Luisa O. in Denise Eliopoulos’s New Jersey cluster had the opportunity to speak to a class of twenty 2-5 year old’s about her home country, Mexico.
Despite Luisa’s initial nervousness she ended up being really excited once she got started. Here’s her story about her “Day trip to Mexico”:
I first began explaining a bit about the city I come from, and then they were so excited to hear the story about how chocolate (one of their favorite things in the whole entire world, according to the majority of my public) was discovered in Mexico! They first shared their knowledge with me about the subject and to be honest I was perplexed with how much information they already knew.
After this we played a little game in which I showed them pictures of typical and important ingredients in the Mexican cuisine. They had to learn the name in Spanish along with the correct pronunciation by using our hands and clapping to the rhythm of the syllables. It wasn´t long until they could spell all of them!
Afterwards we began our third activity, I prepared for them cutout papers of different colors so they could make their own paper taco. I was so happy to see the excitement in each of their faces as they took their “tortilla”, and began stuffing some “carne”, “tomates”, “queso” and more. Each one of them received a little Mexican flag sticker as they started their last activity, a coloring page with the world map.
This experience as short as it might have been, helped me to lose a bit of my stage fright as talking in front of a group of people, it gave me more confidence. I truly enjoyed sharing about my culture as we all learned from each other, and it made me feel even more proud about where I come from. I consider it is important nowadays starting with the future generations, to open their minds about diversity. This country especially is populated by cultures from all around the world and the variety can be clearly seen, which I believe makes this country richer and more diverse. As with this volunteering opportunity, I am longing to do the same for my country as I believe we now live in a world without barriers and are globally connected. I am thankful to have had this opportunity and look forward to share more about my country again.