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Lopez Island Spanish Club Students to take Service-Learning Trip to Peru

11/19/2018

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Lopez School teacher and trip leader Lisa Geddes, along with teacher Brian Goff, and Mental Health specialist, Paul Lewis plan to take ten high-school Spanish students to Peru in spring 2019, in partnership with the organization Language and Friendship. The trip will include a service-learning component as well as individual home-stays with local families and a chance to visit Machu Picchu.

Spanish Club students had been traveling to Nicaragua to do a service-learning project with the Center for Development in Central America, every other year since 2001. However, recent social unrest necessitated a change of plans. (In order to support the CDCA, please visit their website at http://jhc-cdca.org).

Students traveling to Nicaragua had a chance to improve their Spanish language skills while learning about third-world poverty, meeting peers and connecting with their lives. They helped with construction of a health clinic, a water system, and other projects, and also visited a rural coffee finca.

This year's trip to Peru will include various service projects such as helping out on a farm, working with children in a local school, a building project, working with sheep, and preparing natural dyes.

All participants must be comitted students, demonstrate competency in Spanish, and help to raise funds for trip expenses. This trip is more costly than going to Nicaragua, and community support is greatly appreciated. Students hope to raise funds by making crafts to sell at the Holiday Bazaar, cooking for community events, busking at the Saturday Market, and performing singing telegrams next Valentine's Day.

In addition to that, they are hoping to raise $5,000 from the community through direct donations to the new GoFundMe page: <https://www.gofundme.com/jjjz25-lopez-is.-student-trip-to-peru> This page has additional information about the Peru Trip.

You can also donate through InSTEP, the community non-profit dedicated to supporting Lopez students' international teacher-led trips. 100% of donations to InSTEP go directly to program services, and are fully tax-deductible. You can donate through the website at http://www.lopezinstep.org. 

Thank you for supporting educational student travel and service! The Lopez community will have a chance to hear directly from the students about their experiences, and see photographs of their trip, when they return. You will be gratified to see how much they get out of these life-changing experiences.
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French Trip Blog

4/7/2016

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The French Club has been maintaining a blog. If you wish to read their entries, go to 
http://richardtetu.weebly.com/french-club-blog
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More Greece Trip News

4/7/2016

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From Lisa Geddes

​Here's the latest from Greece...(April 6, 2016)

Our last day in Nafplio we climbed over a thousand steps up to the Palamidi fortress, built by the Venetians in the early 1700s during one of their occupations.  It was a gorgeous day, and we huffed and puffed our way up the stairs with the best of 'em.  

Arrived on the island of Crete at the crack of dawn this morning after an overnight ferry ride from the port city of Piraeus, near Athens.  Our time in Piraeus was a heart-breaking and at times nerve-rattling experience, as we began the 3 hour wait for our ferry in close proximity to one of the large refugee encampments.  Conditions for the thousands of Syrian, Afghani, and Iraqi migrants there have deteriorated and we've been told that tensions are running high; though with the exception of being somewhat intensely reprimanded by a woman in a language I (Lisa) didn't understand for attempting to be a photo journalist and discretely take a photo of a man in the camp playing a guitar, we didn't witness any hostility.  Photography is tricky business, not my forte, and although I had the best of intentions, I crossed a line.  I thought she was going to take and destroy my camera, but I stayed as calm as I could and attempted to communicate to her that I intended no disrespect and would put my camera away.  Though I was somewhat shaken, I can completely appreciate where she's coming from.  We rather quickly relocated our group to a fast food restaurant across the busy street. Both Dave and I felt caught between our roles as steady and vigilant trip chaperones and our own mounting sense of overwhelming sadness.  

As of today, the government has begun moving the refugees from Piraeus to another location, described in some reports to be a type of detention center.  Many are frightened and refuse to leave.  Syrians are more likely to be granted asylum than Afghanis or Iraqis, which is generating additional tension between the groups.  

And yet within the chaos someone has set up a makeshift hair cutting station and children can be seen playing with improvised toys.  

Our five student travelers have been extraordinary.  After an absolutely sublime student-prepared feast of local chicken and fish (barbecued outside by Harrison, Reese, and Jonathan), Greek salad, and roasted potatoes (eaten on our patio overlooking the Mediterranean Sea), we had quite a long and thoughtful debriefing session, and it was one of those occasions when I think both Dave and I (the adults) felt utterly humbled by the beauty and depth of their youthful insights. We all spoke of dignity and the fact that we were seeing people that, had the circumstances been different in our own homeland, could be any one of us. The students all seem to appreciate having the opportunity to experience and reflect on something so "real" and relevant, in the sense that the crisis is unfolding at this time, in this place. This is the largest refugee crisis since WWII, and future students will undoubtedly study the repercussions of this crisis in fifty+ years much as these students have studied WWII. The juxtaposition of the ancient past and the in-your-face present has been a welcome one and has inspired much spirited conversation.  I imagine that Richard and Debbie and the students in France are experiencing noticeable aspects of a changing Europe as well.  

In addition to our evening check-ins, the students have been doing some impressive writing, which we'll be sharing at our presentation to the community on May 6th.  All in all, the students are coping well, being respectful, asking challenging questions, and at times resorting to playful silliness the way we all tend to do when we need to decompress. The trip continues to be an inspiring, eye-opening, and sometimes exhausting experience, and we're all working well together.

Tomorrow we visit the archeological site of Knossos, widely considered to be Europe's oldest city.   

That's all for now.  Stay tuned for more photos.

With our deepest gratitude,
Lisa and Dave
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The Lopez International Student Travel Education Program – helping students be in step with a changing world.