First class, first camps

It was a day of first. First classes and first camps.

Bright and early (9 a.m. is apparently bright and early for a high school student on summer break) all the students gathered to meet their new teachers and get started on those Spanish lessons. Most of the students are working two-on-one with a teacher. We did our best to pair up students who had generally the same level of Spanish. Part of the first day of lessons, was taking a tour of Xela with the teachers.

Colegio Maya is our newest camp

 We over heard one student remark that he learned more Spanish in three hours of class yesterday than he did in two years of Spanish at school...while we doubt that's entirely true, we'll keep the info about which school the student attends in D.C. to ourselves! :)

While we think it's very important to learn basic verbs, conjugation and phrases we also think it's super important for the students to get out of the classroom and put what they are learning to use. For example, we're having a cook out tonight and heaven help us, we'll be sending the teachers and students to the market with money and list. Shopping in the market is a great way to learn the language and a bit more about the culture.

The walk to camps

After class and lunch the students met with the directors of each village and headed on their way via bus or pick up to meet the children they will be working with this summer. By all accounts things went very well (well, minus a minor communication hiccup with one camp).

The first day is always a bit chaotic because there are typically so many children at the camps who are super excited to see the D.C. students, but it was great to hear so many of the D.C. kids talk about what a great experience.

Manny with his Chuisuic boys

The returning students were especially excited to see many of the children from their villages returning. 

This year we have the luxury of making sure that each camp has a returning student (except for our
newest camp of course), each camp has one fluent (more or less) Spanish speaker and each camp has one female student from D.C.

All-in-all a great first day and now we're getting into a groove. Not sure what's on tap for the weekend (our game got canceled) besides some sleep for the students, but we'll figure out an adventure and keep you posted!