Monday, October 8, 2012

Los Llanos with my Students

I spent all of last week, Monday through Friday, traveling with 44 of my fifth graders and 5 other adults.  Phew!  It was exhausting but it was also AMAZING.  As I wrote about last year, when I traveled to Santander with my 6th graders, at my school, every grade goes on a week long trip each year.  The fifth graders go to Los Llanos.  Los Llanos are the plains to the east of Bogotá, between the mountains and the Amazon rainforest.  It is flat, flat, flat, hot, hot, hot, and suuuuuuper humid but also beautiful.

Each day the students got to experience different aspects of life in Los Llanos.  Monday we stayed on a farm.  We went zip-lining through the forest (and saw monkeys!) but we also learned (kind of) how to lasso a cow and milk a cow.  The milking a cow part has been on my bucket list, after doing I have no idea why (it's kind of gross), but I did it and can now check that off my list!  





On Tuesday, in the morning we visited a local school and worked with the students there to re-paint one of the buildings with classrooms.   We then traveled a bit farther to a place where we camped for two nights.  The roads to the campgrounds are horrible so we had to take a Chiva.  A Chiva is like a party bus.  The seats are around the edges of the bus and the middle has a dance floor.  There are flashing lights and the music is blasting - the kids LOVED it...the teachers a bit less.  When we arrived the kids learned how to set up a tent AND set up the teacher tent for me and my friend Mariana (Sweet!).  We then ate dinner and played charades.  





On Wednesday, we walked to a farm of rubber trees and learned how latex is collected from trees.  We even got to collect some of the latex and create what looked like rubber band balls.  The material smell absolutely wretched but it was fun.  We then got to cool of in a nearby swimming hole.  My intention was to just get wet, cool off, and get out but there was a dock to jump off of and I think every student asked me to jump with them...it was a much less relaxing activity than I'd anticipated but fun all the same.  In the afternoon, I got to relax and read while the kids participated in a scavenger hunt.  That night we had a campfire and reflected on the trip.  





 On Thursday, we headed to another hotel.  The kids were able to play in the pool in the morning (good thing because I was having some serrrrrious stomach issues - one of the downsides of traveling to new places and trying different foods that my body is not used to...wah, wah).  In the afternoon, we took a truck out to a fish farm and learned how they raise the fish and we even got to do some fishing.  I caught nothing.  The second activity was kayaking.  It was perfect weather and there was a gorgeous sunset...and of course that is when the battery of my camera died.   The hotel transported a hot meal for us out by the lake so we had a dinner alongside the lake with Tiki torches.  When we returned to the hotel we were exhausted, but there was band waiting to play for us - joropo - typical music from Los Llanos.  They taught the students some dance moves as well.  When the evening was all over we were pooped.  But it was a great way to end the trip.













On Friday, we packed up and headed back home - but of course stopped for lunch at a great restaurant where we ate (way too much) picada with mamona (veal).  Very tasty but I then slept for 3 hours on the bus to recover.

Great trip - got to see a new part of the country, bond with my students, and learn quite a bit.

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