Saturday, February 25, 2006

It's all fun and games

You think games in the US and you think of sitting around a table or relaxing on some couches. Taboo. Scrabble. Cranium. Nice games. Nice, impersonal games.

Not here. Not at a twenty-somethings Bible study at Vida Nueva.

"Whom do you like?"
"Where do you want to get married?"
"Who's the best person in church?" (Ruben, of course)

Yeah, I tried to laugh it off too, but you had to answer. Outloud. If not, you took the risk of being asked a more ridiculous question. Politics, religion, relationship problems -- nothing was banned. It was kind of like what a Presidential debate should be. No predetermined material, no time to talk about the war in Iraq, just enough time and pressure to force you to give the exact answer for exactly the question that you were asked. (It blew my mind too.)

Another interesting game is what I'd like to call "Highschool Yearbook."

We were all given an envelope with a piece of blank paper inside. The directions: Write your name on the envelope and the paper and pass it around the room. When you get someone else's paper, write your opinion of them. At the end of the allotted time, you'll get your paper back and get to see what other people think of you.

You can imagine my apprehension to play this game with a group of people I'd never met before, but then again, I figured that it might be better to play with them before they know me rather than afterward.

Being sucked into playing, I took as long as I could to write in each one so I don't have to write in as many. I mean, how much could I say about person whom I'd never met, and for crying out loud, don't even fully know the language that he speaks? Hablas ingles bien or hablas bien ingles? No se.

My favorite "opinion" given was one of Amber's. An arrow pointing to the reply someone else wrote, and "el mismo" written below. Short, sweet, and very American. No personal responsibility if the message was offensive, and a default person to pass the blame on to.

Anyway, Moises informed us that these games were quite mild in comparison to some other ones that the GPS group play, and from what I gather, he's not exaggerating.