New Experiences

Yesterday, I arrived in Louisville, Kentucky and met my second host, Lauren, her husband, Jeremy, and her cute little puppy, Zoe. For those of you who know me, I’m quite afraid of dogs and cats, so living with one will take some getting used to! But I’m working on it, and I’m starting to feel more comfortable being around Zoe. Lauren and Jeremy are great! They have given me my own room, my own bathroom, and full reign to their fridge. I was afraid that we wouldn’t have anything to talk about, but I was wrong. For one thing, we bonded over The Voice and ended up watching the latest episode together. We all like to watch basketball, so I was easily able to convince them to watch the Bulls game with me… and they watch Harry Potter. Game over. J

After settling in, Lauren and I began talking about her experiences in Ecuador. She gave me advice and ideas to help me prepare myself for the trip and how to begin my lesson plans. Hearing about the impact she and the rest of her group made in the lives of the people in the small village, makes me even more excited and motivated to go on this trip. The village we will visit is San Gerardo, which is a community of about 500 people. The program coordinator, Dr. Magdalena Herdoiza, has made 11 trips to San Gerardo and has made a name for IU-S there. Lauren says that not only has this trip made her a better teacher, but it has also made her an even better person because of the things she learned from the kids and people there. I’m excited to see where my experiences in Ecuador will lead me and how I can incorporate them in my life.

The next day, I was finally able to meet the other members of my Ecuador group at the Muhammad Ali Center, which is a museum/culture center dedicated to the life and work of boxer, Muhammad Ali. The purpose of this visit was to learn about some core values of Ali that we will be teaching to our students in Ecuador. The values we focused on were “confidence” and “giving.” As part of our curriculum, we will create lesson plans to teach our students how to include these values in their lives. Going to this center was a really great opportunity to learn about Muhammad Ali’s contributions to the civil rights movement and how he became a role model for other African Americans. I hope to visit the center again while I’m in Louisville to learn more about his other core values and to learn more about his life.

After leaving the Muhammad Ali Center, I was driven back to Lauren’s place by one of our assistant teachers, Kelli, who will be my third host next week! We drove through Bardstown Road, which is like the Kirkwood of Bloomington. It’s a long road that has tons of small shops and nifty stores. I’ll be able to explore them more next week while I live with Kelli, but it was great to see another side of Louisville.

To end the day, Lauren and Jeremy took me to my first baseball game! We watched the Louisville Bats play the Buffalo Thunder at the Louisville Slugger Field. As you can see from my pictures, we had pretty good seats! We were entertained by Buddy the Bat and the funny performances by the blown-up characters. It was a great day to sit outside and relax!