“First you both go out your way
And the vibe is feeling strong and what’s
Small turn to a friendship, a friendship
Turn into a bond and that bond will never
Be broken and the love will never get lost” -Wiz Khalifa

My name Is Amari Marshall and I go to the Eagle Academy located in the Bronx. Today I was the leader of the day and it was very difficult. Today we did our final reflections as a group and it was exciting and emotional. We started our day of by waking up at 8am and had breakfast the after breakfast we got together I’m the classroom to have pure final reflections as a group. Some people cried and others laughed but the unity we shared over the last 17 could be felt throughout the room. During the meeting we were given a Big Love Shout-out in which we wrote out names in the center of the sheet and passed it to each other in a big circle. We were given 40 seconds to write the strengths we observed our peers exhibiting during the duration of the trip. After 40 seconds we had to switch papers with the person on our right and it went on until we had our own paper again. After we received our own paper we flipped them over and waited to read them as a group. Reading what the others wrote about each of us put a smile on all of our faces, being able to read what the others have felt about us was really heartwarming.

After our final reflection seminar we had lunch, relaxed during our free time and finalized our thank you letters to the people who donated for the trip. Today was also our last English Class so we planned a field day so that everyone could have fun. We made a lot of memories that I’m sure anyone one of us won’t forget. We broke up the time by hosting 5 events: dance, ninja, step, freeze tag and baseball. The students had the opportunity to choose what they wanted to do during our final 2 hours we spent together as a class. Dance and baseball was the top 2 events that the people really enjoyed. We taught them American dances such as The Dogie, The Electric Slide, The Cat Daddy and The Cotton Eye Joe and they taught us the Bachata and Marengue. Playing Freeze Tag with the younger kids was fun to because that was the first time they ever played the game and they were playing it like they’ve been playing it for years. After about an hour and forty minutes we separated into our individual classes and said our final good byes and took pictures as a class. We exchanged Facebook’s and Instagram’s with our students so that we could keep in touch and see how their English has grown after we left. In the end all classes came together and took a group picture with all our students and went on to diner.

After diner the entire group as well as 4 student ambassadors was supposed to go for a walk thru town but got surprised by seeing a party bus in which we thought was canceled. After being told that the party bus was canceled the night before we was all down about not being able to kick back and have a good time seeing it there made the lie worth it. We boarded the party bus and circled around the town dancing for about an hour and a half. We were all smiling and having a good time but as soon as the party started it had to come to an end. When it ended we had to face the reality that we had 1 last night here and that leaving each other after we spent so much time together would make it even harder to say good bye in the end.