El Viaje~34 hours

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 Travel Days can be enlightening!

It’s amazing how much we can build our global competency just from airports and airplanes.

This will be a quick entry as I have only slept about 10 hours in the last 48 hours. But we arrived to Montevideo safe and sound and only missing one of the 17 suitcases from our group- and it happened to be mine 😏.

But, I have already connected with a friend of a friend (Kelly Elder: former MT teacher of the year who now lives in Montevideo and teachers at The American School) and he knows the lost luggage scene and has given me some inside information on how to navigate the scene.

So, on to the learning that has already happened!

1. I have a whole new appreciation for US flight attendants-they keep order like now one else!

2. I’m going to enjoy trying all the different foods and even spotted one today that my students taught me about when we were doing our food and country unit this year~alfajores (super deliciosos)!

3. My friend and colleague Jenny randomly spotted the famous salsa band, El Grupo Niche in the Santiago airport! So… we let them know we were here for kids and they gladly took some pictures with us! They are heading to New York and Washington state so look them up and go see them if you can.  You can also check out their link below to hear one of my favorite songs of theirs.

4. My essential question for my Fulbright time here focuses on how the Uruguayan educational system here influences students to participate in environmental activism. I don’t know the answers to this yet- but I can see many conscientious things Chile and Uruguay are doing to foster a reduce/recycle atmosphere. For example, on the plane all the silverware was made from wood and biodegradable.

Every restaurant, kiosk, and business seemed to have recycling only waste cans. There seems to be very little that is not recycled.

5. And… I knew we were coming to winter but, I forgot that means it gets dark early, So enjoy those long days of sun up north- here it dark at six p.m.!

6. The Andes remind me so much of our MT mountains- we could see them from the Santiago airport.

7. BUKA is my new favorite potato chip!


I’ll post more tomorrow about the education system as we meet with the Ministry of Education tomorrow. Buenas Noches!!







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