Hey GG families, this is Hailey Santiago and Vanesa Castillo.

Today, we woke up at 7 am and packed our bags to get ready to leave Riobamba. We ate breakfast at Isabel’s and had a nice time eating the requested foods from the previous day. We then went to a park to do our final reflections. We drew a personal map of five significant events, a lesson we learned about ourselves, a lesson we learned about leadership, and a person who has inspired us. We did a Big Love Activity where we each wrote something kind about each other. We also did a circle activity where we touched people who impacted us in many ways. Then we had a flashback conversation about all the events we did in these two weeks in Riobamba. After the seminar, we had free time in the park where some played volleyball and others played a game of basketball.

Then we went back to Isabel’s for lunch where we had fried chicken with rice and salad. We all said our final goodbye to Isabel who cooked for us every day and Victor who drove us everywhere these past two weeks. We walked back to the hotel to wait for the bus to take us to the airport; when the bus arrived we brought all of our bags down. After packing the bus that had arrived to pick us up, we had a long music-filled ride to Quito. It took about four and a half hours to arrive at the airport. We got the chance to buy our dinner with money provided to us by the PCs Jossy and Anabel. After we got in line to check in our luggage, we exchanged a tearful goodbye with Jossy and Anabel. We will miss them forever and check in every now and then. We then checked in our bags and are now waiting for our flight, which is going to be taking off at 12:40 am to Houston, Texas, where we will have a layover before our last flight back to the Newark airport in New Jersey.

I am so grateful for Anabel and Jossy taking great care of everyone who got sick on this trip including me, I will never forget their kindness and welcoming jokes. Spending two weeks with them made it a great trip without technology. – Hailey.S.

I had a fun time in Ecuador but I’m very happy to be going back home, though it was hard to say goodbye to Jossy and Anabel who I will miss very much, I am very grateful to them for taking care of us and making sure we all felt comfortable in those 2 weeks. – Vanesa

Bye Ecuador!