First Classes And Misión Ñ

Today, students' academic Spanish began. After an oral exam, students found out which wonderful Dominican professor they would be in class with; they took a twenty minute break, and then started their first class. 

Students finished the classes with their neurons firing and in need of food. Dominicans refer to lunch as la comida, or the food-- perhaps because the Dominican lunch is the largest and most important meal of the day. With this new cultural knowledge, students happily walked home to eat with their families. 

After lunch, students returned to the center Dominico-Americano for their first Misión Ñ. In the missions, students apply their classroom learning to the real world. Two classes took the guagua, the word for bus in caribbean Spanish, to the university in order to ask Dominican students what they should see and do in Santiago. The third class introduced themselves to people at the grocery store to find out where the shopers were from. Most of the shoppers were from Santiago, but we also met people from Santo Domingo, Dajabón, Switzerland, and Chile. 

The students' smiles after Misión Ñ sum up the success of their engagemnt in the community.