Orange walls and such

I am so sleepy right now. It never ceases to amaze me how year after year my sleeping schedule never becomes consistent. Somehow I slept 4 hours last night but I don't understand how and those 4 hours were split up into intervals. Today I felt absolutely wretched because I didn't sleep much the night before either, so i drank a bunch of coffee at the office and now I'm home and it is impossible to take a nap. Reading makes me sleepy, too.

The work I do here is so random and in so many ways I just love that. For example, this morning I took one of the staff to the airport and somehow I ended up back at my house by 6 am. It was pretty watching the sun begin to rise from the east. I also saw a stop sign in Spanish! I have never seen that in the US, not even in Hialeah or Little Havana or any neighborhood in Miami. It said ALTO right underneath the one in English. Then somehow a couple of hours I was awake for some reason and I didn't understand why I was awake because I was so sleepy. Somehow I ended up in my car with one of the hugest dogs ever in the backseat and his name was Bear. I drove twenty miles north to a town called LaBelle, which also has a large Latino population and most of them work in the fields. LaBelle is a bit bigger than Immokalee but it's definitely rural. I went to a lady named Laura's house because for some reason her dog Bear was hanging out at the convent I live in. I don't know why he was there in the first place and why he was not home with her because her house is awesome, small with a front porch and a hammock and a million beautiful plants. But I left Bear with her and I drove back by myself. He was a nice dog. Anyhow, Laura also works with the CIW, I am not really sure what her position is. The funny thing is here is that there is no boss. No one is over anyone. I mean, there are others who have been here longer but yeah, there is no hierarchy at all. Everyone is just "staff" and somehow everything always gets done.

Laura did talk to me a lot, though, about how LaBelle has been one of the big spots for where many of the slavery rings have gone on. I am supposed to go back there next week and she is going to take me out to some of the labor camps around there that the workers live in. I do remember reading the name LaBelle in many of the articles I have read regarding this issue, so we will see what that will be like...

I feel like I have been here for ages and I have been here for less than a week. One thing I have been grateful for is how the staff are all pretty close in age to me, there is only one lady in her 30's. The ally staff (SFA and IA) are all in their 20's, like me. The CIW staff (all farm workers) vary in age. There is one other intern here right now, too. I can't believe I haven't mentioned her yet because it really is an answer to prayer in a lot of ways. Rahiel is a student from Yale Divinity School (I know, WOW), and she is such a great person. It's wonderful to have another Jesus follower here with me and to be able to openly talk about certain things with her. She is originally from Eritrea (east Africa) and grew up in DC. (Dana, I think you would get along with her really well. She's all about Busboys & Poets on U Street, too!). So coming to Immokalee for a week and a half was part of her internship she's required to do for the program she's in at the divinity school.

The rest of the staff has really grown on me. It's so different to be in a work environment where everyone is extremely socially conscious and it's just natural to brew only Fair Trade coffee in the morning. No one really dresses up but everyone is modest. Everyone respects one another and listens to each other and jokes around. We have amazing conversations with each other about God, trade, slavery, Spanish, immigration, who our Bible crushes are (yes, I started that one, I admitted my one about the apostle Paul...)

OK, I have to run right now, actually. I'll write more later. Les extrano mucho! (I miss you all a lot).