Iwent to HUF in the fall of 2013. I am a sophomore and have been looking forward to this trip since I was very young. Ever since I had decided on Harding, I wanted to go to Florence. Italy has always held a fascination for me. It is a world of excellent food, amazing art and beautifully preserved history. I was very excited, and the trip was more perfect than I could have imagined. Living in an Italian villa, taking walks in the city of Florence and simply experiencing the Tuscan countryside was easily the highlight of my short life thus far.
One of the things we were blessed to do was participate in a volunteering opportunity at the local library. We held a free program for children ages 5-10 that would help with their English skills and allow them to have fun at the same time. We split ourselves into two groups, so that we could hold two different programs and prevent overcrowding. There were seven of us, and our book was “If I Had A Dragon.” We had about 25-30 children show up, which was a great number. They spoke Italian and some English, the older children more than the younger, and we spoke English the whole time so they could improve their language skills.
We read through the book slowly the first time, then talked about what happened in the story. We then assigned different words to pairs of children so they would stand up when their word was read. After we read through it more deliberately, stopping to allow the children to stand and say their word, we did what all good library programs should do: color. Each child received a piece of paper and drew their own dragon. When that was done, we divided the children into two groups and then had a dragon roaring contest (Olaf won).
I loved this chance to experience the normal life of the Italians in my favorite city, and I really enjoyed being able to interact with children. Though this was a small part of what I did overseas, it reminded me that my new home was not too different after all.
