Spencer:
`After we got lunch we traveled to the José Marti Plaza. In the center of the plaza there is a statue of this extremely famous political poet. If you turn 90 degrees left you will see a large two story building that is the museum of Cienfuegos. Directly to the left of the museum, is the town hall. The town hall looks exactly like you’d expect. Grey building with a red dome top and the Cienfuegos and Cuban flags hanging out front of the town hall. If you turn 180 degrees, then you will see the Teatro Tomas Terry. Tomas Terry was a person who left money in his will for a theater to be built. 90 degrees to the right, you will see a cathedral that was built when the Spanish were in Cuba. If you follow the Boulevard, you will encounter a small market that sells small trinkets. We did some souvenir shopping, and around 3:00 we stopped in a gazebo to reflect on the day. I wrote most of this paragraph in that time :) After our break we had another 30 minutes to shop, and a group of 4 got split up so we had to find them. After that we went to the WLS Learning Session. During the night, a few people walked down to the marina, and talked about a variety of things. I slept soundly and I was ready for the new day.
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David:
WLS Learning Session: Millenium and Sustainable Development Goals
Today we went to the Julio Antonio Mella high school. There we saw demonstrations by the students of traditional singing, dancing, and a tai-chi routine. After these, we played soccer with the students and visited an english class. To close our experience with the Cuban students, we saw more examples of traditional performances and then we shared some American dance moves and sang some songs together. Throughout all of this, we were talking with the Cuban students, learning about their lives, answering questions, and just talking in general. It was definitely a very powerful, meaningful and unique experience that we had today. That we had the ability to meet, talk with and hear about life from these students who live in a country that ours has been at odds with for almost sixty years is truly incredible. Today’s WLS Learning Session centered around the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We each picked which goal was most meaningful to us, grouped together based on that, and then came together as a whole to share why those were important to us.
