After spending a day of lasts on Friday, Abby, Julia and I woke up at 5:15am to watch the sunrise in honor of Julia’s last day travelling internationally with the Global Health Fellows Program. Despite being cloudy, the sky turned a bit orange and served as a breathtaking backdrop to the Belizean mountains. Inside, we packed our bags and soaked in our last moments with Chelsea, our home-stay little sister, Ms. Dorita our home-stay mom, and Sasha (who we like to call our GPSA sister). When the van arrived, our unconventional family parted ways with promises to keep in touch. Looking back on our time spent together over this trip, I now realize how lucky the three of us were to have shared so many laughs and made friendships that will serve as well during the rest of our time in the Global Health Fellows Program.

On our long van ride to the airport, a few of us played a game called “contact” which is basically trying to guess the word a person is thinking of. Ells stumped all of use with the word “angiophobia”. When we arrived at the airport, we were handed our phones and passions and said our final goodbyes to the GPSA staff. Immediately after our reunion with technology, the dynamic of the trip shifted away from what it had been for the past 7 days. We were all getting back into our normal routines. The group cleared security, boarded the plane and watched as the plane flew closer towards the sky and further away from San Antonio. Landing in Charlotte, there was a mad dash towards our next gate, because we had to get through customs, immigration, recheck our bags and get through security in less than an hour with Mr. Hurley leading the way. My group of 4 got to the gate in time for them to hold the doors for the rest of the group. Finally, we were settled in and ready to get home to our families. Bringing back memories that wont easily fade, the Norfolk Academy Global Health Fellows were ready for a great summer and a successful school year after an exciting adventure in San Antonio, Belize. We were greeted by parents and siblings and I know all of use were so happy to see the smiling faces of our loved ones. I went home thinking about everything I have to look forward to with these wonderful people in this program.