Click to see photos of day 2 in Atenas
We arrived at Isabel’s Language School at 8:00 am. The group was divided into 4 classes. After some orientation in the school, students took a tour of the town and learned some of the most important places such as the central park, the large church on the plaza, the bank, central park. They returned and began their classes in earnest. At noon classes ended and students returned to their homestays for lunch. We regrouped in the central paza at 2:30 pm. We had a group checkin as to how things were going. We then broke into 4 groups that were assigned four tasks to do in all Spanish in one hour. They are summarized below:
1) Find the cheapest, as well as the best, internet Café.
2.) Find out where to buy phone cards that would serve in making international cards.
3.) Find and buy an exotic fruit unfamiliar to them and learn something from vendor about it.
4.) Each group was given a glass or plastic bottle. We requested that they ask 6 people (3 males, 3 females, 2 young, 2 middle aged, 2 older) about where they could recycle the bottle. They were instructed to ask followup questions.
We then got back together to discuss the results. We had interesting findings and questions about recycling, and we plan to follow up and develop a more sophisticated survey in the near future.
At about 5:30 we ended the activity and students returned to their homestays. Today we have dance classes at 11:00 am, and in the afternoon we will be visiting the Rio Grande watershed near Atenas.
Internet has been a bit a spotty for me. We’re busy during the day, I don’t have internet in my homestay, and the internet cafés in town close at 6:00 pm. We will do our best to keep you updated. We are working (I think succesfully) to make calling home easier and cheaper. More on this later. I have to go. We hope to post later today.Please excuse typos/grammar as many posts are done quickly with little editing.