The Team woke up early and ate a quick breakfast in the hotel lobby before packing up the van to head to the airport in San Antonio. With the added weight of some deer antlers and cow bones, the van felt more crowded than our trip down to Falfurrias.
We visited the Alamo and the Riverwalk before going to the airport. I like to take the team to the Alamo because it’s a lesson in perspective. As a Texan I learned about the Alamo as a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. It is elevated as a shrine to courage and bravery. In school we learned the names and actions of the American and Tejano defenders who fought and died for Texas independence. This trip is about exploring events from different perspectives and points of view. If we look at the Alamo from the Mexican perspective we see that this Mexican territory was populated mostly by US citizens that were not there legally. The US policy of Manifest Destiny, the 19th-century American belief that the US was divinely ordained to expand its territory and spread democracy, capitalism, and American values) fueled land acquisition across North America. Additionally, Mexico had just abolished slavery and many Texans were slave holders. On one side of the coin the Mexican forces believe strongly that they were stopping undocumented immigrants from a rebellion aimed at taking Mexican land versus the other side of the coin where you have Texan forces who believe strongly they were fighting for liberty and against tyranny.
Spending a few hours on The San Antonio Riverwalk acts as a way for team members to decompress before heading home. The team is exposed to intense physical work and heavy emotional topics consistently for a week. Many of them have not experienced anything like this before and I like to spend some time talking to them about how they are feeling and what they have learned before they head home.
The Team made it back to Indiana late last night. Thank you for following our work over the last week. We will continue to add posts over the next week with more information about the trip and reflections about our time there. Thank you!
~KEL
