EIL Intercultural Learning

The road to Shangri-La is supposed to be an ephemeral thing, a mystical path to a hidden valley where beauty and peace prevail. But in the lagoon of Barra de Potosi, through a shallow path in the mangroves, and over a twisty, two-lane cow pat we discover the cliffs of Guamilule, the local mountain. The cliffs rise to the east from the turquoise pacific, keeping any signs of the modern world at bay.There, is a breathtaking untouched beach, with gigantic rolling waves. We surprise two wild, untied horses who roam leisurly on the beach among hermit crabs and tortugas. We decide to climb the other side of the mountain to get the ´´juraassic park´´ view!

This week, my fifth and final full week in Barra has been an adventurous one. Saturday saw us on a trip to Las Gatas beach, this idyllic cove attracts tourists at all times of the year! A boat trip across from Zehuatanejo, Las Gatas is the source of an ancient legend which says that a king used it as his own private beach, building the reef so that large fish could not swim alongside him. He kept his women in Zehuatanejo, which is why the place name means ´´place of the women´´.I guess machismo was well and alive even back then! While in Zehua,which is what the locals have shortened it to, we take the opportunity to give the new volunteers, Bibi and Sophie, a tour around showing them where everything is!

Last Friday we started to clean and reorganise the entire library. There is a ´´supplies´´ section, where we could never find anything, so over three days we managed to revamp the whole system,implementing organising methods of our own. It took alot of hard work and effort but in the end we got there and were really happy with the outcome, a clean library for the kids where we could reach everything we needed.

Adult classes have also started recently in the library, giving the more mature members of the community a chance to finish their education, or in some cases begin to learn how to read and write. I am in awe of the determination of a particular older gentleman in his seventies, who wants to learn how to write his name as he as been signing documents with his fingerprint for all these years. I am also pleased that the library is being used more as partof daily life in Barra, almost as though it always existed here.