My favorite thing

So Bossert and I decided that each night, we would meet as a group and talk about the day. How did things go? did we have any problems? Etc. So last night was our first of these meetings. You will probably guess from seeing the kids posts that meeting the high school kids and having them over for pizza and dancing was a great thing. So I wanted to share what I mentioned as my favorite thing from our meeting last night.

My favorite thing was just watching the kids. They met an environmental leader (Gabriel Quesada) that has been crucial in enacting changes to the Costa Rican constitution. They met a musician (Manuel Obregon) that has been bringing together traditional musicians from all of Central America to write new music and bring that music on tour throughout the world. They met with students their own age to see what they might have in common or see how different they were.

I was so proud of our kids when we met the first two individuals. They knew everything that Gabriel Quesada talked about and were able to ask great questions about the struggle of the environment with politics and modernization. They asked great questions of Manuel Obregon as well and were delighted by his music.

The students from the local school was the best though. When we got there, they didnt want to talk to them. "My spanish is horrible", "I don't know what they're saying!" was all they would say. But we paired each of our kids with one of the local students and watched as they ignored each other for the most part. Then we put them into two teams and had them play soccer. And that is where the friendships began. By the time we left the school, they had made some connections. When they realized the kids were coming to our hostel for a "party" with pizza and music, they were thrilled. You should have seen them show each other dance moves to both U.S. music and Latin American music. By the time the local students left, they were so sorry to see them go and had even exchanged email addresses to keep in touch. I'll let Meghan tell her story. Make sure you ask her if she doesnt fess up. LOL.

So all in all, my favorite part of the day was watching them and knowing that, as we have learned, City High kids represent whether they are down the street in Pittsburgh, in New York or DC and even outside of the US. I'm proud of them.