Youth Group Retreat

This last weekend the Youth group at the Catholic church went on a overnight retreat and i was invited. I didn’t know what to say, but because I’m friends with a lot of them and there wasn’t anything else to do I said “why not?” and went along with them. I didn’t know what to expect on this retreat, all I knew was that we were going to meet at 7:00 AM in the park, bring 70 lempira ($3.50) for food and lodging, and some clothes and a bible. Just like normal at about 8:30 AM we finally left the park and went to ‘las milpas’ which was like a retreat center about 20 mins away. I was amazed when everyone got there, it was mostly people from San Marcos, but also some from Trinidad, Quimistan, and from some of the aldeas of San Marcos, in all there were about 70 people there. The retreat ended up being OK, not the most interesting and fun retreat I’ve ever been on, but it was enjoyable none the less. We had a lot of lectures, 7 in total, all about an hour/hour and a half long about different topics. This was nearly unbearable by the end of the day when it was super hot, no power, and another lecture in Spanish. It was fun getting to know the people, most of the kids were between 13 and 18 and then there were some leaders between 22 and 50 years old. The thing that killed me though was the sleeping situation, in theory it wasn’t bad, everyone had their own bed and sheets, the problem was that there were 30 teenage boys in one big room and we were told that we had to be in the room with the lights off at 10…never going to happen! What did ensue was a 2 hour pillow fight and then tons of talking until about 1 AM and then at quarter to 5 in the morning they all woke up and started fighting again, I am too old for this! At 6:30 we had to go to mass and then another 3 talks to round out the trip. By the time I got back home, 2PM, 31 hours after leaving, I was absolutely exhausted and in a very antisocial mood, but all in all I’d say it was worth it.