Tee-Ball Time

Yesterday I did my first volunteer activity with the Seoul Volunteer Center: playing tee-ball with children.  The event was near the Hwagok Station (Line 5) and started at 9:30am.  Living in Suwon can be a real pain in the ass sometimes because it takes so long to get to events and happenings in Seoul.  In this case I had to leave my house at 7:30am.  7:30!  But I suppose it was worth it.  

It was about 10:45 or so by the time we got to the community center where all the kids were.  Each adult volunteer was assigned a Korean kid to work with and there were also many Korean university students for additional support and translation.  

The first thing we did (after introductions) was make sandwiches.  We were given an assortment items including: cucumbers, tomatoes, red pepper, processed cheese, hard boiled eggs, ham, tuna, onions, and lettuce.  There was mayo, butter, and ketchup.  Some of the kids made pretty wild sandwiches but mine, without surprise, was tame and practical.  (And delicious).  

After we ate our sandwiches it was time to play some tee-ball.  My partner, fifth grader Yongmin, is on the left with his two buddies.  Thankfully it was a beautiful and warm sunny day-- we totally lucked out! 

  Let's play ball! 

It seemed like most of the people there (including the adult volunteers) had never played tee-ball/baseball before.  This was really surprising to me since I see kids playing baseball everyday after school at the playground, rain or shine.  And wasn't everyone enrolled in Little League at some point?  I guess not...  For all my years of softball though, I didn't do as well as I would have liked and had a nice solid hit to center field but was thrown out at first and then on my second at-bat had an unfortunate infield pop to the pitcher.  

 What a slugger.

In the end my team didn't win, though to be fair it was a close game 12-13.  

  

Though playing baseball certainly wasn't like most of the volunteer activities I have done in the past, it was a fun experience.  I hope that the kids got something out of it, though to be honest, I'm not sure what the "something" could have been.  

I look forward to volunteering more and hopefully this extensive link will provide me with some new opportunities.