Day 12: Departure and Home

Despite the little sleep, students woke up eagerly at 3:30 am to get ready to head to the airport; although many memories were made on this trip, many Glimpsers were also very excited to return home to their families. We loaded our luggage onto the bus and grabbed a to-go box breakfast provided by the hotel, which consisted of a sandwich, apple, and juice box, and we got on the road at 4:30 am. A short bus ride later, we arrived at the airport and said our final goodbyes to Julio. We thanked him with some notes expressing our gratitude for his work and friendship as a program coordinator, gave him hugs, and then started the long but smooth airport process. (Shout out to Fabi, who couldn’t make it to say goodbye, but we <3 her too! Julio has your notes!) The students were excited to get their phones back and to have some extra time before our flight to buy souvenirs for loved ones (sorry families – lots of money was spent to get those last gifts…). Our travel day is long but relatively smooth, and students are soon to be with their families.

Glimpsers – AKA Team Gallo Pinto: I have so much love for you all. Thank you for inspiring me, for making me laugh (and cry and shake my head), and for trusting me. It saddens me to think we won’t be waking up at our beautiful base house enjoying the amazing food from Diego and Emilia, giving Zimba our leftovers and protecting Kayden from him, freaking out about the plethora of insects in and around our rooms, hearing your laughs as you played pool and in the pool, listening to the thoughtful reflections and a-ha moments you had during our guest speakers/activities, and seeing your (weird, but in the best way) talents at our nightly meetings.

For my sake, one last round of our nightly meeting agenda: tomorrow’s agenda is sleeping in with no wake-up call and eating your favorite foods from home. I’ll leave you with a question of the day to reflect on: What are some things/ways you are proud of yourself for doing/being on this trip? And a final quote of the day to think about: “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” -Eleanor Roosevelt (former first lady of the US and activist). My rose today is seeing you all enjoy the last bit of the trip together, and my thorn is definitely not getting enough sleep last night. My plus for the group is how responsible and timely you all have been with our schedule, and my wish is for you all to continue to view yourselves as leaders – because you are. I officially pass the torch to you. There are too many big loves to name here, but I’ll give one HUGE big love to the GG program because it gave us such a beautiful experience together. And for our unity clap, I suggest the word “home” – because that’s what we found together in our delegation, and that’s where we’re going.

Even though our trip is ending, your personal journey isn’t. And this journey was just as much yours as it was ours. I feel so privileged to see you all step out of your comfort zone and show compassion to a new culture, commitment to bettering ourselves and our communities, and courage to be a leader. I really hope you put in the (oftentimes difficult) work to continue, start, and stop what you want to change in your behaviors. It is SO easy to fall back into our natural habits if we’re not intentional with our choices, so I challenge you to make a commitment to yourself to follow through on those new habits. Get some well-deserved rest, then go out and change the world one little thing at a time, because as we learned, those small things can make a huge difference.