Game Night At HGS

Location: House Of The Good Shepherd

Date: Thursday, January 24, 2013; 6:20-7:30 pm

Less than 48 hours after my previous visit, I found myself back at the HGS; this time for a different project, though the children were going to be the same.  I arrived early and met with Martha, our Volunteer Leader for tonight.  She is a Staff member for Chicago Cares and was only filling in for the usual leader.  Very soon the other volunteers, Julie, Amy and Abby arrived and we were ready to begin.  We moved down to the same play room as before and waited for the kids to arrive.  Arrive they did and made an immediate beeline for the cupboard which stored the games.  Soon everyone was paired up and I found myself with the same kid that I had worked with two evenings ago.

Tumbling Tower: Or Dominoes for us

Rather than select a board game, he selected a puzzle called ‘Tumbling Tower In A Tin’.  The idea is to build a tower using wooden blocks and start removing them from the base and stacking at top, without toppling the tower.  While this was what the game was supposed to be, the boy had different idea and wanted to arrange the blocks as dominoes instead.  I went along and we designed various patterns, including all sorts of twists and turns.  I asked him about the dog he wanted, ‘Pepper’, and we designed a giant ‘P’ with the blocks and rolled the dominoes.  After some of this fun we moved to the next game.

Pattern Blocks: Those hexagons make a nice honeycomb

Once again, he picked a creative design game, ‘Pattern Blocks’.  This is plastic blocks of different geometric shapes and different colors.  This is to teach the kids about shapes and patterns.  I started using the yellow hexagonal blocks to make a honeycomb pattern, while he was playing with triangles and squares to make a sandwich.  I had to keep an eye on him to ensure that he did not put anything in his mouth.  I asked what he favorite color was and was surprised to hear him say “Azul”.  I mean come on, who uses words such as these!

Battleship. Where's Liam Neeson when you need him!

Next he chose a game called ‘Buggles’ which was in a tiny plastic box which we both could not open.  After that came ‘Battleship’ which, is a strategy board game.  I had watched and actually enjoyed the awful movie of the same name last summer.  In fact, isn’t any movie with Liam Neeson a must see nowadays; especially since he has reinvented himself as an angry middle-aged man, a far cry from his Oscar Schindler days. But I digress.  The boy did not really know how to play this and after arranging my fleet on the board, when I looked at his side, he was just putting pins in the ships and boats.  He got bored after that was done and so we were back at the cupboard looking for another game.  He picked some ‘Story cards’ but did not know how to play them either.  Then he selected ‘Uno’ and I asked if he knew how that worked.  At first he said yes, but then sheepishly admitted that he really did not.

It was obvious that we needed a change of scenery and so joined Julie who was playing bowling with a group of other boys.  We played with them for the next several minutes and everyone had a good time.  Julie has a knack for getting kids involved and led a robust game of ‘Simon Says’ to round off the evening.  Before leaving, there were high-fives all around, including with my boy.  I walked out with Julie and thought about the remarkable transformation in just two visits.  Two days ago, he did not even want to talk to me and now we parted as buddies.  Plus, I keep coming back to him saying his favorite color was ‘Azul’.  Now, he may have overheard that and was just repeating.  But for someone who had difficulty in reading, to say that is truly noteworthy.  It will be easy for most to lose interest in kids like these after first meeting them.  But if anything, Chicago Cares has also taught me the virtues of patience; and that you never ever give up on anyone.