“Social change can happen with the small actions of dedicated individuals.”
This theme statement is shown in the book Friday everything changed, when Ms Ralston, an ordinary person demonstrated several small acts of kindness that changed how girls were treated. First she treated the children with kindness and made them feel important. That small act inspired the girls to defend each other against the boys and became better friends. Another small act of kindness shown by Ms Ralston happened when she heard about the girls being banned from softball. She walked out on the field and hit a home run, for a fleeting moment we had a glimpse of what life might be like in River Hibbert, showing that girls are equal. The theme from Friday Changed Everything, was that small acts by ordinary people can have big affects similar to Gandalf’s quote that states “small acts of kindness from an everyday folk’s that keep darkness at bay”. Similar to these themes, in the real world, Greta an ordinary teenage girl started standing up to prevent climate change by bringing awareness and now world leaders are taking notice and making changes to help our planet.
It was a warm cloudy day in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and I was with my family traveling to a zip lining excursion. To get the jungle for zip lining we needed to cross a bay in a large zodiac. While on the zodaic we saw two blue whales in the distance jumping out of the water. We docked in a small fishing village and walked a few minutes to climb into the back of a big yellow truck. It was a very bumpy ride, the closer we got the top of the mountain the warmer it became and the roads turned into dirt roads and dust got in our eyes. When the truck arrived a base camp we were measured and given directions on sip lining equipment. With all our equipment on we walked to the mule stables. Each one of us was given a mule based on our size. We hopped on our mules and rod them up the steep muddy mountain. After everybody got to the top, we did the first zip line across a valley which was scary because I haven’t done it in a long time. We did a few more zip lines including a zip line into a mini pool of clear cold water. My family and I had to swim through the water to get to a rope net. My hands were freezing when I climbed up the wobbly rope. After a few freezing cold minutes I reached the top. At the top we stood on a see through metal grate. This metal grate was attached to the side of a mountain by bolts and cables. While walking along the grate you could look down and see the bottom of the waterfall. At the end of the grate were I met the guide and he attached me to the ropes and cables. I was the first out of my family to repel down the waterfall. While the guide was setting up my repel equipment, he was giving me instructions on how to repel down this beautiful water fall. His instructions were to use my dominant hand, my right hand as my brake to control my descending speed. My left hand was there to hold the ropes above my head to prevent me from spinning around. Then he told me to turn around so my back faced away from the mountain and lean straight back so that my feet were flat against the mountain side. This was the scariest thing I have ever done. About half way down the water from the falls were hitting my feet and the sun on my face. I decided to look down that made me even more scared. Climbing back up was not an option so I kept going down. I finally made it down to the bottom and landed in ice cold water. After getting unbuckled my equipment my hands hurt because I was holding on to those repelling ropes for dear life.