International Bazaar

Well, Tuesday (July 16) was our second day of community service. Our morning started with a meeting at Lafayette Urban Ministry Homeless Shelter. The director of LUM (Lafayette Urban Ministry) told us about the shelter and some stories about the people who have lived there, which was very interesting and saddening at the same time. For example he told about a couple of people who actually had Ph. D. and still ended up homeless and unemployed.Later we split into 6 groups to do community service. My group was supposed to volunteer at the food pantry, but since it was too late and there was nothing for us to do, we went back to the shelter and helped others to clean it. Of course, since we were the last ones to start cleaning, there wasn't many cleaning areas to choose from, so we ended up cleaning the bathrooms and toilets - thank you to whoever invented rubber gloves!

In the afternoon we had to work on the Project Citizen. I don't know if I have told you already, but we have to present a project on some kind of problem (related to public policy) on Monday. After that, we headed to St Thomas Aquinas, a Catholic church on campus, to start cooking for the International Bazaar (International Dinner). We couldn't find the right door, so we had to march through the big chapel (I'm not sure if this is called a chapel, but you know, the big room with benches and organ and religious pictures) and I felt really bad because someone was trying to practise the piano there.

The cooking was so much fun. I made kama (to those who are not familiar with Estonian cuisine, it's a drink made of a specific flour and natural yoghourt), but to make it more appealing, instead of using natural yoghourt, I used whipped cream and cream cheese and served it with strawberry sauce. At least, I was supposed to.

First I couldn't find any blenders. Then I found one, but this, despite my, Anna's (Hungary) and Mihai's (Moldova) efforts, didn't work. So, I had no choice but to start smashing the strawberries with a metal kitchen thingy (I have even no idea how it's called in Estonian). Karolina came to my rescue and we spent a good 15 minutes trying to get it done. So finally I had something close to strawberry puree, but not exactly. Later Clement (France), Shrine (Switzerland), Natasha (Cyprus) (and I think there was one more, but I can't remember right now) helped me fill in the small plastic cups.

The dinner was amazing, there was so much good food. Unfortunately, by the time I went to take some food, my kama was already gone. All the food was great, but there were 2 dishes that I especially appreciated - Edvard's (Lithuania) dark garlic breadsticks and Karolina's (Finland) black (well, almost black) bread. As you can see, I miss black bread. :D

So, since it's almost midnight again, I'm going to post about yesterday's classes and today's trip to CHICAGO tomorrow/on Saturday. Chicago was just the most impressive, cool, amazing, beautiful city I've ever been to!