domingo, 13 de febrero de 2011

Praxis Weekend

Laura, Chris and I ~ my cool praxis buddies. they're pretty hilarious and fun. this pic is from our Día de la Amistad dance last Friday

 I spent last weekend with my praxis community. What is this 'praxis community' I'm talking about? Well, each Monday and Wednesday I go with my two praxis buddies, Chris and Laura, to spend the day in a rural community at the base of the San Salvador volcano, a community affected by material poverty and limited access to water and electricity. There I get to spend time with families, learn a little about their daily lives, and teach English classes to several groups of kids. Last weekend I got to stay at Veronica's house (don't have a picture of her yet), which is where we eat lunch on praxis days. Her husband is a carpenter and is usually at work, but we do get to see her three sons, Roberto, Henri and Jorge, often times at lunch while they are home briefly between school and going helping their dad or do homework. During the daytime, I spent time with Blanca and her family, getting to play a lot with little kids, carry little Cheque around, make tortillas for the first time, and just hang out.
with Natalia, Cheque and Andrea

primera vez de hacer tortillas! con Blanca
Tortillas! I got to be part of the whole process..we took a tub full of corn down to the mill, poured it in to be ground in to masa (dough), then carried it back up to the house where Blanca taught me how to form the masa into tortillas.

con Joselin. flores de izote = flor nacional. las comimos, fritas con huevos! las chicas me decoraron la cara con pegatinas. ... with Joselin. flowers of Izote are the national flower. we ate them, fried with eggs! the girls decorated my face with stickers.

  



El Salvador



Suspended in a colorful hammock between two trees, I swing under their shade. Warm sunshine. Warm smiles. Bright and dainty flowers of deep coral, magenta and blue peek out at me as I walk through the streets. I am here in El Salvador, getting to know my new compañer@s with whom I will be spending this spring. I want to soak in every moment of this new experience, seek to discover what is most meaningful to me…embracing new friendships, delighting in new flavors, opening myself to be stirred by the people I will share time with here.

lunes, 22 de noviembre de 2010

Costa de Almería ~ Almería Coast

      In October, I went hiking with a couple friends for three days along the coast. We wanted to be spontaneous, so the only planning we did before we left was calculate the kilometers between little towns on the coast to have an idea of how far we could reasonably make it in a day. We hiked some 12 kilometers each day, right along the coast, packing a simple lunch of bread, salchichon (sausage), and Lindt chocolate : ). When we arrived to our destination town each evening, we searched for the cheapest spot to spend the night. Our record was 13 Euro apiece. The weather was beautiful!
first night..la primera noche..





Daniella, Anne y yo

Danza africana

Esto es de hace un mes…


       Hoy fui a mi segunda clase de danza africana. Alucinante. De la gran variedad de clases que se ofrecían como actividades fuera de la escuela (como pintura, encuadernación, rutas subterráneas por Granada) fue danza africana que más me interesaba, así que decidí probar este campo de baile que es completamente nuevo para mí a ver cómo era. En la primera clase, la instructora era una española, pero esta vez, los instructores eran dos hombres africanos (senegalenses), que trajeron una mezcla de tambores, que llegan hasta las rodillas en altura, para crear la música. Son hermanos y ambos tienen rastas gruesas. Mientras que uno se dedica solamente a tocar los tambores, el otro (que se llama Dali..puedes ver unas fotos en http://www.myspace.com/dalidanza, si quieres) pasa la mayor parte de la clase enseñándonos a bailar, aunque de vez en cuando se sienta al lado de su hermano y tocan juntos mientras bailamos. El hermano que toca más los tambores tiene la sonrisa más increíble –si pudieras imaginar toda la alegría que el baile y la música pueden inspirar captada en una expresión, sería la sonrisa de este hombre—. Absolutamente brillante. La coreografía era bien rápida y divertida, e involucraba todo el cuerpo. Ojalá que pudieras ver a mi instructor bailando; es increíble como su cuerpo y su alma se mueven con el ritmo de los tambores, creando una energía radiante e irresistible. Me hace querer ir a África.

