Global Banquet

On April 27th, I attended the Global Community Banquet along with many fellow Global LLC members. I was able to sit with my suite liaison and his family and talk to them about my year as a member of the community and what that meant in terms of my involvement with many of the Korean things I participate in. I was also given an award for the best blog, which was really encouraging and unexpected. I actually really enjoy writing about my experiences with the Korean culture, so being recognized for it was definitely great. 🙂

The Evolution of Black History

On February 26th, I attended the Evolution of Black History event. It was really interesting, especially when they told us about influential African Americans that most people did not know about.

Sons of the Clouds: the last colony

On January 28th, I attended the World Cinema Series showing of the Sons of the Clouds which was mostly about the life of people in Western Sahara and their political and everyday life struggles.

Slumdog Millionare

On December 3rd, I attended the Global Community showing of Slumdog Millionare. It was a truly great movie and tied in really well with our class topic for the semester. The movie was focused on the life of a boy named Jamal who had lived in the slums in India as he grew up. The movie helped us get  better representation of poverty because of how we saw him in the movie. He experienced many difficult things like seeing his mother killed and having to sleep in garbage. This movie also shows examples of things like abuse and human trafficking. But for Jamal, there is hope to get out of the slums, he is on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and does really well, to the point that they think he is cheating. But even though he is winning loads of money, what he truly seems to care about is finding the love of his life, Latika, again after being separated multiple times. This movie seems like it would create hope for people, but it is false hope. Most people who live in slums don’t have opportunities even close to the ones that Jamal had in the movie, but it did open up our eyes to how sad and terrible poverty can be in the world.

Baylor Homecoming Parade 2013

On October 19th, I was able to take part of the Baylor Homecoming Parade! Being able to be a part of the Baylor Homecoming Parade was such an amazing experience! I loved every second of it and I am so glad I was able to do something as important as carry a flag and represent a country from which a Baylor student came from. Even though i wasn’t able to represent my own country, I am really glad I was able to represent another Spanish speaking country, Honduras. It was really great to be able to see how many flags there where! I couldn’t believe that so many people from so many different countries came to school here! Carrying a flag in the parade is definitely something I would love to do again next year if I can! 🙂
After the parade, we all gathered in the lobby and had a delicious breakfast with different foods from around the world! It was really neat to be able to try different types of breakfast foods! Even the food from my own country was something I hadn’t seen before. Lol

Global Community Dinner

On Sunday October 6th, I attended the German themed Global Community Dinner! They served many delicious German dishes like Wiener Schnitzel, Spatzle, and Kartofeln Salat. It was great to get to try new foods from a different country, but for me the best part was what happened before the dinner. The group that put the dinner together handed us a bowl of note cards and had us each take one. On each card was what we would each be served for dinner that night, some people had a full meal while others only had a glass of water, or nothing at all on their cards. Of course they didn’t actually make us follow that, but it was to let us see how it is in reality. While some people have too much food to eat, others have none at all and I think that it was a very smart way for us to see that, because going to a dinner and being told you would only get water wasn’t the best feeling in the world, and there are people who go through that every day, and through that exercise, we saw that we should all share what we have with those who aren’t as fortunate as us.

The Other Side of Waco Tour

On September 5th, I had the opportunity to go on the Other Side of Waco Tour along with some other students in the Global Community. It was definitely something that I wasn’t expecting. Being a freshmen at Baylor, I hadn’t really had the opportunity to get to know much about the community outside of the campus. I had heard of the poverty that was here in Waco, but never really imagined how real it was. Going on this tour definitely opened my eyes to all the things that need to be done in the community. Mission Waco has already been doing a great deal to help, but there is still more that needs to be done. Our tour guide took us to many different parts of Waco, but there is one place in particular that I can’t forget. She took us to a neighborhood and pointed out that there weren’t many resources close to the people that lived there, just a very small store where they could get groceries and some things they need. She also said that things like the post office, stores, and places for people to find jobs were at least 3 miles away, and most people in that neighborhood didn’t have a way to get to all those places. Because of that, it is very difficult for those people to do better financially. While we were there, we passed by some boys playing catch with a football in their front yard, which was by a busy street. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, but all I could think of is how dangerous that could be for them. That is however, the only place they seemed to have to play, as we passed through that neighborhood, I didn’t see any parks or anything that they could entertain themselves with. Mission Waco and other organizations have been working hard and have been able to build more public parks for families to enjoy in some neighborhoods, but there are still more that can be made.
We did also see some positive things like beautiful art work around the city, like the one pictured above, and new places for people to seek shelter. Mission Waco has already made a great impact on this community, and I know it will continue to do so for a long time. I hope someday in the near future, I can be a part of that as well.