Columbian Students Visit PHS for One Week

Story by Theresa Gielissen

Drugs, coffee, and dance: these are what many North Americans think of when they consider Colombia.  After hosting thirteen Colombian girls for a week however, PHS has been introduced to the truths of the Colombian culture.
    Thirteen girls, accompanied by a Catholic priest and several of their teachers, came from an all girls school in Bogota, Colombia.  The school, which is for kindergarten though eleventh graders, is called Gimnasio El Cedro and educates about two hundred students.
    In order to get ready for their guests, PHS Spanish students were taught “El Tiburon,” or “The Shark,” in Spanish classes.  “El Tiburon” is a typical dance from South America that resembles our “Macarena.”  Student teacher Jennifer Beringer taught the dance. “It’s almost ten years old,” noted Beringer, “It gets everybody moving, and can be done at the school dances.”
   PHS students were required to write a brief paper about themselves and their families in order to host one of the girls.

Columbian students talk with Spanish 2 class. Photo by Lauren Johnson.

The Colombian students arrived on Jan. 8 and spent the night getting to know their host families.  Before coming to Plymouth, they stopped in Chattanooga for two days.  After staying here for a week, they went to Chicago.
    The Colombian girls’ English teacher, Mr. Guillermo Rodriguez, wanted the girls to come to America “to have the experience of living school life in the states and learning American culture.”
    On Tuesday Jan 9., the Colombians followed their host sibling to his or her classes.  By sitting through North American classes, they were introduced to our education system.
    The Spanish department arranged for them to go to Blue Harbor to swim and to Triple Play in Sheboygan for laser tag on Wednesday Jan. 10.
    Spanish teacher Jane Groblewski participated in laser tag with all of the students.  “I got so nervous I shot my own team,” she said, “Good thing Mr. Mella was on my team, otherwise we would have really lost.”
  The Spanish teachers decided to have the Colombians’ host brothers and sisters fill out a survey about one another.  In the beginning of the activity, Groblewski had everybody that’s an American raise his or her hands.  Groblewski said she was disappointed when “only our students raised their hands.  We’re all Americans.”
    “I think what the students found out is that teenagers everywhere are way more similar than dissimilar.  I think everybody had a good time,” said Groblewski.
    On Thursday Jan. 11, the girls spent all day in Spanish classes teaching some of Colombia’s traditional dances and introducing students to their typical music.
    North American students learned a lot about Colombian culture through the performance they did on Friday Jan. 12.  The Columbian students showed movies about Colombia’s many festivals and sights.  Some of the dances that the girls preformed were El Barabato, La Cumbia, La Puya, and El Jorapo.
    Over the weekend, they went to Sunburst and had a potluck dinner to say goodbye.  The Colombians brought their luggage to school and left Monday morning.
    “We [North Americans] are woefully ignorant of the rest of the world.  They’re [Columbians] very forgiving of that,” mentioned Groblewski.