African Dance Class

 This is from about a month ago…

        Today I had my second “danza africana” class. Amazing. Of the wide variety of interesting classes that were offered as extra-curricular activities (painting, bookbinding, subterranean routes through Granada) danza africana piqued my interest the most, so I decided to take a plunge into this sphere of dance that is completely new to me and see what it was like. In the first class, we had a Spanish woman as our instructor, but this time our teachers were two African men who brought a variety of knee-high drums that they played to provide the music. They are brothers and both of them wear their hair in thick dreadlocks that fall past their shoulders. One of them only played the drums, while the other (Dali is his name..you can check out http://www.myspace.com/dalidanza if you want to see a couple pics) spent the majority of the time teaching us new choreography, although he occasionally played the drums along with his brother. The principal drum player had the most incredible smile; if you could capture in an expression all the joy that music and dance can inspire it would be his smile.  Absolutely “brillante”. The choreography was fast-paced and so much fun. I wish you could see my instructor dancing; it’s simply incredible how his body and spirit move with the beats of the drum, creating an irresistible, radiant energy. It makes me want to go to Africa.

viernes, 15 de octubre de 2010

Barcelona: 30 de septiembre - 3 de octubre

A few weekends ago I went to Barcelona with a couple of friends. We saw some cool places, but I think my favorite parts of the trip were the random little things that we saw/that happened to us..like one night, we were walking back to our hostel, and we saw these four guys doing pretty sweet gymnastic stunts in the street. There was a crowd of people around them and we decided to stop and watch. Well, one of the guys took me and my two friends from the crowd for one of his stunts! He had us stand in a line and told us he was going to jump over us. I mean, these guys were good gymnasts, impressive and all, but I was scared to death he wasn’t going to make it over. I was the last in the line of girls, and one of the other gymnasts said to me, "Hey, you’re kind of tall, let’s put you in the front, and..why don't all of you you tilt your heads a little to the side" (which of course made me completely at ease haha!). Thankfully, the guy made it completely over us, heads and all.

..A few photos from the trip...


Cathie, Diana y yo


Paella cocinada con tinta de calamar..rica
paella cooked with squid ink!..yummy

Un hombre en la calle haciendo y vendiendo…
Man in the street making and selling…

...estos. con latas
...these. with cans

Me encantan los mercados..
I love markets..

Ya soy adicta a estos zumos..vienen en todos los colores que puedes imaginar. Mi favorito= coco+mora.
Solamente 1 euro!
 Quickly became addicted to these fruit juice drinks that come in every color imaginable. My favorite was coconut+blackberry. Only one euro!

Yo, delante de La Sagrada Familia.
Me, in front of the Sacred Family church.



Crazy cool architecture

Parque Guell
Park Guell..looks like a real life gingerbread house

We decided to trek up to this monument with crosses up on the edge of Park Guell. We climbed and climbed, and when we neared the top, we started to hear music. It wasn’t peaceful, spiritual music, like you might expect near such a monument, rather loud, hard-core rock. When we finally reached the monument itself we saw the source of the music --a 40-something-year-old man with long hair, glasses in the shape of guitars, rocking out in a skin-tight leopard print outfit with his guitar and little amp. At first I was appalled, but this guy was so excited and happy that it couldn’t help but wear off on everyone who had trekked up that hill.

Park Guell..sweet mosaic wall

Monumento a Colón (muy alto)
 Christopher Columbus Monument (super tall)

burbujota!!
ginormous bubble!! One of the many people scattered throughout Park Guell trying to make a dime or two.



Parque Guell






Parque Guell

domingo, 12 de septiembre de 2010

más fotos!

yo y Anne en Granada






Danielle y yo en Granada

Cathie y yo en la playa Salobreña   

this sweet park in Granada hat hardly anyone knows about
castillita en dicho parque 
Ronda 
Plaza de Toros (Bullring) - Ronda
Ronda
yo en mi balconcito :)