Andres, our excellent Profesor in español, surprised Leslie and our class this morning with a lesson on cultura de México which culminated in a fiesta (party) to celebrate her cumpleaños – plus many new words for us to learn!

Towards the end of the class, Andres brought out a beautiful cake and a rose and presented it to Leslie to the delight of all our fellow classmates.

It was a highly touching moment for Leslie who was completely caught off guard.

Our group comes from multiple countries and languages.  Some of us can only communicate to each other in very rudimentary Spanish!

But it seemed like everyone had their cell phones out snapping pictures of the event, and needless to say, everyone loves a party.

Today was the start of week five for the original “group” of students.

Every two weeks new students can join the group and a new gentleman, only one week in México, joined our class.

One “job” I’ve undertaken is to help new students transition to the class. So after class I met with Michael, showed him what we’ve covered so far and explained the principle of the WW2 convoys.  The convoy won’t stop and wait for him to catch up – he’ll have to work hard to catch up with us.  It’s an intensive program, but I explained that he’ll do fine if he just takes it poco a poco (little by little).

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My little gift to Leslie – a birthday card with the contents all written in español!

(It only took a couple of hours to figure out…)

Tonight we’ve been invited out to dinner at the home of former residents here at the Casa who have become dear friends over the past several months.

As I’ve told many people, the 5 months we’ve lived here at the Casa have been a rich experience for us – and the love and kindness shown to Leslie today proves it!