DAY 10: Yo Homies

Today we are leaving Padre Island and driving to Austin, home of Leslie the transvestite hobo who regularly runs for mayor. Padre Island was cool . . . and sandy. I don't like sand. Today is Tessa's B-Day. She has received brownie pancakes and will receive many birthday spankings. We are going to eat and sleep at a 'fondue place' and we are going to sleep at paula's uncle's house.

Have you ever pulverized a dead jellyfish with a log? it's fun. There were a lot of dead jellyfish to pulverize. . .

The van's windows fog up in hte morning and the benches are very comfy to sleep on. John tried to keep me up real late last night, that potato pastry! That school bus right next to us is shiny and new, but is can see the bus driver lady enying our fly ride.

Over and out, Pat Benetar.

-Grace

PADRE ISLAND: Day 8,9,10

When we decided to avoid mexico, we found an emergency plan to go to Padre Island. No, not the spring break party zone, but the national seashore. We arrived in the evening, settled down right on the beach and set camp.

We all played in the water and had a great night. The next day, day nine of our trip, we had an easy morning of trash collection on the beach and then joined a formal beach walk with one of the rangers at Padre Island. She told us about how all of the current in the Gulf of Mexico feed more or less straight to Padre Island, which is why one can find so much trash on it. The island's hundred miles of beach gets detritus from all the US states, mexico, the yucatan, and the Caribbean. She told us about the crazy sargasso seaweed that comes neck deep at times from the sargasso sea. We saw ghost crabs and whip coral. We touched a dolphin skull and learned that thirty years ago the island was a total desert. it was a cattle ranch, and the cows had eaten everything on the island.

To me, the best part of being on padre came at night, when i found star phosphorescence in the water. It is caused by single celled organisms, armored flagellates, that activate like fireflies when the water is churned. we all played in the water and splashed about, sparking green stars into the night. it was pretty amazing.

We woke on Tessa's birthday and made pancakes out of brownie mix, piled a million pounds of sand into our van and took off. We had a cleaning frenzy at the visitor station, sweeping and dusting and washing ourselves and our belongings. Now we are on the road to Austin, where we will be doing some service work and learning more about Mexico.

Jason S

REFUGIO: Saying Goodbye

We were sad to leave refugio and our new friends. Pio sent us off with a small loquat tree. Loquats are a tradition for AMS field trips. Always when our trips arrive, the loquats are ripe. Four or five years ago, he sent a loquat home with our school, and it is growing well. now we will have two. What if one day, they bloom and make loquats in our dining room.

In addition to the loquat, Pio gave us a lemongrass plant from his home village in Peru, and five bags of young corn shoots, natural corn whose ancestors came from Cuba.

Everyone was getting good at spanish, even the students who were having a hard time in classes. By the time we left, most of the kids were asking questions to the refugees in spanish and trying to think of reasons to talk to them. So awesome.