Language Immersion

Dear TTS21 Parents and Friends,

I know it's been a little while since you've talked with your daughters. I chatted with Jen during our weekly check-in yesterday, and she updated me on what's been going on since I departed with the parent group. Upon our departure, the girls began a two-day kayaking trip on Lake Atitlan. They paddled from the village of Santa Cruz to San Juan, hugging the shore, stopping for snacks and swims. In San Juan, the girls visited a women's Co-op and had a weaving lesson-- making their own bracelets. They spent the night with local families and enjoyed home-cooked meals and family time. The next morning, the group made a strenuous crossing to the coastal village of Santiago. Here they stayed for the duration of Semana Santa. They caught up on classes, witnessed a variety of Holy Week processions, and luckily for them, were invited back to San Juan to participate in making an alfombra with some of the families they met earlier in the week. According to Jen, these carpets are (in San Juan at least) typically created by the village men, so it was quite a feat to have our girls out there building a carpet for Easter Sunday.


Here's the amazing result of their work -- don't they look proud? Rightly so! Next, the girls packed into their own chartered "Chicken Bus" -- aptly named el Conejo or the Rabbit, as in the Easter Bunny -- and traveled to the Mountain School. The girls will be there through the weekend -- studying Spanish four hours a day, one on one with their native language teachers. The girls are already making huge strides with their skills and very excited to be practicing what they've learned with their families from the village who they're eating meals with all week. So far there have been hikes and there will be a service project in the village. There are also speakers every night, and the girls are so beat at the each of each long, satisfying day, that they barely get their teeth brushed before they're all asleep well before the regular 10 o'clock lights out call. Learning new things can be really exhausting!

El Conejo most likely looked something like this!

So, while the girls are at the Mountain School, they will have no access to the Internet or phones. They will be back in contact by early next week, but for now, here's a brief glimpse of what's happening for our TTS21 Spanish language learners.


Ciao,
Jennifer