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    Wrapup and Action Planning
        Impressions of Mexico
       Campo Stories

We each wrote three lines about Mexico. One line was something we saw, one was something we heard, and the third was something we felt.

This first piece by Dan is an extension of that exercise:

REMEMBER
(Close your eyes. I’m going to paint you a picture.)

• Rushing around a week before, buying supplies, packing your bags, buying tickets, acquiring papers
• Walking down the lonesome boarding corridor to the airplane
• Turbulence of the plane ride, but the quiet peace of the landscape peering up from below
• How not so quiet and peaceful the landing was
• Airport, taxi, Mexico City traffic
• Trying to meet the slaughterhouse girl and the sky diver, and the woman who might actually have shot someone before (and Molly, you weren’t here; remember trying to jump into this group of fast friends and how easy it would turn out to be)
• Flash forward: remember what it’s like to wake up and examine miles of raw land stretching away from the tour bus window
• How loud the bald man in Puebla sings, and going hoarse trying to settle up para las cervesas
• The tarps strung across Oaxacan streets, political graffiti, colored hammocks and Albert’s hat
• The SEDICAM office still under construction, and that first taste of basketball en el campo
• Keeping your truck from falling off a dirt road more narrow than a snake
• Shaking hands and first looking into the eyes of the people who would give you shelter in the heart of the world
• The taste of a corn tortilla not forty yards from where the corn was grown
• Saying goodbye and taking a family’s faith back with you through the hills
• As you fall upon a hostel cot, remember passing out and coming undone
• Remember waking up and hearing the million-man protest through the windows and doors and becoming whole again

VISUALIZE

• Packing up, getting ready to rock out all the way home
• Visualize yourself with bags in your hands, walking down the lonesome boarding corridor, stepping into the light, ready to take off and make some change

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