Six Flags and Six Baskets

12 of the students from the residence in Oaxaca were rewarded for their high academic achievement just before Christmas with a week-long trip to Mexico City which included, amongst other things a trip to ‘ Six Flags’ - the Mexican equivalent of Alton Towers. They also had a cinema trip to see the film ‘Avatar’ (followed by a very interesting discussion lead by Saul Cruz on the links of the plot with the history of Mexico), saw some city sights and enjoyed the novel experience of using an escalator - some spent half an hour travelling up and down ....!
Their city trip gave also gave them the opportunity to work alongside locals and volunteers from the UK and US in giving out food for Christmas to poor families and organise games for children in some of the community centres. This type of experience is very important as it gives the students a window on other things going on in Armonia and enriches their cultural understanding. For most of the students this will have been their first trip outside Oaxaca!
The students who didn’t do quite so well in their studies (and therefore had to stay behind to do extra revision for their re-takes) were presented with a challenging forfeit – Saul got them to each fill six baskets full of harvest produce from the land cultivated around the residence in Etla. This was no mean feat as the baskets were pretty large! Produce included maize and root vegetables among other things. This exercise taught the students how to harvest maize and the result has been that they think they have enough maize to last the whole year! Food growing is just one of the skills that the students are learning as part of the AIMS programme.
Photographs to follow