(all photos credited to the lovely Ms. Katie Pons & her sassy camera!)
I cannot believe it’s been almost TWO FULL WEEKS since I returned from Brownsville, Texas. I went there my freshmen year for a week, and had a life changing experience that I often credit my love of service to. So I was beyond excited to go back after 2 years, with a group of semi-strangers, and experience it all over again.
For those of you who might not be acquainted with small cities in southeastern Texas, Brownsville is located at the very tip of the state. Literally a five minute walk from Mexico. We flew in on a tiny plane to the tiniest airport I’ve ever been in (2 flights in & 2 flights out every day) on January 1st, where we were greeted by a lack of the rental cars we’d ordered months ago. After what felt like hours of awkward phone calls to Nashville & Enterprises around the world, we had to take cabs to the church we were staying at. Luckily, the cab drivers were hilarious & actually sparked some good conversations. I remember Thomas asked ours if people spoke Spanish or English, and he said neither. This later lead to discussions about defining a group of people by their language, and by a static idea of culture. I find borders SO interesting—especially where immigration makes them increasingly fluid. (Sorry for the random side notes… I’ll get back to the story).
So anyways, we got to the church, ordered pizza because we had no cars, and settled in on our air mattresses for the night. The next day, after some more adventurous car mishaps, we got to our first construction site where we worked on painting a house. The group responsible for that house ran a program called Youth Build, so we worked alongside kids our age who had dropped out of high school, but had this second chance to make money and earn their GED.
Then on Tuesday, we went to the Self-Help construction area. Here, families contributed 65% of the labor towards building a new house. Our volunteer hours counted towards their labor, hopefully giving them a small break from their routine of going to a construction site at night after working a full-time job. Here are some photos from there!
“The Finished Product” (we got pretty close in our day of work… haha)
The whole group with Jaime!! (Our loyal captain. Dang we look fierce.)
After those 2 days of hard (-ish) labor, we moved on to work with Southwest Keys, an organization responsible for minors who have crossed the border and been detained, and also for boys who are American citizens but have been charged with some type of crime. We didn’t take any pictures there, but I think it was an unbelievable opportunity to really put faces with the portrayal & stereotype of “illegal immigration.” We got to play cards with them, tutor them in math & English, and even enjoy a special soccer tournament hosted at one of the centers. While I brushed up on my Jenga skillz and Spanish, I saw that the Southwest Keys programs were really filling a need in these kids’ lives. The staff seemed incredibly patient and thoughtful, and the kids reflected that by behaving better than I did in elementary school…
On our last day (Saturday), we used our free time to drive to South Padre Island, wade in warm ankle deep ocean water, and reflect on the past 5 days of service. It was an AWBEAUTIFUL! day, 80 degrees, light breeze, hundreds of kites in the air…
We really bonded throughout the week as a group, whether over some AWBad pizza…
… or through playing ridiculous games & late-night chats. I love my AWBrownsville babies!!
The girls throwing up the triangle, which represents education, service, and reflection.
xoxo & AWBesos
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