Day 5 Art and Geography in Ajo
This morning, everyone woke up well rested and ready for a great day. We all filled our water bottles and went downtown into the plaza to meet a photographer named Tom. Tom took photos of items the government took away from immigrants when they were crossing the border, such as wallets, mirrors or water. After, we all had free time to eat lunch and pack up the van with our stuff. In the afternoon, we met a geographer named Scott who talked to us about water and differences between The Bay Area and Arizona. Then we all piled into the vans and headed to a Marriott hotel in Tempe. Here, we had pizza, ice cream sandwiches, and a pool party! Everyone enjoyed the opportunity to get into the pool after long hot days in the sun. While we have had an amazing trip, we are all getting ready to see our families and sleep in our own beds tomorrow night. We are so grateful for all of the adults, chaperones, and teachers who took care of us this trip. We are excited to see you all tomorrow!
- Cass
Today was a very eventful day. We woke up and had our routine breakfast, quickly followed by a visit to the studio of Tom Kiefer, a photographer and collector. He was a janitor working at the border, and he was enraged by the acts of Border Patrol Officers’ acts of injustice. Specifically, the Officers threw away the possessions of the immigrants even when they were completely harmless. For example, a wallet with Patrick from SpongeBob on it was thrown away. Tom decided to make these acts of injustice public by photographing the trashed items. Everyday, he would sneak some of the items to his living room to photograph. Eventually, he brought everything to his studio, and we were fortunate enough to view his photographs. Tom noticed that the Officers dehumanized the immigrants to the point that they would not ever want to immigrate again. He stated how the current immigration system needs serious reforms. Afterwards, we headed back to our hotels to pack up our bags and eat lunch. At 1:00, we went to the auditorium at the Curley school to finish our art projects with Pam and Kathy. We learned how to apply ink to our stamps and styrofoam drawings in order to print them onto sheets of paper. In addition, each of three groups completed their flag using a combination of stamps and drawings. Soon after, Scott, a local geographer and professor, visited us for a discussion about geography. We learned how geography is not simply about memorizing locations and names of regions, but also about the origins of the names and borders of the regions. For example, we discussed how Mexican and Spanish inhabitants of California influenced the names of cities and streets. At 4:30, we hopped on the vans and drove two hours to our hotel in Phoenix. After checking out our rooms, we went downstairs to the pool to play around for half an hour. For dinner, we had pizza and ice cream sandwiches. We went back to the pool to share with our peers embarrassing stories. Mr. Lambert started and we went around sharing our own. The Dragons guides would decide whether or not Mr. Lambert would share his second story. After some careful consideration, the guides decided to have Mr. Lambert share his second story. Since we had to get up relatively early the next morning, we all headed to our rooms for a good nights sleep. Larry
