by Todd Cannon I nearly bolted from the sweat lodge before the first round was over. I must have looked as if someone had doused me with a bucket of water – a steady stream of sweat running down my head, torso, limbs. The heat and total darkness inside the sweat lodge was nearly unbearable […]
Message of the Day – “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” Pericles, ancient Greek politician Our final full day in Cuba. After what I think everyone would agree was a tasty breakfast, we toured Old Havana with our guide Guillermo. […]
Message of the Day – “We draw comfort from those who agree with us; growth from those who don’t.” – Marty Nemko Thursday. It’s a word we have practiced countless times with our students over the past 8 days. It’s a day we have both anticipated and dreaded in “mas o menos” equal measure. It […]
Message of the Day – “Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead Our last days in Ciego de Avila. I’m already feeling very sad to leave. Thanks to Andrea’s birthday, we were able to celebrate with a beautiful cake […]
Our ninth full day in Cuba was our first work day with our reduced/learner team of eight plus team leader Michele. Alyssa and Paul returned with Alejandro to the church for painting. This time it was an indoor wrought iron bannister. They left a good impression – on the stairs as well as some of […]
A busy weekend of people-to-people events started with an historic museum visit ending with a Conga line. We said a sad farewell to our one-week volunteers. On to Moron, stopping at Rancho Palma for a lunch under grass roofs among the caged animals. When we entered Moron, it was carnival so streets were packed with […]
The evening classes continue to be attended enthusiastically by a sizeable student body. Of particular note was a fourteen-year-old girl who received some one-on-one tutoring. She already had a rather good grasp of English sentence structure and pronunciation, but needed work on vocabulary building – which volunteers provided. A very enjoyable conversation was had by one group […]
Today our team split into 3 groups to support the community in different ways in the morning. Two volunteers worked with Alejandro at the church to sand rusted window grates. Using only single pieces of sandpaper, they were able to remove rust from the scrolled grates. A piece of sandpaper was dropped out the window which […]
On our first day of teaching, our team quickly spread into different rooms that varied by English proficiency, and we all got to work! I was in the front room with Joanne and the beginners. First I must applaud Joanne for her incredible translating skills and her enthusiasm. Every student in our group was fully […]
My experience of my first day is Cuba is what I will be sharing… my thoughts, feelings, judgments. I KNOW that I can easily focus on the details (Varying room temperature, food surprises, loud noises at 3 am, lukewarm coffee, unrelenting heat) or I can experience the “Gestalt” (or, the whole) of this time here. […]