“What is the strangest food you ever had?” The answer: Broccoli. “In my country we have eggs.” “We have eggs here, you know.” “Yes, but we wait to eat the eggs until the chicken is almost hatched. Look! In the Philippines, this is called Balut.”
There are many different nationalities represented on The Friendly Island. Last Saturday, medical students from American University of the Caribbean worked with the youth of the Little League’s Player Development Program. They visited with the young baseball players and presented stories about their home countries, all of which are on the continent of Asia.
The first question asked was: “How many of us do you think are Chinese?’ The children raised their hands, “Three.” “Four!” “No, five!” The answer? “None of us.” The children sat with confused looks. “Why did you think we were Chinese?” “Because of your eyes,” ventured one brave youth. “Yes, a lot of people make that mistake.”
The med students were from India, the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan. They each showed the children the flag of their country, and showed them where the country is located using a globe and a world map. They told them a little about the country and then gave the children a treat from their country. Japan's Hello Panda Cookies were voted best. No one wanted to try the almost-hatched chicken eggs; but that was good, as there were none.
The children at Player Development have been learning about world geography. Player Development is a Little League after school program that stresses the importance of schoolwork before sports. Each day, all children have to do their homework or they may do some reading, math and worksheets for a total of three assignments before they can play ball or do fun activities.
The children are rewarded for good work with baseball cards. The geography lessons started out by teaching the children how to read and understand the baseball cards. They learned about batting averages and how they are calculated. They learned about RBIs (runs batted in) and even “on base percentages” plus they learned a little about the United States by using a map and finding each state that had a baseball team.
A few of the children asked, “Where is St. Maarten on the map?” Thus Caribbean geography was the next logical topic.
AUC students visit and volunteer their time at Player Development regularly. On a previous visit, one of the AUC students had been asked if they were Chinese so when the future doctors heard the children were doing geography, they volunteered to do an “Asia Day.”
In addition to finding the various countries of Asia on the map, the young ball players also learned about famous people from each country, like the boxer Manny Pacquiao from the Philippines and famous baseball player Ichiro Suzuki from Japan.
One of the funniest stories came from Taiwan. The lady told the ballplayers that when she was in Taiwan, she heard music outside. She ran to get some money expecting an ice cream truck. Nope. In Taiwan, the garbage trucks play music so the people know when to take out the trash and the streets remain free of clutter between pick-ups. “Imagine thinking you were going to get ice cream, and when you get there, it’s just garbage! Very confusing!” The future doctors also taught the children how to make origami cranes out of folded paper and paper lanterns.
The day was completed with a fun game of baseball, pitting AUC students against the youth of the Player Development program.
Contributed by Tom Burnett
