Idahome

Well, after a tearful goodbye and a long day of traveling, we've made it home to Sun Valley. We actually got back two days ago, but it has taken us a little while to re-charge and get back into the swing of things. I've mainly been sleeping, telling my parents many stories, unpacking, putting my treasures on display, and sifting through the 1,600+ photos I took. However, I haven't been able to stop thinking about that goodbye.

On the final day of our time in Brazil, we attended classes in the morning, had our final lunch (filled with many tears on my part), and had to say goodbye to all of the amazing people that we met (filled with many more tears on everyone's part). Most of us couldn't help but breakdown when a large group of students skipped their 4:00 workshop to say goodbye to us. I gave a few notes to some of my very close new friends (thanking them for their kindness and generosity, complimenting them on their wonderful personalities, and reflecting on our fun times together) and was pleased to receive some notes of my own, even if they were written in Portuguese! I even received a hand-carved wooden trinket from one of my dear friends Matheus that he brought from his home state in Brazil. What really made me lose it, though, was just looking around at all of the bright faces of the students. With so much joy and friendship among them, I couldn't help but reflect on the amazing time that I had being apart of it all. The people that we met are genuinely incredible, and I feel so lucky to have met them. Many long hugs were exchanged and group photos were taken, and the Americans were herded onto the bus and driven off into the Rio sunset. At the airport, we had another tearful goodbye as we parted ways with Eric (who is lucky enough to still be at SESC!) and Geraldo, our Brazilian Cutthroat who we've all gotten to know so well. Since he's staying in Brazil until college at Lafayette in the fall, we were forced to say a real goodbye since we don't know when we'll see him again. Just reflecting on all of the things that Geraldo has done for us, remembering all of the fun times we've had, and thinking about how truly successful he will be made most of us tear up yet again. So, it was a tearful day of sad goodbyes as we were forced to part ways with the wonderful people that we'd grown to love in Brazil.

The long journey home went smoothly, for the most part, even though our flight in Houston was delayed a bit and we had to sprint through the Denver airport, only to discover that our plane from Denver to Boise had a loose board in the ceiling (which was thankfully taped back together...). But, we did make it to Boise safely and were greeted by my Mom and Dad, who had decorated the Community School bus with welcome home signs and streamers and took us to Red Robin for good 'ol American cheeseburgers!

On the bus ride from Boise to Sun Valley, we discussed the trip as a whole and reflected on our experiences. I think that while all of us were very heartbroken to leave such a perfect and pleasant place, we were thankful to have been blessed with the experience. I just keep reminding myself of the many experiences that I had and amazing people that I'm now friends with. Thank goodness for email and social networking; I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't stay in contact with all of my new friends!

I miss all of our Brazilian friends so much, but I'm very thankful for the experience.

Here are a few photos from our goodbyes.

We hope you're still having a good time, Eric!

Tchau!
Sophia




P.S. While most of us have put many, many photos up on our Facebooks, I know that they aren't accessible to everyone, so we're currently in the process of creating a Picassa album in order to share all of our photos. We'll keep you posted!