The View From the Top of the Mountain

Hey guys, it feels good to be back. Ever since the school year started, I've been waking up around 11 am or 12 pm on Saturdays, therefore it was kind of hard to wake up at 7 to be at the World Trade Centre at 9. The last time I went to Spectacle Island was in August, it was really hot and now that it is October it got really cold. I remember that I used to stay in one place in order to stay cool, but now I was moving around because I was trying to be warm. Although it was cold, people still had fun and enjoyed the island. I remember over the summer seeing the boat full of kids and a very few adults, but now there were more adults than kids.

Kids looking for marbles in the dry seaweed

After meeting up with the SHSB staff and all the people that were going with us to the island, I noticed the smiles on the faces on the kids and especially the adults. The adults asked more questions than the kids, the kids were more excited about the marbles. When we got to the island, the first thing people asked was about the marbles, "where can I find them?", "how big are they?", "can you give me any hints?", were the commons questions people asked me. I never thought that people were going to pay more attention to the marbles than to the things in the island. There was a time when about 20 people were looking for the marbles on one side of the beach.

View of Boston from the boat

Everyone that was looking for the marbles, looked everywhere under the rocks, they were making holes in the sand, going into the bushes, etc. After the people found all the marbles they wanted to walk to the top of the island. I've never been there so it was about to be my first time as well, I was somehow excited about it because I knew that the view was going to be amazing and it sure was. I had a great Saturday morning/afternoon. Seeing some old faces and the island that I enjoyoed the most out of the two island that I went to over the summer was the best thing that could have happened to me on a Saturday.

- Cristian Berlioz

From Passing a Football To a Rugby Game

Now that all the kids learned how to play "Mafia," that's the only game they want to play. They don't get tire of it. They want to play it in the morning, during their park time, and even during capture the flag. Today as usual, the first thing they wanted to play was "Mafia," but they also wanted to play "Extreme Wonder Ball". While one of the staff from Piers Park went to look for the ball, the kids would just hang around and talk to each other. She couldn't find the ball that we use to play the game, so she brought a small puffy football. The kids and some staff started too play Mafia, while me and other staff started to pass the the little football to each other. The kids usually play more than one game of Mafia, but today every time that someone got disqualified, they came and stayed to play with us. In less than ten minutes the Mafia game was over, so the kids, out of nowhere got all together in between the staff that were playing with the football. Every time a staff got the ball all the kids went after him/her and started to wrestle for the ball. They were trying to take the ball from us while we tried to pass or catch it. Every time one kid got the ball, the rest of the kids spread out to give him/her more space and options and also to make it harder for us to get the ball from them. Almost every one of them knew how to play football and that made it more fun and harder at the same time because they were good and at the same time they were making it hard for us to keep the ball for a long time. We had the ball for a longer time than them, but when they had the ball they at least made it a little hard for us to get the ball from them. It was a nice game and the kids had fun and I'm sure that some of them did or tried something new.

- Cristian Berlioz 

Mohawk on a Rainy Day

When I was little, I always liked to play in the rain. I still do, but it's not the same. On this rainy day, two kids brought me memories from back then. They started to play in the water and then one of them wanted to give himself a hair style named "the Mohawk". He was struggling to keep his hair up, so I decided to go over and help him because I used to have that hair style for seven years straight. It was kind of difficult to make his hair stay up because I wasn't using hair gel and his hair was long. After trying for about three minutes, I finally got his hair to stay up.

When I was done with his hair, another kid came to me saying that he wanted the same hair style. His hair was shorter but it was long enough for what he wanted. It's funny how his hair took me more time to keep up than the other, even tough his hair was shorter. At the end, when both of the kids had the same hair style, they started to walk around the tent showing everybody their new hair. They were happy and I was too because the kids reminded me of how I used to take care of my hair when I used to have "the Mohawk" and how I used to play in the rain when I was little.

- Cristian Berlioz