Day 10

It's hard to believe that we only have a week left here in Arizona! We've done so much already and it seems like we have so much more to do! Today started early when we left Borderlinks to spend the day at the Tohono O'odham nation. It took two hours to get there! We went to this museum that told some history of the nation, and some cultural facts about them. It was surprising to learn how proud they are to have served in both World Wars, because I always thought that Native Americans were always a peaceful people. There was one room dedicated to all of the reggae concerts and autographs received by a Tohono O'odham woman who travelled around the world. There were so many different  artists, and the room was covered in different Bob Marley quotes! She had basically seen all of the Marley's perform and had gotten all their autographs. We were supposed to have a tour of the museum, but no one ever showed up so we just sort of toured ourselves around! After we saw the museum, we had an amazing lunch at the Desert Rain Cafe. I had a prickly pear smoothie, and a chicken sandwich that had prickly pear and chill sauce, and chipotle dressing. It was delicious. I was nervous about the smoothie because let's be honest, who even knows what a prickly pear tastes like? Well now I guess I have an idea! It was also great because it seemed to be a really healthy too! After lunch, we had another two hour drive back to Borderlinks.

When we got back, a couple of us drove up to a place called Gate's Pass. We hiked up a bit and saw the most beautiful view!

 We weren't up really high or anything, but that didn't matter because we could still see so much. We were trying to aim for sunset, because apparently it is beautiful from that location, but because we had dinner at 5:30 we couldn't stay. But we're going to try and come back another night when we're not as busy so we can watch the sunset! Tonight for dinner we got to learn how to make pupusa's, which are these tortilla-like things that you fill with different ingredients like pork and cheese. They were really delicious, everybody ate a ton!

After dinner we went to el tiradito vigil. What that is, is a vigil for all the people who have died trying to cross the border. It happens every Thursday night, and different people show up each week. It was a really beautiful ceremony; everyone stood in a circle and the regular attendees would talk about different things that pertained to immigration. One of the people in attendant was Isabel Garcia, who was interviewed in two of the movies we watched before coming to Arizona. She spoke at the vigil, and actually a couple of us got to talk to her afterwards!

 She was saying how important it was that young people like us were learning about these issues, because then we can take it back to our friends and we can take it back to our countries and tell other people about what is happening at the border. It was a beautiful ceremony and I am so glad we got to be a part of it tonight. Tomorrow will be cool because we get to talk to the author of one of the articles we've read for this course! As our time here gets shorter, we have less and less planned for each day, but it doesn't mean any of it will be any less interesting!