Week One- Tuesday

Well, today we worked on a mini farm. It was different from what I am used to doing. I have done weeding and things like that but not like this. For the record, the group did very well in waking up early and working well. It also got me to understand what these people go though everyday. Its not the same as what we call an 'average' day. but when we went to the camps, we got the chance to give joy to the families of the camps. the joy and the happiness they had was amazing. All in all, today was a great and wonderful day.

-'James'

         

          Today was/is going to be an overall amazing day. We got to experience what it was like to be a migrant farmworker (i.e. Waking up at 5:15 AM and then working in the fields 'till 10:30 and eating pre-packed lunches at 11:00. We also ate A LOT of strawberries while we cut the little vine things that were too long for the plant), and later tonight, we're going to migrant camps to go play with the little children. So cute! But my favorite part of today had to be making our own dinner. After we were done taking our 15-minute showers at the YMCA, we were driven to the local Grocery Outlet for a mysterious reason. We were then told that we did an awesome job working in the fields today, so they were going to give us money to buy food that we could cook for our own dinners. They said that they were going to give us the amount of money we would have earned if we were really migrant farmworkers. They gave us money according to family, along with a small slip of paper explaining our family situation (we were put into fake families yesterday - I am a Cortez along with Lili H-M and Ella J. H.). I was really psyched about making my own dinner until Ella said these five words: "They gave us four dollars." Shocked, we read our scenario slip, where we found out that we had supposedly earned $24.67, but had put away most of it for buying clothes, leaving us $3.50. We hunted around The Grocery Outlet, searching for something to eat. At first, we were going to settle for Mac 'N Cheese, but it turned out that you needed milk to make it. Then we considered buying a giant sack of potatoes so that Lili could make some awesome cooked potatoes that she had made yesterday, but it was too expensive even after a sales lady slapped a 50 cent off sticker on one sack for us. Eventually, we settled on something that we all thought would make a nice dinner. When we got back, we were slightly jealous about what we had compared to other people: One group of people had combined their few dollars with another group and had gotten a giant box of pancakes with syrup and cookies; Ms. Gardner and Ms. Cantu had gotten lentil soup with corn tortillas and cheese; Sofia, Mariko, and Christia had gotten red bell peppers with Mac 'N Cheese (turns out that you could also use hot water - oops!), M&M's, and green beans; and Ella M. H., Lizzie, Allyson, Michaela, and Emma had made shell pasta with tomato sauce along with cookies and Sprite! And what did we have? Two boxes of Froot Loops with an unusable box of what we thought to be rice but turned out to be riceseasoning. Lucky for us, Ms. Gardner and Ms. Cantu let us use their extra corn tortillas and cheese to make quesadillas, and Ella Hikes, Lizzie, Allyson, Michaela, and Emma let us all have a cookie. Lili didn't want one and Ella Hill gave me hers, so I split the two cookies into halves and shared with Sofia, Mariko, and Christia. Ella, Lili, and I all laughed about our whole food predicament as we ate the cereal and the food donated to us. Overall, I had a great day, and you've got to admit that it's pretty funny that we thought that the rice seasoning was a pack of Insta-Rice or something! Thank you for reading my blogpost, and to all of our families: We miss you, we love you, and we're having a fantabulous time. Thank you! Have a good night!

Palie Cantu

Middle School Mathematics Teacher

Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart