When we got to the school this morning, we started off collecting our group by the stairs leading to the classrooms. We were met there by Fer and Freya and while some people were a little bit late to the party, we left straight from there and went to the nursery, where they had babies from 2 months to 5 years old, all dressed in little baby uniforms. We went into a bunch of the different classrooms within the nursery and saw a bunch of tiny babies and we got to interact with them and play with them a little bit. They were all so cute! With one group, they sang us some of their nursery rhymes and we ant them some of ours, and it was really cool to see how similar they are, just in a different language.
The headmaster of the school, Daniel Pauni, took us off campus and led us a few blocks away to a street named after Mitre, who was the first president of Argentina. There, he showed us the Casa Cultura, which used to be a municipal building. Next to this building is a park called San Martín, which is named after a famous Argentinian general, of whom there is a statue of in the center of the park. There are five statues total in the park, and Mr. Pauni explained the origins behind some of these statues. One of the ones that Mr. Pauni showed us was made by the indigenous people of Quilmes who were massacred by the Spanish. After walking through the park, we went across the street to a Catholic Church, which we had the opportunity of going inside of. After visiting the church, we walked back to the campus.
After returning from the Plaza de San Martín we went to the jardín, our equivalent to kindergarten. While we were inside, the kids all sat in a circle and sang some of the songs they sing in the classroom every day, and then we sang “If You’re Happy and You Know It” to them. They loved it! Once the singing ceased we split up into three groups and went into the three different classrooms with the kids while they ate their mid morning snack. We sat down at the table with them and ate alfajores and we’re able to talk to them and interact with them, and while it was hard to understand their tiny Spanish, it was an amazing experience seeing how similar they are to kids back home. They all opened up their snack boxes and I was surprised to find that all they ate for snack were something akin to frosted cookies, alfajores, and other very sugary treats.
After shadowing our students for one of their classes, a class on Excel for most but for the students in quinto, a class on Spanish Literature, we went off campus with our students for lunch. Everyone split off at this point and walked to different restaurants around the area. When we returned, we went to the primary school for their greeting for us.
At the primary school, the children held an assembly for us outside in a courtyard. They gave us a warm welcome and hand-delivered poems about Argentina that they had written. After the assembly, we went indoors, where we played with some of the children. We split into four teams and played a life-size board game with people was the game pieces. The object of the game was to be the first team to reach the last square and along the way, we faced tongue twisters, danced, and sung. After the game was over, we said goodbye to the children and went outside to take a bus to Quilmes High School’s sports fields, which are located by a river and is about a 10-minute drive away from the main campus. There, we joined our exchange students for their PE class, which lasts for two hours on Tuesdays. When we arrived, the Argentinians changed into their PE clothes (skirts for girls and white shirts/pants for the boys). Their sports grounds included a gym, fields for soccer and field hockey, a track drawn in the grass, and tennis courts. We were forced to walk a lap around all the fields and then the girls played dodgeball together while the boys played soccer. After our games, we left with our students before the two hours were up while the rest of the students stayed behind. We then took the bus back to the school early so that we could wait to welcome the other half of the group.
After returning from the sports games (or in my case from a very interesting business class), we waited outside on the sidewalk for the second group of people from Cary for a little while. When the finally arrived, the scene was overtaken by hugs, laughter, and happiness. It was amazing to see everyone finally in the same place, and I’m sure the other group was happy to finally make it to Quilmes.
