Reflections on First Two Weeks of Homestays
Sept. 21, 2013 We have been very busy since our last blog post from Spain. Since Barcelona we have spent the last two weeks settling into our new host families and school routines in Granada. Before lunch every weekday we spend 4 hours in intensive Spanish language classes and 1 hour in a Spanish Civilation....
Las Alpujarras
Last Sunday (Sept. 8) we visited a region between the Sierra Nevadas and the Mediterranean called Las Alpujarras. Although quite small, these villages are famous for the terraced farmlands that surround them, a unique mini-ecology due to melting snow from higher up the mountains, great for producing bottled water that is sold throughout the rest....
Photo Gallery-China 2013-1
Beijing and The Great Wall
China has been wonderful so far! We’ve seen and experienced so many things already that it feels like we’ve been here much longer than we have. We visited an art district in Beijing. This is basically a small town inhabited only by artists and their studios. There is something to be said about an intentional....
Exploring Barcelona
Our travels could not have gone more smoothly. Although we were exhausted when we arrived to Barcelona, we had all of our luggage, had made our connecting flight, and were greeted by our guide–Jim of the tour company “Good Barcelona”–who happens to be Australian, not Spanish. Jim was easy to find due to his bright....
D.C.
D.C. Lights, sirens, and city sounds, Black, yellow, and brown all around. Everyone rushing with no attention paid The many heads that have no place to be laid. What is justice without oppression? Sadness and pain with hungry aggression. Lives destroyed all for a dollar sign. Build it all new, an expensive design. Mike it....
OYE work at San Jose Elementary
After two weeks in Copan Ruinas, a beautiful and important historical and cultural site in Western Honduras, at a La Guacamaya Spanish School, the group dedicated a week of their program to volunteer with OYE and learn about youth development efforts and national reality with OYE (Organization for Youth Empowerment). The EMU students spent the....
Diverse Narratives in the Shenandoah Valley
How could we have lived in this valley for 20 years and not know about places like Zenda, Long’s Chapel, Newtown, or the stories of Lucy Simms, Bethel A.M.E. church, Ralph Sampson or the Islamic Center of the Shenandoah Valley? Here they all were, right under our noses and yet we were not familiar with....
The Galápagos
Today Milton (the man who owns the farm we are staying/working at) told us some stories about himself, and the interactions with politics and the island. It was quite interesting to see the parallels between the history of activism on the islands with the history of activism in Bolivia. At one point, the island residents....
Working with the MAMA Project
June 3, 2013 Starting our first day with the MAMA project was exciting. Anticipation was in the air as we woke up early, packed our lunches, and loaded the vans to go. The hour and a half van ride was up tiny dirt roads into the mountains. A memory from Adam: “Oh yeah Jason, by....