Leaving El Dorado on the Feast St. Ignatius - 7/31/13

Since today was our last day in El Dorado, we began the day by returning our mattresses to the school. Soon after, we celebrated the Feast of Saint Ignatius, joined by the students from Fe y Alegría and continued to paint after the mass. We then went back home to have lunch, where we were joined by Jose Luis Rodriguez, a member of the teen youth group. After lunch we returned to the school to finish painting and scraping paint from the ground. At around 4:30, we returned home to get our bags and say our final goodbyes to Jose Luis (youth group member), Beti and her husband Juan Luis Gonzalez who were all very grateful that we treated them as equals, with dignity and respect. As we were packing our bags into the bus to Montevideo, Bryan, a young boy  from the school, climbed into the bus to take pictures and say goodbye to his new friends from America. Beto and Juan Luis Gonzalez watched us from a distance, standing outside of the the place we called home for just one week, the place where they had cared for us with kindness and love.  Once we got to Montevideo, we took our bags into the retreat house (where we had stayed last week) and left for the Jesuit school named Colegio Sagrado Corazon (Seminario), where we attended their mass for the Feast of Saint Ignatius. After mass we received a quick but thorough tour of the school and then took a bus to a restaurant to have pizza with Martín and Florencia, our gracious hosts from Fe y Alegria. 

Seeing the kids for the last time at Fe y Alegría brought out some bitter/sweet emotions amongst our group. Although we're excited to enter the final chapter of this experience, I know I'm personally going to miss a lot of people that I've met from both the school and youth group. The amount of love that we received from an entire community is inexplicable. Even with a language barrier, we were united as God's people. During the mass at Colegio Seminario, I remembered what Florencia had told us about the nature of Uruguay's economy. She told us that there is a large gap between the poor and the rich, and an almost non-existent middle class. I understood what she meant by this when I stared at the beautiful and elaborate chapel at the Jesuit School, and compared it to the modest chapel at the Fe y Alegría school. Although I'm going to miss all the extraordinary people that I have met in El Dorado, I'm looking forward to the days to come here in Uruguay and in Argentina.