chicago: day three

started our day off again playing with the kids at the Carole Robertson center. we were working with the Headstart program, which is basically a temporary preschool for the kids. one of the kids started off the day by sitting down to do a craft with me, looking up, and promptly stating, "I like your eyelashes..and your eyeballs." it made my day. today was Spanish day, which was fun knowing that in circle time I could understand most of their songs (most of being the key phrase), but it turned out to be ridiculously frustrating at times when we hit a language barrier, or-shocker-most of the kids could speak Spanish better than me. I asked one of the girls what color marker she wanted to use (in Spanish) and she replied, then proceeded to tell me about her weekend, all the places she went and the games she played and so and so on and I just had to nod and smile.

we then went to an authentic Chinese restaurant! yay..except for my peanut allergy. even though they assured me that I was able to eat their food, I didn't want to risk it. we went to Silver Seafood and everyone who ate there loved it! they had this lemon chicken that looked delicious and I have to admit, I've never wanted Chinese food because it always looked disgusting to me but the chicken looked fantastic. instead, I got a slice of pizza the size of my face next door and settled for a banana at the restaurant. mmm, fruit.

after eating, we were supposed to head to St. Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Church to serve at their soup kitchen, but it ended up being double-booked. I think God decided to test our flexibility there and we bounced back easily! we went through at least 800 plastic bags in order to make 20 balls of 'plarn', plastic yarn, that will be given to a group of women in a nursing home to crotchet into large mats to give to the homeless. they're extremely durable and washable and waterproof and COOL!

we ended the day by playing wiffleball in a sketchy park at night, which was fun to get out of the apartments and be active. we walked back in the dark and saw police cars and obviously got freaked out-I mean, inner city Chicago here-but realized it was just a high school graduation and the police were just monitoring the area. oh. we then played Mafia to realize that in the end, J-Money will always be the killer in J-Moneyville.