Follow along on the journey
By Instructors Christy, Samba, & Espoir
Hello everyone,
A few days back, on March 11th, the group left the rolling hills of the Kedougou region to travel west to Velingara, where we took a moment to focused internally as a group, to revisit our group norms and communication patterns, and to have fun and laugh with each other under the shade of the mango trees. We also started learning the subtleties of another dialect of Pulaar language…
By Tiernan
Hi all, Tiernan here, and welcome to the first student written blog post from Ecuador!
This country is absolutely beautiful. It's like Oregon rainforests if they were 300 times greener and more humid. The first four days were a sort of "ease in" period in a tiny town called Mindo, which is about 2.5 hours northeast of Quito. We stayed in a touristy hostel (it had hot showers, walls, and beds), and the town was very small but super cute! We pretty much just went through the orientation and rules there. There was a small market there, and many of us tried our hands at haggling in Spanish (to mixed results). After that, we drove down to a plantation called "Las Delicias Banana Farm," where they had 47 hectares (116 acres) of pure banana and cocoa plants. The farm is all organic, so we learned about…
By Carol and Matt (OEs)
After much anticipation, we landed in the verdant paradise of Ecuador. To be exact, we landed at night time and it was pretty difficult to take in the sights on the 2 hour trip from the airport to Mindo. But in the morning we woke up to a medley of tropical fruits for breakfast and the whir of hummingbird wings.
Written By OEs, Soumya & Ryan
Hola from Antigua! Soumya and Ryan here, sharing about our first few days as a group. We landed in Guatemala in the wee hours of the morning and made our way to the outskirts of the beautiful city of Antigua. At the peaceful Earthlodge retreat, we dove into getting to know each other through games, lessons about safety and cultural norms, nighttime gatherings in the temescal (traditional Mayan steam room), and a hike through the hills that surrounded us. Every morning we woke to the sunrise over the beautiful volcanoes and at night we enjoyed watching lava explosions from afar. Finally, we forayed into Antigua and the students got to explore the city on a scavenger hunt!
By the Instructors
Yesterday the students and homestay families gathered in the evening for a party, complete with drumming and lots of dancing, including our students moving into the middle of the circle to share their dance moves with their host family members. We have loved seeing the students forge sweet relationships with their family members across language barriers and culture. While they’ve each had their own experience, we have loved hearing their stories of making atayya together, sharing meals, or seeing them hand-in-hand with a host sibling walking down the sandy streets of Diakhanor.
The MAYA group has arrived safely in Guatemala! They are on their way to Earthlodge, where they’ll be spending the next few days for their orientation. They are ready to have a rest, some breakfast, and then dive into getting to know each other, the program and Guatemala. We look forward t their updates – they will post an update about their orientation early next week.
The PDXchange group has arrived safely in Ecuador! They have already made it to their hostel in Mindo, a lovely little town in the Cloud Forest, where they’ll be spending the next few days for their orientation. They are ready to rest after a long day of travel, and look forward to learning more about the program and Ecuador in the coming days.
