Day Six: A Little R and R

After yesterdays insanity today I think we were in a little slice of heaven. We stayed in Ossining NY at a lay mission house. If any of you ever went to a summer camp in the mountains this was like a nicer version of that. It was simple. It was quiet. It was peaceful. It was completely removed from the hustle and bustle of yesterday.

It was perfect and exactly what we needed.

It had been a very long time since I spent much time in a place with little to no cell phone reception and no internet. We spent the day resting and I got the opportunity to really bond with Monalisa. Up till this point we had been all go go go the whole time. Not a lot of time for trading stories or learning about each other. She showed me pictures of her kids and told me stories about them and what they were like. She talked to me about her sister and what is like being the oldest girl in her family. I talked with her about my sister and what it is like being the oldest in my family.

Strikingly -- many of the themes were similar. Interactions among siblings seems to be universal. I had spent so much of this trip so in awe and inspired by Monalisa's story that this day where we watched some incredibly bad TV, giggled over things our siblings had done and traded pictures of the important people in our life was possibly the best day of the tour. It reminded that yes while there are horrible things in the world that when it comes down to it we are all human and we are all more than just the story we are telling.


After this lovely restful day we headed back into Westchester for another memorable event with local activists who have formed a dynamic coalition that is making waves in the community!