The Face-to-Face, el Cara-a-Cara, the duel, the showdown, the main event fight...At least that's what comes to mind when I hear about a "Face-to-Face" meeting. But, a SWER Face-to-Face meeting is the total opposite. No gloves involved, no taunting, no bickering, no bloody lips, no swollen eyes like that of Antonio Margarito's post-Pacquiao fight. Now, that was ugly.
Nevertheless, a Florida Youth Movement Face-to-Face meeting consists of all of the immigrant youth clubs and organizations in Florida coming together at a single location for the length of a weekend. At the meeting, numerous topics are discussed ranging from the events that the movement should focus on to the election of new regional officials to workshops detailing the framework of the We Are Florida campaign (fight against the Racial Profiling bills) to relaxing and fun activities that we, as members, participate in, in order to meet new faces in the struggle for immigrant rights and advocacy of human activism.
Mind you, this was my first F2F meeting, but I had heard many good things about it so I was excited to participate in the weekend's events. Plus, I was going to see friends that I had made from FLIC Congress last November, so I was stoked. Let's start from the beginning though, three weeks away from the F2F date and there was still no set location!
The location was originally suppose to be Indiantown, in central Florida, but apparently there was a stick in the road with that plan so a new location had to be found ASAP! Luckily, Diego, Felipe, Steph, Gaby Mejia, and a few other people organized diligently and were able to find a cozy spot near downtown Miami that facilitated their location to us for the busy weekend. Emails were expedited to all of the core leaders of each chapter in order to create the list of attendees, instructions on the events of the weekend, and rules and regulations of the allocated location. Everything ran smooth as butter and Friday the 28th showed up in no time. At least from a spectator's point of view. I don't know how hectic things were behind the scenes. Hehe.
Friday creeps up, I get back home from hitting with Danny in the morning and I am already behind schedule because I have not packed. At all. I run around my house gathering all my things and stuffing them into my bag. Shorts, shirts, underwear, contact solution, deoderant, pogo stick are flung in the air as I do my best impersonation of the Flash. Pogo stick? You guys caught that right. I don't own a pogo stick even though I'm not going to lie, they are pretty cool. Back on track, OK, so I kiss my dog goodbye and I walk out the door towards the bus stop. Of course, it's a Friday afternoon, and all of my potential "rides" aka my parents or my brother are working so I have to take the bus to the metro to my final destination. Hmm, Final Destination, freaky ass movie, at least the original one. The sequels were kind of dumb. Whatever.
I meet up Fabby and Rosa at the Dadeland North station and we embark on our journey in search of the F2F retreat. We exit at the Vizcaya station as I pull out my trusty iPhone, input the address into Google Maps, and to our surprise, the place is walking distance. Of course, Fabby does not want to walk, but Rosa and I using our excellent persuasive skills convince Fabby that it's "not that far" and our foot trail begins. We walk, and walk, and walk some more. Not as much as the Trail of Dreams walkers, but a good fifteen-twenty minutes. Until, we are lost. Where the hell is this place? But, out of the shadows, appears Luna! We hop in his car, he drops us off, and we have arrived...
It seems as if this post is reaching Bible-length again and I do not want to lose my readers so I will have to place a pause on this epic weekend. I also have to get over to the tennis courts because I'm itching to get my hit in and run my ass off at practice. Wow, that kinda sounds like a drug reference, my "hit in?" Haha. Tennis lingo. Hopefully, I'll find some time later tonight to complete my rendition of my Face-to-Face meeting. Glad that I didn't run into Manny Pacquiao. Don't need physical face reconstruction, thank you.
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