Sunday started off on a good note simply because it was the first day that we got to sleep in! After 4 straight days of waking up before the sun we were all ready for some sleep. At 10 in the morning we met downstairs and ate breakfast together, enjoying the buffet put out by the Marriott. Everyone was talking about how nice it was to eat later in the day.
After that we piled into the van in our usual semi-insane fashion and drove to KARM (Knoxville Area Rescue Ministries). We were instructed to serve lunch, instead of breakfast like we did yesterday. Because we had served cold cereal the day before, we were surprised when a full meal was pulled out for us to serve. There was ham, collard greens, cabbage, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cherry cobbler and cornbread. We lined up and served it assembly line style to a considerably smaller group of people. They all seemed extremely grateful and enjoyed their plates of hot food.
Before serving the food, we met a woman named Lydia who was in charge of the lunch service. After talking to her for a while it was revealed that she had previously been one of the people being served at the Serenity Shelter associated with KARM. She had been a victim of domestic violence for 30 years and had only recently escaped from her husband and made a new life at KARM. It was heartening to see a victim who had a success story to tell. She seemed to be doing well and we were so thankful that she had shared her story with us. Lydia showed us that sometimes a victim can escape and survive.
We left KARM at around 1pm and drove back to the hotel to make sandwiches for lunch. After a thrilling turkey, cheese and mayonnaise sandwich (our usual) we piled into the boys' room for reflection. The activity today involved seeing a physical representation of how lucky or unlucky we are. Each trip member got an index card and Lyndsey read off statements and we had to draw a word or symbol on our card based on whether the statement applied to us. Examples were "If your parents make enough money to send you to college, draw a lightbulb" and "If you have never been made fun of because of your accent, write si". After we had all finished we discussed the pictures on our cards and what it made us think about. We ended up having a lengthy talk about the fairness of double standards, how we feel (or don't feel) safe in College Park and how everyone is judged on their looks, whether we try to do it or not. Many debated were started and disagreements arose as people stated their opinions.
To cool down from our near-debate we had a couple hours of alone time during which most people napped or watched TV. The Catholic Student Center had volunteered earlier in the week to make us dinner again and so we drove over there at around 6:30pm. They had prepared a delicious dinner of pork, lentil something-or-other, bread, greenbeans and dessert. We ate at a table with some of the Tennessee students, particularly a junior nuclear engineering major named Charlie.... he was delightful, to say that least. We talked and hung out with the students for hours, and some certain member of the team interrogated them with questions about the Catholic faith. To his credit, Charlie handled it very well, and we got to eat a ton of delicious food.
When we got back to the hotel we decided to play board games. Little did we know this would be a nearly 3 hour affair with all of us leaving with sore abs from laughing so hard. We chose to play Taboo, and discovered that some people have very interesting ways of explaining things, particularly when they have no idea what the word means. Some example of game play dialogue: "Cannery." "Read it girl, read it!" "So this is a 90's TV show with colorful children, jellybeans and a purple cat." "If Rasshmi was from the place where we all think she's from..." also Dave laughing so hard he fell off of the bed, and team A beating team B by 30 or more points. All in all, it was a fun day and we learned a lot about service and about each other.
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