Student Stories - Emily Y

Alligators are fun! Our leaders wouldn’t tell us what we were doing today until we got there, although some of us knew bits and pieces of it already. We went to the Asian Super Buffet for lunch (or, in the case of my work crew, went back) and got to visit a bit more with some of the people we’d been working with this week. They all told us how much they appreciated it and us and how helpful we’d been, and there was lots of crying and hugging and whatnot. It was quite nice, and everyone ate ridiculous amounts of food. Then we drove for a while and none of the students had any idea where we were going. But we were not disappointed. We got to take an airboat tour around a very large swamp. My family group ended up with a hilarious tour guide, who caught us a tiny turtle (see pictures, hopefully), which Kaitlin wanted to bring home*. He told us his name was Captain Monkey. I’m really hoping that’s true. Anyway, he’s lived in the area since he was five years old, and he knows the area like the back of his hand. We were introduced to several of the alligators (Baby Snaggletooth, One-Eyed Willie, etc.) and heard about some more (Hollywood and Elvis). We got to hold a little one that he’d had in the boat for about a week as well. I’m not going to lie, we had some trouble getting Derek to hold it. But since the girls had all done it, I don’t think he really had a choice. And then Ethan saved the boat from imminent doom**. *Note to Kaitlin’s mom: She’s planning on buying one when she gets home. **Note to everyone: That’s not true. But Ethan says that if there had been danger, he would have saved us.