Islanders launch Los Olympipitos
Published 9:02 am Monday, September 22, 2014
Every year for the past 25 years, students from Bainbridge High have been visiting Ometepe, Bainbridge’s sister island in Nicaragua. But the delegation that visited this summer did something no other delegation from the Bainbridge Ometepe Sister Islands Association had done: organize a morning of sports games for children with special needs. (“Los Olympipitos” is a combination of “The Olympics” and “Los Pepitos, the national organization in Nicaragua for people with special needs.)
The children and Bainbridge students gathered on the morning of June 28 at the sports stadium in the town of Altagracia, where the Bainbridge Ometepe Sister Islands Association has its office. Twenty-four students from Bainbridge Island joined with over a dozen high school students from Ometepe to manage the games, with additional assistance from the BOSIA office staff and the local chapter on Ometepe of Los Pipitos. Participating in the various events were 10 deaf students, four blind students, and 10 students with other disabilities — all accompanied by various family members and friends.
There were a variety of games, each sponsored and organized by a different community on Ometepe where children with special needs live: long jump, jump rope, sack race, three-legged race, tug of war, some other “track” events like the “egg and spoon” race, and a soccer match One event involved two blind students in the sack race. They each got in a sack and said all they needed were two people at the “turn-around” point clapping their hands so they knew when to stop and turn around. They took off hopping, got to the end, turned around and went right back, with no problem. People watching the race were amazed to see their fearlessness and their independence.
Colleen Carroll, one of the chaperones, offered a comment that seems to reflect the feelings of everyone at the event: “For me, the greatest thing of the whole day was watching our students and the Ometepe kids interact in such a genuine way, across the language barrier and across the ‘disability’ barrier that I think can be even more intimidating at times.”
“Everyone was having a great time and just being themselves — even the older participants, some of whom are far older than our high school students, were caught up in the simple joy of playing games,” she said.
The event turned out to provide so many positive experiences for all those involved that the students and chaperones recommended that the Los Olympipitos games be incorporated into the student delegation every year.
