Hi everyone! Today was a packed morning schedule. We were invited to attend the Fair Trade Festival in Seoul by members of iCOOP, which is a food cooperative in Korea. We had the chance to listen to iCOOP representatives about their services and their plans for sustainability. The festival organizers mentioned that we would be participating in a parade, but they did not share any more details about it.
We arrived at City Hall Station, curious to learn what our role would be in this parade. We met our iCOOP representative, who showed us around the festival. We learned that we would helping iCOOP pass out ice cream to the attendees. Thankfully, they did not mention anything about the parade. (Some of us were speculating that we would have to dress up as different fruits, which would be very interesting...).
After taking a look around the festival, we returned to the iCOOP booth to get ready for our job. They kindly gave us all free "Fair Trade Festival" t-shirts. They also let us borrow iCOOP aprons. Once we got the ice cream stand setup, we started attracting a lot of attention. We had two groups passing out ice cream, and lots of people were coming to both. We shouted, "Free ice-cream, iCOOP ice-cream, annyounghaseyo, kamsahamnida." Basically anything to get people's attention. We didn't have to try to hard because people were just fascinated by a huge group of foreigners. Several of the press people took pictures of us, even some of the attendees took pictures with us.
We had great time passing out ice cream, but unfortunately our time was limited. Some of us had to go volunteer at a school to teach English. A few of us went to meet a US and British army veteran living in Itaewon.
After a quick lunch, we headed towards the subway in order to go to the school. Once we arrived at the school, we were greeted by shouts and kids running around. We shared some balloons that we got from the festival with them. We divided into groups in order to teach English to the kids. My group, Leni, Chris, and I, were teaching a group of nine to ten year olds. We used hand games to teach them numbers and colors. Then, we played "Simon Says" to teach body parts in English. It was difficult coming up with games on the spot. I wish we had prepared more earlier.
I noticed that some of us took more of a direct role to interact with the kids, while others observed more in the background or played assistant roles. A few of us were naturally gifted in working with the children. Even with all this talent around us, we all had a very challenging time managing the kids. Some kids did not want to play or were just disruptive. There was also a language barrier that would prevent us from explaining the rules. However, after we got over the craziness, we were able to teach some English to the students. A few were exceptionally talented in English. One kid was a spelling genius. We passed out several cookies for when they answered questions correctly. When we passed out teddy grahams, some of the kids complained if a leg or arm was missing, which I thought was very funny.
By the end of the two hours, we were all exhausted. The teacher thanked us several times, and we took several group photos together. We enjoyed our time at the school (even though it was very challenging) and appreciated the opportunity provided by PLUR.
Thanks for reading!
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