Leisure options

Leisure Options is a group of volunteers which help people who are mentally or physically disabled. Since the country is so isolated, people with these disabilities can’t just get jobs like they can in the city. Leisure Options helps these people by giving them someone to talk to and by organising activities for these people to do. When we went there we were paired up with a buddy and we started talking with them. My buddy’s nickname was Em and she didn’t talk to me much. She just hanged around with her friends from leisure options and talked to them instead of me. We were organising a Barbeque and so we went down to the Minlaton IGA and bought the required things. We were also making salads to go with the sausage sizzle. It took a long time to prepare the food because there were so many people, so we had to make a lot of salad. At first I wasn’t doing much, just helping with the dishes, but then the person doing the onions needed replacing for his eyes burned. So I had to replace him. It burned a lot and my eyes felt like they were on fire but there was only 1 onion left to cut so I didnt cry

Once everything had been done we waited for the sausages and the onions to be cooked. Some of my class members helped but most of us hanged around and tried to talk with our buddies. I tried and failed as my buddy was too interested in talking with other people. I spoke to one of the volunteers from leisure options and he told me about some of the things that they do. Lunch was then ready and everyone was hungry. I was so hungry that I had stomach pains. The sausages were great and so were the salads that we had created. For desert we had peaches and ice cream. This went down really well after the sausage sizzle. We then had a long talk with an older woman who had down syndrome. This was very interesting as she talked about her life. We asked many questions and she tried to answer them as best she could using both English and sign language to help us understand. We asked her things like which football team did she barrack for and of course she said the Adelaide Crows.
After around an hour it was time to go. We said our goodbyes and headed off.

The highs of the day were getting to know a little about my buddy, the great lunch and knowing that I’m helping these people to enjoy life more.
The lows of the day were that my buddy didn’t talk to me that much and having a stomach ache.