the first two weeks I was here? Well, Steve Silberman blogged about those teams, especially the first one which focused almost entirely on the youth, and he posted some pictures from some of those activities as well. However, Jay made a video that covered both weeks and teams, and he's uploaded it to his website so that people can view it! So, go watch it, cuz it's super fun!

Anyway, some of the activities you'll see played out there are as follows:

1) Whipcream Cheeto throw--one person's face is covered in whipped cream, and their partner has to throw cheetos at their face and see how many they can make stick. The partners that have the most cheetos stuck to the whipped cream face WINS!

2) Stinky Twinkies--You take several twinkies and cut a slit in them and then add to the cream some other ingredient. I think the team used syrup, ketsup, sardines, peanut butter, one regular twinky (no tampering), and then one more peanut butter one. The goal is to have your volunteers eat all of their twinky; you can put a challenge into it also, like see who can eat their twinky with the fewest number of bites. (Disclaimer: Mexicans generally don't like peanut butter--it's primarily a texture thing, I think--so that was the hardest one.)

3) Tootsie Roll Sculptures--give the kinds handfulls of tootsie rolls, and they have to take them and mold them into some design that you tell them. This time it was armadillos. They have to moisten the tootsie rolls in their mouths in order to be able to shape them. That tootsie roll armadillo is pretty impressive, eh??

4) Water Balloon Toss--with a catch. If you put baby oil on your hands, it will work into the balloon material and cause it to burst, so the kids had to find ways of holding onto their balloons without them popping. Oh, and each time they tossed it, one partner had to take a step backward. Whichever pair can last the longest WINS!

5) Chocolate Marshmellow Drop--One partner stands on a chair and the other lays on the ground with their head at the foot of the chair. The standing partner has a plate of marshmellows that they must dip in chocolate sauce one at a time and try to drop into the other partner's mouth--very messy, but VERY fun! They got like 50 points for each marshmellow that made it into the mouth and 10 points for each that bounced off their face on to the ground.

6) Not pictured in the video but also fun is the Cheerio Shoot--In this game, there are teams, and each person on each team gets a chance to try and shoot a cheerio from their nose into a bucket placed a certain distance away. The teams rotate through, and they can only shoot one cheerio on each turn..quite funny!

7) The second team put on a basketball and volleyball camp sort of event. The kids really enjoyed that! The Americans would give pointers and tips and then they would play real games.

8) LifeSaver Pass--Each person on the team has a toothpick in their mouth, and one is given a lifesaver on that toothpick. They teams split into two and one stands on one side of the court and the other on the other. The person with the lifesaver has to run across the court and then pass the lifesaver onto the next person's toothpick (which is in their mouth), and no one may use any hands!

9) A relay race with coke, crackers, and a water gun. Among other things that did not involve food, each team had to have someone chug a whole can of coke, then tag the next person to eat a certain number of saltine crackers, and then tag the next person to put out a candle flame with a water gun standing a certain distance away.

We did a number of team-building/trust activities as well

10) Trust fall--The kids did this in teams that were made of their small groups. They started off on the ground, and after everyone had a chance to trust fall and catch, then they stepped up onto a little retaining wall around the meeting palapa. Then when everyone had a chance with that, then they went to the wall around the cement soccor "field", which is what the clips in the video show. That wall is about 4.5-5 feet off the ground!

11) Everyone on the carpet--Each small group team was given a little carpet mat rug thing--it was probably about the size of a rectangular mat you'd put in front of your bathroom or kitchen sink. Then they had to see how many people they could get on the rug without anyone touching the cement. The guys decided that human towers were necessary for this feat as there were many more guys than girls. The guys had three or four towers that were three-men tall!!

Oscars Night!--This was a wonderful evening. I think I already wrote about it a little in a previous blog, and Steve wrote about it as well, so check out those blogs! Oh, and if you look closely in the oscar night portion of the video, in the first shot of the girls sitting down at their table, you can see ME in the back left-hand corner!!

Both teams did a lot of work on the foundation for the new church facility we are building, and the last viedo sequence concerns their work on that property. They did such a stellar job!

So enjoy that movie!!! We had so much fun!