| April 2009 Journal #4 Page 2
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Experiences like this one that we have with our home stay families are a unique aspect of traveling abroad, especially the Centre-in-Mexico program. The people in our houses become our mamas and papas, our sister and brothers, thousands of miles away from our real homes and families. We have meals together, go to movies, plan excursions, and just sit and talk about life with them. In addition to improving our Spanish, we are being given a better understanding of the entire culture. It isn’t just our home stay families, however, that become a part of our life here in Mérida. Claudia Chapa Cortes, Centre's liaison in Mexico, is always around when we need her, and she even ran alongside some of the group in a recent community race. Our student helpers Omar and Maria Luisa organize activities and hang around with us between classes. This past weekend our anthropology professor, James Callaghan, took us on what he called a "Magical Mystery Tour" of Kaxil Kiuic, the Bioculture Reserve where he works, and we got to see a different side of someone we had only known in a classroom setting. |
