beyond the green

If you would like to see a collage mixed with some videos of my experience in Ecuador, just follow this link or type in BCA Ecuador in video.google.com! WARNING: it is about twenty minutes long, so only watch this if you might want to wait to watch it until you are super bored.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5013038957026682161&hl=en

27 de diciembre 2008
For an English major, it can be pretty frustrating not to be able to describe an experience in words.

On the 22nd of December at about 2:30 in the morning I arrived home safe and sound after a long day of flight travel. Our BCA group had different discussions about culture shock in Ecuador and the side effects of adjusting back to life in the U.S. We heard that there might be feelings of depression, disappointment, shock—that it might be harder to go back than it was to arrive in Ecuador.

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I love the relationship between students and faculty at Bethel.

I’m particularly conscious of it during the holiday/end-of-semester season, because that’s when everybody pulls out the stops. With such a small student population, teachers can more easily get to know each of their students. At Bethel, most students are on first name basis with their teachers. They are friends on Facebook and discuss favorite hobbies/music/whatever outside of the classroom. Even more unique is the fact that, more often than not, students are invited to their teachers’ houses at some point in the semester.

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27 de noviembre 2008

It is a curious thing what the holiday season can bring about.

This Tuesday I had an interesting conversation with my host father. All of the members of my family, I would say that I am least close to him, simply because for the majority of the semester I didn´t see him a lot, and he always seemed a bit more reserved than my host brothers and mom. About three weeks ago he had a minor surgery to remove kidney stones, but it turned out to be a long ordeal from which he is still recovering. The surgery was further complicated by the fact that his stomach was removed four years ago for cancer.

So after sleeping two hours past my alarm (don´t worry, I was still on time for classes) I found myself sipping café con leche and eating my wonderful morning dose of fresh fruit (I think that day it was papaya and bananas) and talking with my host father, José o Pepé.

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I have one more reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving. It was announced officially the day before Thanksgiving break that Bethel was shifting its biannual musical from Children of Eden to Lucas & Guettel’s The Light in the Piazza. The news was greeted excitedly by those already committed to the musical, and we hope we can spread the excitement.

There were a number of reasons for the change. Children of Eden is written by Stephen Schwartz: the composer of Wicked, Godspell and Pippin, but Children of Eden is one of his lesser known pieces. The directors of Bethel’s show had become enthused pedagogically with Children of Eden because it dealt with Genesis subject matter that the senior religion classes at Bethel were tackling. We’re a liberal arts college, so that sort of crossover is always cool to us.

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