Statesboro, GA

I didn't have internet while in Statesboro, so here's my update from last week!

After 2 months of living all around Florida, Cast A moved on to Georgia...my original home state! I was excited to see what Georgia would bring! My bus date was Raymundo for our LONG bus ride from Vero Beach, FL to Statesboro. We headed out and had some good chat time, then we had a stop for everyone to unwind and stretch before hitting the road again. Shortly after getting back on the road, we were pulling off again! Turns out, both coach buses overheated and we had to let them cool down for a bit. Eventually things worked out and we were back on the road...just later than anticipated!

We both made this face without communicating it! We're pretty much the same person! =)

We pulled into Statesboro, and as part of Hosting Home Team 4, it was my home team's duty to get off the bus and unload ALLLLLL the luggage! We got organized, heard from the Mayor of Statesboro, and saw an ADORABLE presentation from the after-school arts program for kids. They MADE my day! They read different facts about our countries and then sang us a song! I was especially giddy seeing their presentation because it gets me so excited about teaching kids! We also got QUITE the presentation from the local Elvis impersonator. Boy was that something. My favorite was that Wen (China) apparently leaned over to Isaiah during the performance and said, "I'm pretty sure I'm in culture shock right now!" Too funny!

Host family pick-up was about the most confusing thing I'd ever been through. Each city is different, and for Statesboro, we were given a song title, and we were supposed to find the band that sings that song. Well, my sheet said 'IF' - nothing else. I had no clue that was a song, and try Google searching "If"...you don't learn much! I walked out supremely confused, but eventually someone grabbed me and said "Amy, your host code was 'IF,' right? Here you go!" And that's where I met sweet Sylvia, hold a loaf of bread. Apparently Bread sings "IF." Learned something new! I was hosted this week with Clemence from Belgium and we enjoyed our first dinner with Sylvia at Cracker Barrel. 

Host code with our bread! haha

Sylvia and her husband Billy are about the sweetest things EVER! Their home was very country-bumpkin with apples, trees, plaid, and cozy things all over the place as decoration. Sylvia was a school teacher and even served as a city councilwoman. She also ran for Mayor but lost by a sliver of a margin. What a neat lady! Billy is a shrimper and was just a wonderful gentleman. My favorite line was that he told Sylvia, "They picked out the prettiest girls for us! We're so lucky!" hehe. We didn't spend much time with Billy because he was busy working or out of town, but what an awesome week with these WONDERFUL people!

We had a supremely BUSY week...busier than usual. We had a show day the 2nd day in town at Georgia Southern University for the students and faculty there, so we jumped straight into set up, rehearsal, and all that jazz! 

Wednesday, we had an amazing anti-bullying workshop as part of our Global Series workshops. Molly C., Larissa, and Brenda did a fantastic job of developing and facilitating the entire 2 hour program. What a cool thing to do with our cast, and what an emotional thing, too. Right after we finished our workshop, we headed into Culture Fair set up and our 3 hour culture fair presentation for the GSU students. Check out the video below that I made from the Culture Fair! We also conducted a lot of interviews for potential Uppies in the future! We set a BIG record for Statesboro with the number of interviews conducted! Our goal every week is at least 13 interviews...and we did 56!!! I'm pretty sure all future casts will be solely from Georgia! haha

We had an assembly for Statesboro HS on Friday before our full show Friday night...and what a horrendous experience that was. We were excited to perform for them, but the high schoolers just weren't having any of it. They were horribly rude and talked through the whole thing, including the serious parts, and were disrespectful to everyone on stage. We had to shake it off and learn from the experience before heading into our show that night. 

Our projectors broke and set us into a bit of a frenzy before our show, but we ultimately decided to do the show without the projectors, which changed a few things. We rolled with the punches and made it work. It was actually a FANTASTIC show because the whole cast really came together, amped up the energy, and made it work. That was one of my most favorite shows so far, actually! Strange how those moments can be your favorite! =)

I'll do a separate post about my Community Impact day and our Host family day because there's too much to report for one blog entry!