Nashville- Children/Health

The results of our group text rap battle:

"My name is Jay. I got scruffy facial hair. I may seem like a bada** but I'm just a giant teddy bear."

"My name is Sean and I eat cereal out of a bowl. My deep blue eyes will gaze into your soul."

"My name is Christine. I'm calm not strange. Let's get to know each other, no marriage arranged."

We went back to Kindred Spirits and Monroe Harding. It was the first day the group broke up into two groups of six. The Kindred Spirits kids shoveled a lot of poop. But it's ok because we did it with friends. That's one of the things we learned this trip- even shoveling poop can be fun if you do it with people you like. It was tough work. The second we shoveled a pile of poop the defiant horses would drop a deuce, putting us at a net gain of zero poop units.

At Monroe Harding, we painted a bathroom. It was a beautiful vibrant gray. The restroom was for a gym that the kids were going to be able to play basketball at so it was really awesome to be able to be a part of creating what was clearly going to be one of the best elements of the Children's Home. It might have been nicer to paint it a prettier color than gray but I guess nobody really cares what color his bathroom is. As we left, Bob (the caretaker) told us, "It's a cruel world out there. Be safe." It seemed an odd closing remark for an uplifting trip but it was interesting that he seemed to be making a dichotomy between our trip and what they're used to seeing from the outside world.

Today was the twenty-second birthday of one of our senior group members, Tim Lewis. We celebrated by having a surprise dinner at the famous Loveless Café. Most of us ended up ordering a half chicken and two sides- needless to say almost nobody finished their meal. We then brought out a surprise guest- Taylor Swift- to serenade Tim. Not really. We actually brought him cupcakes which is the second best thing right? So we forced those down our throats and into our 150% saturated bellies and drunk on the company of newfound friends and southern cooking went on our merry ways back to the Eastwood Church.

We split into guys and girls vans (but with Christine leading the guys van and Jay leading the girls van) and raced to see who could get home first (following all traffic laws). The guys won and when we got there, we hid in the dark and waited for the others to return. Iyas and Devin jumped out and scared Jay so badly that he screamed like a little girl. It was definitely one of the most hilarious moments of the trip yet. Then we played Hide and Seek, scared each other a bunch more (Jay screamed again) and now we're getting ready to go to bed to do some work for Thistle Farms again in the morning.