Last Day

On our last day in Immokalee we took a day off and enjoyed a day at the beach! It was a beautiful day, without a cloud in the sky.  It was a bit windy which made it a little chilly and hard to tell that we were all getting burnt.  We are all in a bit of pain as we come back to Pittsburgh. Although I didn't personally swim, the people who went into the ocean said the water was beautiful and that it was warmer than the air.  Even though we all got burnt, I would have to say we all had a perfect relaxing day after an even better week of hard work! After the beach, we went out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, Mi Ranchito.  It was delicious and great to have one last dinner witheveryone together.  After dinner, we went to Mass in Spanish.  I found it challenging to understand the mass but it was very interesting and great to experience.  Unlike Ash Wednesday, we were able to sit inside the church and participate.  Although I wasn't able to understand what they were always saying, I felt so much faith within this church and community.  This showed us how even though these people don't have a lot of material things, they have a lot of love and faith in their hearts and that they were happy this way.  I feel like this is a message that everyone should experience once in their life. 

On a side note, a funny story that happened after church was our race to the showers.  Throughout the week we have been showering at a Sports Complex that only has four showers and closes at nine every night.  It was about 8:20 and two cars of people had to still shower.  With Kate driving one van and Father driving the other (I was in Father's), we had raced to the showers, all trying to get there first. Father arrived first and parked while Kate drove her group right up to the door.  Once we saw that they were going to beat us, we all jumped out of the car and ran as fast as we could towards the entrance.  As we were getting closer, we all came to a sudden halt and realized that the Sports Complex had already closed and that none of us were going to shower.  We all burst out laughing and saw that a whole little league baseball game had witnessed our race and sudden disappointment. As strange as this sounds, this moment was a perfect ending to our trip!     

Before we all went to bed, we shared a reflection about what we had all learned this week. I think it is easy to say that we all shared an eye opening experience here in Immokalee that had changed our lives and made us grow together.  Through this trip we had became a family and life long friends through the tough and funny moments. We had only spent seven days together but it has felt that we have been friends forever.  We haven't laughed this hard in the longest time and had the greatest time even if we were sleeping on the hardest floor and hammered our thumbs every other nail. We shared a memory and an experience together that not many can relate too. Through this many of us had learned more about ourselves and found who we are.