2.2.12

Our teacher team! Pheobe is from Boulder and just graduated from Ekerd College, she will be teaching Beginning and Intermediate Spanish and PE (with me!); Allegra is from Vermont and recently finished teaching on the Zuni Reservation in New Mexico with Teach for America, she taught with The Traveling School in Central America last year this time, and this year will be teaching Pre-Calc, Algebra and Advanced Spanish; Rhea, she is also from Santa Cruz and is our Academic Program Direct, she is a journalist and a certified teacher she has taught the Africa semester and the Centeal America semesters with The Traveling School and she will be teaching Science, Literature, Travel Journalism, and her and I are co-teaching Global Studies! Im teaching History, Math Conecpts/Applications, Global Studies and PE!

We have just had a short orientation with all of our sixteen girls and about half of their parents here in Miami and we are leaving for Quito in a couple of hours.  Tomorrow we will have a half day of classes where we will be staying about 2 hours out of Quito.  In the next couple weeks we hope to visit a rose farm, where we will start to understand this industry, just in time for Valentines day.  Think this year about where your flowers come from, the pesticides used in order to preserve the long journey, and how this affects workers rights ect.  More on this later. 

As explained a bit below, the planning and legistics of this trip are incredible, I am relieved to be in the presence of our participants and able to taste the adventure.  Its time, we're all scratching for the moment we step off onto Ecuadorian soil and a new culture.  Although, imagine sixteen highschool girls all piled together for the first time... this already is a new culture in and of itself!
YEHAW, blessings, y mucho besos!