FOTOS

Hola,

We have updated our photo album with some highlights from Week 1.
http://picasaweb.google.com/AlbaSkarWCSU/Nicaragua200902#

Students attended their orientation for volunteering with La Esperanza-Granada on Monday. They are in three schools from 9-12 daily M-F, and some photos from one school, Las Camelias, are new here. Friday was a school holiday and a good day for writing journals / diarios. Some of them are here on the blog for our friends to read how we are all processing course readings, field experiences, lectures with professors and invited speakers, and life in Nicaragua.

Students have small group conversation and language sessions with native speakers from 8-9 am and 3-4 pm, and an afternoon group meets with Alba for Spanish conversation on current issues. This week's topic was education, including the role of NGO's, literacy crusades past and present, and current resource challenges for schools. Next week we are discussing recent political and economic events in Central America.

Our cultural "charlas/lectures" this week and field experiences included Reforestation and Tropical Ecology; the Architecture of Granada and the Nicaraguan House; the Indigenous roots of Nicaraguan culture and Mestizaje; and the San Francisco Convent Museum with Pre-Columbian Artifacts.

This weekend Dr. Pinou is travelling with students, our local guide Raul, and another teacher from Granada to the Refugio Silvestre La Flor for camping and sea turtle study. I am at home coordinating some of next week's experiences and lectures, watching the sun rise this Sunday over my garden and listening to the bells of Granada's cathedral.

For all of our readers, family and friends, we send our love.

Abrazos,

Alba