World Special Olympics 2009

Last week was one of the most fulfilling weeks of my life. It was hectic and busy, gruesome, tiring and yet so amazing. When I think about the friends I made, the people I met and the experiences I had, I can't believe I was here at this time. Everything happens for a reason and I was reminded of that again as I went throughout the week.

I met my documentary partner Wendy this day (she is on exchange at BSU from London), and we immediately made friends with the Puerto Rican team. They loved that we had blue eyes but, there was a language barrier so no dates came out of it. :) I would point to their team name on the schedule of events and they would say Si! Si! Si! It was a lot of fun!

A nine year old from Team Afghanistan (their youngest player was 8, their oldest 14).

Wendy and Santi. Editing friends! This was after about 6 hours of editing and probably around 11 PM. (Note: Wendy wasn't really dead :))

I was a shooter and an editor for Floor Hockey. I spent five days at the Idaho Expo Center watching hundreds of athletes compete in one of the most intense games I have ever seen. I hadn't ever seen this sport played before, and after five days of body checks and board-bashing, I know that any of these athletes could kick my trash.

Jordan V. Mexico

Team Canada takes on Team Jamaica. Canada ended up winning one of the Gold Medals.

This athlete from Jordan followed Wendy and I around for a while. I think the only word he knew in English was "Hi." So, he said that a lot to us and we showed him out to use our camera, and had some fun interactions with him. Here he is mocking and making fun of Wendy. :)

It was incredible for me to see the amount of volunteer work that the people of Boise did. Over 5,000 people signed up to give a little bit of their time to these events. It was tiresome, but there was a lot of smiles, fun and I honestly haven't seen so much positivity in one setting in my entire life.

Some Volunteers made these snowmen the morning after a great snow. A large number of the athletes had never seen snow before, and they really enjoyed it. And yes, there was a massive snowball fight.

Another Puerto Rican friend. And a glimpse of our camera in the background behind his head. Because yes, we did do work.

That is Joe Biden in between me and campus. You can see him waving in the back seat. I was walking from my apartment to go edit and saw his parade of officials as I left my backyard. :)

The Closing Ceremony. It was a really emotional and amazing thing to be part of this ceremony. It made me sad that I wasn't able to go to the Opening Ceremony, but I was fortunate enough to be handed a ticket to this event.

Read this article to see one of the amazing things that I was able to witness at the Closing Ceremony.
http://www.specialolympics.org/wgu_be_a_fan_courage.aspx

The Special Olympics is an incredible thing to be part of. I learned so much technically and gained great experience for a future career. I will post videos I edited and filmed at a later point. More importantly however I learned however why the Special Olympics are such an amazing cause and organization. As of right now I plan on continuing to stay involved with SO. I don't know where I will be or what I will be doing but hopefully in 2011 I can be part of the Summer games in Athens, Greece. The Special Olympics motto is something I learned during my week volunteering. I believe it is applicable to not only athletes and participants in the Special Olympics but it is a motto that people can take with them in all their successes in life.

"Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."