More from Medellin, Columbia!!

This week has been both exhilarating and exhausting ! Up by about 5:30 each day ... take turns with roommates to be first in the shower ... that may mean hot water, unless everyone else is also taking showers ... we´ve joked about numbering off or team showers! Breakfast at our hotel, morning meeting about the day, and on the bus for 45 minutes up the winding hillsides to school. Armed guard opens the gate and the group heads out across the campus to our classrooms. Parents have paid a tuition to have their kids attend the 8:30 - 11:30 math camp and have high expectations about their kids learning only in English. Many of the parents speak fairly good English. The school is ïn transition from the expectation that ONLY English is allowed for both students and teachers on campus to the reality that the native language is critical at times to building understanding and meaning ...especially in math. We leave the school at 5 or 5:30 and do some touring, sight seeing, shopping, and dinner usually by 7:30 or 8PM ... and our group usually enters an empty restaurant, that fills up by 9:30 ... the dinner hour is much later here. Back to hotel by the same bus that picks us up in the morning ... in bed by 10:30. There is construction everywhere ...done the same way as in Mexico ... somewhat primitive. Postcards don´t exist as there is very little tourism. Will share pictures next week, am not responding to your messages at this time ...signing off so the next person in line can contact the USA!!