Happy Birthday, Lauren!

We began the session Friday with an activity called “Body Letters” where the participants needed to use there bodies to write out words. The first word was “Casa Telmex” and the participants got in various positions to complete the word. In the beginning, we did not have enough people to do it, but more arrived and we were able to do it. The next activity was called “Full Boxes,”a very fun game. In this game, every group had a box and there was one box in the middle full of objects. The goal of each team was to get all of the objects in their own box. After many falls, no one was able to win the game and we made another rule that all of the groups had to win at the same time. They thought about the rule for a time and then, realized that if they stacked the boxes beneath a box containing all the objects, they could all win together. This activity was very important because it showed that although they all had different goals in the beginning, if they worked as a team, many groups would win. The next activity was the PicoCricket presentations that the students and facilitators had been working on. Every group presented their project and explained the name, what it does, and how they would advertise the product. We thought that the presentations were very good and we hope that now many of the students can speak more comfortably in front of others.

Thursday, we bought a llama piñata and we broke it Friday after the workshop for my birthday. I liked it very much because I have not had a piñata for a birthday since I was about 6 years old. After the piñata, Taylor distracted me and when we returned to the room, Dave had a tres leches cake with a candle! Everyone sang “Happy Birthday” in Spanish and in English as well. I was so surprised! We had various types of snacks and drinks that the facilitators and students brought and chatted for a long while. After the party, we went to the Fiesta Inn and passed the afternoon in the sun by the pool. That night, we went to a club called “The Up” and danced to Salsa music. I had a very happy birthday and thanks to everyone for the cake and party as well!

In order to celebrate our last weekend in Mexico, we went to the beach with Reyna! We met with Reyna at 6 in the afternoon and went to a town called Arriaga. When we arrived in Arriaga, we ate dinner in a restaurant that had the best quesadillas in Mexico. We walked around the town after dinner and we went to see the park in the center of town. The next morning, we caught a taxi to go to Boca del Cielo, a place that I had wanted to visit during our time in Mexico. We spent Sunday on the beach swimming in the waves and lying in the sun. We liked Boca del Cielo very much; everything there was beautiful. When we returned to Arriaga, we walked through the town and Kyle took many photos of the buildings with names that ended in “-mex.” We found 6 or 7 names just in Arriaga! We went to the park again that Sunday and tried a typical drink of the town: a soda. It is not like the soda in the United States because it is made of mineral water, flavoring and a little bit of ice cream. We liked it very much and we were very happy we had the opportunity to try something that we could not find anywhere else in Mexico.