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      "My experience in the village changed how I once looked at the world.  Not everyone is well off like I pretend and want him or her to be.  The people and kids I met in the village and in the orphanage taught me about life and myself.  The way that they can get through days, months, and years with only the basics necessary to live amazes me.  They don’t have the advantages that we do in America.  Still I am not yet satisfied with the things that I do have.  It is sad.  Going to the orphanage and spending time with the kids made me yearn for something different.  I looked at them and wondered how their parents or anyone could have ever abandoned them.

          I made several connections with the kids at the orphanage.  I love spending time with kids, playing with them, laughing with them, talking to them.  I had so much fun playing soccer, playing cards, throwing snowballs, hauling wood, and hanging out with them.  There was one boy in particular that I got extremely close to.  His name was Alexander.  I didn’t want to leave him because so many people have left him and I didn’t want to be one of those people.  The kids at the orphanage hardly spoke any English, but this little boy learned how to say a few words in English before we left.  Those words were, “Please don’t leave.”  I didn’t know what to do.  I felt so bad.  I didn’t want to leave him or any of the other orphans.  When I got back on the bus I started crying.

          Looking back on my time in the village, I realize that I miss everything about it.  I miss the outdoor potties, the unique, but good food, the time I shared with my peer group, the kids at the orphanage.  I miss everything about it and I really want to go back."  Catherine D.

       ".... Going to Auschwitz was an extremely surreal experience.  Many of my relatives went to Auschwitz and it was eerie standing in a place where so many people were killed. What hit me the most was seeing the exhibit with the hair of the women who were sent to the gas chamber. There was hair in a room piled five feet tall at least twenty feet long.  Walking by the train tracks was really weird because I could envision cattle cars packed with humans and people screaming. The experience didn’t fully hit me until we got in the car ride back and I realized where I just had been. Just thinking about the Holocaust makes me mad. How could people be so cruel and ignorant?  All I can do now is teach others so that history doesn’t repeat itself." Katy F.

MARCH 2006 PARENT CONFERENCE and GRADUATION

Congratulation to the Peer Groups 43 and 44 for finishing their journey . The Rose Ceremony and the Graduation were inspiring.

For more pictures from WINTER 2006 click here