Epistle—9th & 10th grades

7/26/08

Once upon a time, in the land of Silver Bay, there was a group of villagers called the 9, 10s.

They were beastly!

On the first day two leaders of the Powell House tribe, Chris and Mike, came to talk to them about the community they were part of. Then, the infamous tribal wars were discussed with Bill Galvin and the villagers learned about those who choose not to engage in battle. The villagers then worked together, building their community by tying the communal knot around one of the great oak trees in their forest. All the villagers gathered in the village auditorium to worship as a body. They broke for a feast.

When they came together the next day Leigh from Old Chatham arrived to teach them about improvisation and they worked on their acting skills. They even pretended to be superheroes. The committee of games, appointed by their fellow villagers, needed to chose a game, but they began to dispute about what game to play. The village was then broken in to two great sets, the capture-the-flagers and the duck-duck-goosers. After 18 minutes they came to a consensus and decided to play Honey if You Love Me instead, a loving game after a great morning in the village.

Wednesday was rainy in the village. The villagers had planned to spend the day on the beach but the rain dance they had performed the previous day had worked better than they had expected. Before going to play with the village young ones, Mary Eagleson spoke about other villagers around the world who are extremely poor but through the help of support groups and funds from the Right Sharing of World Resources, they start a new life with their own businesses and are able to educate their children. The village 9 and 10s were inspired. They then went and played parachute games such as Mushroom and Cat-and-Mouse with the 2s and 3s, training them for the real world. The day ended with a couple minutes of dancing and celebration.

On the fourth day, a visitor from AFSC spoke about the work AFSC does and what we as young people can do. She gave the villagers really cool Frisbees. By the way, it rained again. The villagers committed the ancient ritual of original play, led by Sebastian and Kim. The day became nice and they brought their tumbling outside to the slip ’n’ slide. Despite the injuries, it was loads of fun. The group of villagers then trooped to the auditorium to join the village elders to commune with the spirit. They then ran to the beach and washed the suds off, ending another wonderful day.

The villagers were soon to depart their separate ways to spread peace throughout the world. The last day they were together they went to the Boathouse with all the other villagers, where they celebrated and sang the ancient village songs. After the final great feast, they departed to do amazing things in the world.

(P.S. The last day it was sunny.)

The End.