I've written and rewritten this article more times than I can count. How can I write something that can sum up two week long trips that changed my life forever? How can I even begin to do it justice? It was a trip I had dreamed about since the original team had come to my elementary school, a trip I had to wait until my junior and senior year of high school till I could go on it, a trip that I made so many life-long friends on, and a trip that changed my life forever. Finally, after editing and re-editing, writing and rewriting, and getting advice from friends: I did it. So here is the VERY shortened version of my life-changing trips to Rancho Grande.

You don't expect much when you get ready to go for the first time. You're told about these people who have so little in this village that is so small. You pack a backpack with a week’s worth of supplies and you fill two suitcases with medicine, shoes, school supplies, anything that they could need. You spend a whole day on planes or with 3 hour long layovers in cities you've never even seen yourself and when you finally get there it's hot and you're tired but you still have to go through customs and press a big button that will tell you if you're getting randomly searched or not and, even though you're usually not, you still get nervous every time. You get yelled at by taxi drivers who try to convince you to take their cab and you finally pack yourself and 80 other people onto a school bus for the hour and a half long ride to Rancho Grande. When you get there you help unload the bus and find your sleeping bag and if you're a girl you go to the Community Center to set up your mats and sleeping bags. If you're a boy, you go to the school to do the same.

It isn't until the next morning that you begin to realize that Rancho is more than just the poverty. It hits you when the wives and mothers who live in the village are cooking an amazing breakfast for all 80 of you or when you first see the kids playing soccer with a water bottle. They'll tell you the projects you can help work on, usually manual labor or working in the infirmary that we set up for the week, and you choose which one you feel like doing that day and off you go. By the halfway mark through the day you already know how special this place is; how happy the people are even with what little they have. You take a break at the hottest part of the day to regroup, eat, and have an hour long "siesta" where you can either rest or work on your devotionals. While this trip is through a church you don't have to frequently go to church or even practice Catholicism to go as the trip is not wrapped around religion but about helping the people in this community.

My first trip to Rancho, I spent on crutches. I had recently been cleared from a knee injury and had the great idea to try and do manual labor all day long, caring cinderblocks to the places we were going to build the bathrooms. At the end of the first day, you all take the mile long walk to the river to bathe and relax. Well, my knee wasn't too happy about the workload I had taken on, the walk to the river, or the current of the river that we were going against. On the trip back to the river my knee gave out and I had to be carried back to the village and examined by the doctors. So a lot of tears, an inflamed knee in a brace, and a pair of wooden crutches later I sat down with my friends and the children of the village to sing worship songs. After we sing we usually get to hear a life story from a Rancho community member and I can tell you that even though I've been twice I never manage to get over the horrors some of those people have been through.

We hear stories about gangs, wars, and death. We learn about all their hardships and how they got out of them. Hearing the stories can help you understand why these people are so happy with what little they have because although they don't have much, their situation could be a lot worse. People risk their lives every day in El Salvador just by living; especially police officers as many are killed every day by gang members. The stories of the people in Rancho Grande are stories that I will never forget.

At the end of every night, all the girls get in a huge circle and talk about the things they experienced through the day and about the story we heard that night. We talk about how different it is in Rancho than from home. A major talk that I've experienced on both trips is about how little we care about appearance because everyone is in the same boat as us and about how we wish we stressed that little about it all the time. Throughout the trip, the girls take care of each other. We wash each other’s hair with buckets of clean water from the well next to the center and we help each other through the days. It may not seem like much but through all of this, I have gained friends that I know will last a lifetime.

Since I was on crutches, I mainly worked at the school with the kids. Seeing how things as simple as colored pencils and basic school supplies made those kids so happy, it was amazing. The kids of Rancho are blessed to be able to have not one, but two school houses and the kids are so eager and happy to learn. For them, learning is a blessing. This is what inspired me to want to become a teacher. If I can have an impact on one student the way the teachers in Rancho have on all of theirs, I will be happy for the rest of my life. I still have a letter that one of the little boys I worked with wrote me. In the letter, he thanks me for everything I did for him and prays that God will bring me and my friends back to Rancho again. Not being able to see the kids from Rancho ever again is something that breaks my heart every day.

My second trip I was able to participate in more manual labor and after one half of one day, I longed to be back with the kids. It is hard work and the heat doesn't help. We cleared out fields, built a chicken coup, and dug trenches taller than me that would be filled with pipes to get clean water to every house by the next group to come along. Every day you became more tired and sore, you better bring gloves because the blisters on your hands will kill for days. Overall, though, there is nothing better than getting the email updates on your projects a month or so later and seeing how well the people in Rancho are doing because of them.

Since it is a religious trip we do follow some rules. Some are simple like a dress code where girls can't wear spaghetti straps and you aren't supposed to wear jewelry. My favorite rule, though, is that we aren't allowed to do work on Sunday. Sunday is the "Sabbath" day and we all get on our bathing suits and climb onto two school buses that take us to a river. We then transfer onto boats that take us to Monte Cristo where we spend the day playing on the beach or in the water. Those days are the ones I'll never forget.

The last day is by far the hardest day, especially if it's your last year. You start your morning like normal but you pack up your backpack of things and head to breakfast. Saying goodbye to the kids of the village is the hardest thing you will ever have to do. The bonds you make with the kids are unbreakable and it's hard to know that you may not see them again. The kids are aware of that fact too. Their entire lives they have people coming and going, most of them know that not everyone is going to come back next year. It's safe to say there is never a dry eye the last morning of the trip.

We spend our last day and night at a resort where, usually, I end up pretty sunburned. If you are one of the lucky 80 kids preparing for this year’s trip, bring lots of sun screen; you will need it. The last night is the best part, though. We all gather in a circle after dinner and talk about the trip and why we think they should take kids on again the following year. We talk about things we've learned from the experience and things that might've changed our perspective on life. Then, finally, we split off for 15-minute quiet time where we are given letters from our parents that they wrote before we left for the trip. My first year, I was lucky enough to get a letter from one of the leaders as well. I had been struggling with a lot of issues my junior year and I talked openly about it to a group of the girls and my leader wrote me about how proud she was of me. I kept that note and probably will continue to keep it for the rest of my life, just like I will keep the memories from this trip.

The trip to Rancho Grande is really a trip of a lifetime. Both times I went on the trip it impacted me and my life in such an amazing way. I can honestly say that I would not be who I am today without that trip. I wouldn't even be studying what I'm studying today without that trip. So, to the kids who are preparing to leave for Rancho: take everything in and don't waste a second. Do everything you can and give everything you can because when it's over you'll miss it more than anything.

If you want to learn more about the trip you can visit the website: https://visitbajolempa.com/syracuse/