Wednesday, July 17 @ Winter English Camp

We spent the day with some amazing Uruguayan English teachers at the Granja San Francisco. It was a Winter English Camp, a professional development day for them. We shared ideas and participated in group activities, ate breakfast, lunch and merienda together. Also the U.S. teachers presented three different sessions about language learning.

Alcito shared his first mate today. Yerba mate is the traditional Uruguayan beverage, a tea made with the leaves of the mate shrub. You put the dried Yerba leaves in a mate container, traditionally a dried gourd, cover them with hot water, then sip the yerba through the bombilla. The bombilla is a straw-like spoon, with a strainer at one end. The Uruguayans carry their thermos of hot water with them all day and fill up the mate when they want to drink more yerba. They add the water over the same leaves.

Sharing mate with some Uruguayan teachers