It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost a month since we’ve been back from doing the S.O.U.L.S. Alternative Spring Break. A whole month! It feels as if I was just there yesterday watching Jake get out a bent nail from a wall we were building, that I had hammered in sideways several times. And yet at the same time everything feels very surreal, like maybe we never even went to El Paso and it was all a dream.
I think the reason why it feels that way once we’ve returned is because what we did is simultaneously one of the easiest and hardest ideas to grasp. I keep having to remind myself that we-built-a-house. A home. Where someone is going to live. What’s hard to grasp is the fact that a group of only 20 students can get so much accomplished in just one week to better our society. Who knew it could be so easy? What could get accomplished with a million more groups of 20 students? When you really think about it, you have sudden realization that every individual actually does have the ability to change the course of our society and our world. And when you become a part of that change, the feeling takes you over and makes you reassess your values and lifestyle.
After participating in two Alternative Spring Breaks already, it’s going to be hard for me to stop. The life lessons I’ve learned, friendships I’ve made, and my increased awareness of the world around me and my impact on my world make the Alternative Spring Break an experience of a lifetime, for which I am so thankful. Sure if you’ve never done an ASB before you may not be able to relate to these feelings, but I encourage everyone to put themselves out there and try it. Go even if you don’t know any of the other students, even if you should probably stay at home and work, and even if you have tons of schoolwork to catch-up on. Its worth it. And when you come back, I highly doubt you would regret it.
It was 2:30 am on Saturday (3/15/2008). I finished watching a Celtics game and the Late Night Show with Conan O’Brian. My bags were packed and I couldn’t wait to leave. As my eyes became heavier, my phone began to ring. It was Mike’s wake up call, which came right on time. I woke my brother up and we headed towards the 150 Tremont Dorms. I picked up three students that I didn’t know much about, but I knew I would grow closer to at the end of this trip. We headed towards the airport and then began to wait for the other members of the ASB trip to get to Logan. Most of us were exhausted, but we stayed awake and mingled with each other. The time flew by and we eventually got on the flight to Dallas. I hate flying; especially the take-off and the landing. The ear-popping doesn’t help either. I slept the whole flight and woke up in Dallas. That airport was HUGE! We took a trip on a “Skylink”, which was this futuristic looking monorail. Our T would be awesome if it was like this.We had to quickly run to our connected flight to El Paso Texas. We all got on this flight and couldn’t wait to feel the warm weather of El Paso. We finally arrived to beautiful El Paso Texas. We got our luggage and stepped outside. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. I remember overhearing someone calling their family back in Boston and then telling us that it was snowing back home. That made me feel real good to be in El Paso, because I was getting sick of the cold weather. When we stepped outside there was an awesome background of mountains. We were all very hungry so we went to eat out at an Applebee’s. Some of us were a little agitated because we wanted to eat authentic Tex-Mex food. I think I got a little sick from eating there. Probably, some of the others got sick as well. The highlight of this first day was when we hit the highway to go to the church we were sleeping at. In the distance we could see a huge Mexican flag. We realized how close we were to the border and it was very exciting. We arrived at the church and everyone got settled. I was looking forward to our workdays on the house, but for now I needed the energy to work, so I called it an early night.
Thanks for putting up the blog Juan!