At yesterday’s nightly meeting, I became the last Global G to become the leader of the day. It was nerve wrecking, knowing that I would get one of the most emotional days in this entire trip and that the rest of the G’s had already been a leader of the day. So there was no way I should mess up with having so many examples of good leaders before me. But, the passing of the torch and the overall transition of leadership from Issac (The leader before me) to me was smooth because everyone was so supportive and so eager to see me in this position, even though I’ve been clowning around for nearly the whole trip. The next day was like any other day.

The best Dominican cook, Licelot along with Jenny.

We ate breakfast as usual. Hanging out and having fun, but the feeling of the inevitable (leaving the next day) was always present. After breakfast we had a lengthy final reflection of the entire trip which went into a little bit of lunch time. But, the mood was more cheerful as the Global G’s and myself wrote and received positive feedback from one another anonymously which boosted our morale. The energy was constantly growing as we gave Licelot the loudest “Buenos Tardes” before receiving her amazing food. In addition to that energy, the talent show In the English classes was amazing because all of the students had unique and interesting talents and it was fun to see the students from each level compete against one another since all the beginner classes were together and advanced was with intermediate for the talent show. When class was finally dismissed, the students and teachers said their final goodbyes and took plenty of pictures until our famous Bus driver Ronald pulled up to take us to Freddy’s Empanadas.

Once more, the energy continued to escalate as we gave Ronald the loudest “Que Lo Que” and sang along to songs played by our DJ, Marcos, until we reached our destination. At Freddy’s Empanadas we ate pizza and drank sprite for about an hour. Taking pictures and talking amongst each other until the party bus came. The bus had blue led lights with a disco ball and loud speakers. As the bus was moving, everyone had a great time dancing the final night away as we moved at about 20-25 mph. It was literally a moving club and it turns out the shyer and quieter Global G’s got down the most, which was very surprising. As we drove around through the night, we passed by many places we’ve visited from our field trips, and it felt like the trip was replaying itself one last time before we would eventually leave the next day. When the party ended and everyone was back at the orphanage, reality began to sink back in and everyone was emotional. Saying goodbye to the ambassadors and cleaning up our classrooms where we shared so many memories within the short amount of time we had here. I find it ironic that during this whole trip, I never once felt homesick because everyone here felt like family to me… But we all knew this day would come eventually but we shouldn’t frown because it’s over, we should smile because it happened (The trip, not it ending). Peace 🙂