And were off!

In 3 and a half hours we will be on our first flight from Oaxaca to Mexico City.
The experience and trip here was great and very rewarding. We will all miss the kids at Escuela Morelos and Casa Hogar, but we have photos and little notes to remind us of the children once we leave. I personally am greatfull for the fact that i was allowed to go on this trip for a second time due to the fact i had to leave 4 days into it last year. I wanted to just post a final blog telling a tiny piece of my experience (i could go on forever) and say thank you to everyone who was involved from all you parents for allowing my friends to go on this trip with me, my friends who decided to go on the trip (it would have been very diffrent with out you) and of course to our teachers Aaron, Ms. Garcia and Ms. Neale! Last but not least Enid, for setting everything up down here in Oaxaca i dont want to even imagine what the trip would have been like with out here and the connections she had!
So Goodbye to Mexico Hello to home!

Flight Information

Departure from Oaxaca:

Time: 12:25 pm

Flight number: 2047 (AeroMexico)

Arrive in Mexico City at 1:30

Depart from Mexico City

Time: 4:40 pm

Flight Number: 404 (AeroMexico)

Arrive at JFK at 10:45 pm

Premier Limousine picks us up from JFK to Watkinson.Approximately at 1:45 am

Back to Oaxaca!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our last day at school was successful we reviewed material and played games during class. After school from 5-7 was a read-a-thon. For the read-a-thon children who decided to read dressed up as the main character in their book. Kayla, Ms. Neale and Aaron read as well. The rest of us went from room to room listening to stories and we gave out bookmarks to the children who read. It was a good experience to see not only the children but their parents get involved. 

 

Saturday, we returned to Oaxaca City and Casa Hogar (the orphanage). We went to a zoo and had a picnic there with the children. It was nice to see the children again and see how excited they were to visit the zoo.  After we had the day to ourselves.

 

Today, we cleared our schedule and were able to wake up late. We visited the Mitla ruins, where our tour guide showed us around. Near the ruins was a market where we spent our time shopping and buying scarves to sell for proceeds next year. We went to lunch at a restaurant where we were served stone soup, a soup that was cooked with a red-hot rock right in the bowl. Once again we had the rest of the day to ourselves and visited the Zócolo and market. We just got back from going to the movies right down the road we saw The Proposal and mostly we all enjoyed it (minus Kevin…but he was a good sport).

Goodnight Everyone!

 

Ps. Two more days!

More Photos

Octoclan Contiuned.

Yesterday, Wednesday we returned to the school Escuela Moreleos. There we worked with our classes and introduced more english vocabulary such as, parts of the body and days of the week and months. After classes were over one of the teachers and some students took time out of their day to teach us a local art. We created daisys out of dried flowers and pumpkin seeds. The seeds were the petals of the flower, we had to glue them onto the dried flower and then we painted them to get the affect of a real flower. We did this with some children from the school. Another project that we did yesterday was create flowers out of popsicle sticks and dried seed pods on a piece of paper. We ended our school day early and were able to walk around the town for a short period of time and then hopped on a bus to go to lunch. We went to a beautiful restuarant named Los Agaves for lunch where we had three types of tamales, mole, vegtable and a sweet "dulce" tamale. After we went to the Oaxacan Folk Art museum. There were many interesting pieces of artwork that we will not be able to see anywhere else, of course a conciderable amount of time was spent in the gift shop :) The last thing on our agenda for yesterday was to go to a black pottery store. We were supposed to get a demonstration but the artist was in Oaxaca city, so instead we just walked around and shopped.

Today at Escuela Morelos we taught more english vocabulary, we added on to yesterdays teaching of days of the week to teach the children months and numbers up to 31 so they could tell us in english what their birthday was. We also reveiwed body parts with the children by playing simon says and head-shoulders-knees-toes. After school today we did not have an arts and crafts actvity with the children from school so we spent our free time by going back to our home stay to get rest. Today we had lunch in the market we went to a restuarant called Fridas, where the owner and chef truly looked like Frida. There were many options of food from chille rancheros to almond sala chicken. After we piled into the back of a truck and headed off to the backstrap weaving village once we were there we got a demonstration of how the backstrap worked. Amanda, Elizabeth, Laura, Jasmine and Ms. Neale tried their hand at the weaving and were pretty successful. Some people bought some stuff and then it was the end of our day. Now we are home and have pizza waiting downstairs just a little bight of home.

Benito Juarez and Escuela de Morelos

Our Time In Benito Juarez and Ocotlan

The past few days have been very busy as well as exciting. This past weekend we spent two days in a small mountain town called Benito Juarez. The ride up to the town was interesting as it was a thirty minute drive on a dirt road up steep mountains with no guardrails. The town itself was very beautiful and had an amazing view of the city below, but it was at least 15 degrees colder than Oaxaca city and there was less oxygen to breath so walking long distances was somehwat difficult. The first day in Benito Juarez was spent resting but the second day we took a hike to a zipline. The hike was long and hard but it was worth it once we reached the zipline. The zipline was about a quarter of a mile long and was about eleven thousund feet above sea level. All of us went on the zipline (minus Ms. Garcia and Mrs. Neale) and each of us had an awesome time!! After the zipline the group ( minus me, Kayla, and Ms Neale) contined on the hike to the top of the tallest mountain. From what I heard, it was quite a hike but the view from the top was worth it. After Benito Juarez we traveled to Ocotlan where we would all be staying in one house. On Monday we were up early, ready to teach English and art projects to the fifth graders of Escuela Morelos. Monday afternoon, we visited a Dominican church and the attached museum which was an ex-convent;the art in the museum was very beautiful. Today after working at the school again and having lunch, we visited the home of a very famous Oaxacan wood carver. When we reached his home he demonstrated the tools and supplies he needed to create his carvings as well as showed us some of his previous works. The carvings ranged from small frogs, lizards, and bears, to much larger carvings of saints, centuars, and skeletons. Once he finishes carving his piece his family memebres (predominantly women) paint the peices in extrodanary and vibrant colors. After the demonstration we got a chance to paint our own carvings which had been provded to us. After finishing our carvings we had a chance to buy some of the already finished carvings. We are looking foward to working with the kids for the rest of the week and completing our time in Oaxaca.