Waking up at 7:00 a.m., digging 30 inch deep holes for 8 hours, sleeping on an air mattress in a room with fifteen people and no air conditioning – doesn’t really sound like the ideal summer day, does it? Well, after a week of days like this, there’s nothing that I would rather do than do it again.

I just got back from the ASP mission trip in Kentucky with over 90 kids from the Tosa Trio (Karen Waldkirch wrote about it last week). We left last Saturday at around 6:00 a.m. and drove ten hours to London, Kentucky. The next day we drove another few hours to our final destination, Harlan County, and started our work. There were several small teams that each got assigned a different house and a different job. My team had to replace a trailer’s foundation by digging holes beneath it (and trust me, there are no good tools to use to dig under a trailer) and then filling the holes with concrete and cinder blocks.

 

(Digging holes under the trailer – this was an easy one because it was on the end. The monkey was our team mascot.)

It was definitely one of the best, if not the best, weeks of my life.

Going on this sort of trip teaches you so much. It’s amazing that there can be such a different culture in the same country. Instead of the neighborhoods around here, there are groups of trailers arranged in “hollers,” in which all of neighbors were family. So while we were helping our family, we met their cousins, nephews, uncles, and other distant family members who were all stopping by. There were many things that I didn’t understand about the people there, yet I could relate to them in a lot of ways, too. It’s weird, but they were both more different than me and like me than I expected. The community was different, but on an individual level everyone seemed like the people at home, if that makes any sense.

Of course, the area was much poorer than here, but as cliché as it sounds, even though the people we were helping didn’t have a lot of material things, they had plenty of other things to make up for it. They lived in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen (which isn’t what I expected when going to Kentucky) and there was an amazing sense of community and family. Many of them live so simply and are so happy, and I’ve finally decided that it’s about time I try to de-clutter my room a bit, because I don’t really need all of the stuff I have jammed in my closet.

 

(My small group in front of a lake in Kentucky)

There was another cliché that I felt on this trip: you get more than you give. Obviously, this is a standard response to a trip like this, but I’ve got to say it. It’s not that I really got a feeling of doing something good on this trip or anything; it’s that I just had an amazingly fun time. The people we were helping were some of the coolest people I’ve ever met, and leaving on Friday was a lot more difficult than I thought it’d be. I expected to have a lot of fun with my friends from Tosa on the trip, but I actually had a great time with the Kentuckians I had just met, too.

You also do get a great sense of accomplishment out of a trip like this, which was much needed for me after I spent the first few weeks of my summer doing nothing productive. Like I said, I learned a lot about a completely different culture, not to mention how to do a lot of construction work. If I could spend my whole summer doing something like this, I absolutely would.

It’s hard to put into words exactly what made this trip so great, and I think you have to experience it yourself to understand the feeling this trip gives you. So if you’re over 21, each small group needs two adult leaders to volunteer. They were scrambling to find leaders this year and everyone ended up having a blast. And if you’re in high school, I have to say that you need to go. Everyone should do some sort of mission trip like this, not necessarily through the Tosa Trio. This sort of thing is a life changing experience, or at least it was for me.

Despite my lack of a car, I’ve finally found a way of getting around other than mooching off of my mobile friends: the bus! And I’ve discovered that it’s actually a lot better than I thought it would be.

There are a lot of reasons why I think I’ll be taking the bus from now on. First of all, it’s obviously good for the environment, and after reading Maureen Connors Badding’s post, I feel like I should be a little more concerned about doing my part for the world. On the same note, with gas prices the way they are, I’ll gladly pay two dollars per ride.

Firstly and most importantly, we need to incorporate brioche con gelato into our daily routines. Basically, it’s an ice cream sandwich, but not at all like the ones that we have. It’s an actual roll that’s got gelato piled inside of it. The best part is, Sicilians eat it for breakfast – daily. I’d like to hear someone come up with a better way to start the day.

 

Thirdly, and surprisingly not having to do with food, is our use of English. Even if it is the most widely spoken language in the world, L'italiano è molto più bello. Take the word chocolate, for example. It’s cioccolato, pronounced “chee-oh-coh-la-to.” Isn’t that just more fun to say? 

One more thing is the way we dress. I expected Europeans to dress much better than me, obviously, but it still was kind of shocking. Even on the nine hour flight from Atlanta to Rome, I felt awkward in my sweatpants next to the Italian in her stiletto boots and sweater dress. After that I definitely ditched the sweatpants. What might have surprised me the most was what men wore. I knew that girls would put more effort into their clothes than Americans typically do, but seeing guys with designer coats, bags, sunglasses, etc. was a bit unexpected. 

And then there’s all of the ancient ruins and typical tourist sights that Wauwatosa sort of lacks, but what can you do about that? I guess there’s The Little Red Store.

 

                              *A couple suggestions...

It’s always when you’re the busiest when everything else gets piled on. It’s Murphy’s Law.

During these past two weeks, I’ve gone to many fun and interesting events that I would normally have loved. The problem was that they all happened at once.

On Thursday I went to the Body Worlds exhibit at the museum on a field trip. Even if you’re a squeamish person like me, it’s definitely worth seeing.  The problem was that it was followed by a track meet and the usual load of homework that comes from missing school.

While I was still trying to finish this up, I missed school again Monday and Tuesday to participate in Model United Nations at UWM, in which students simulate a United Nations meeting. I’m interested in international relations and thought that the conference was enlightening, but it was hard to focus when I was worried about finishing my four math assignments and other homework with another track meet on Tuesday.

I got home yesterday and began packing for Italy, even though my plane leaves today and I still had some shopping to do (specifically for comfortable shoes, thanks to the many suggestions on my last post). I’ve finally got it all finished, but my suitcase still has tons of room.  I’m usually the kind of person who over-packs, so I’m a little concerned that in my rush I forgot about half the stuff I’ll actually need.

Anyway, sorry that you’ve read this tired rant, but I’ll finish it off on a positive note.   Once I leave the US I’ll be free of all obligations.  And, of course, it’s Italy!