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Summer Trip to Bolivia Inspires Upper School Spanish Teacher

7/17/2019

Collegiate Upper School teacher Esperanza Soria-Nieto traveled to Bolivia this past summer to research and develop curricular material for Advanced Placement Spanish.

For two weeks, Ms. Soria-Nieto lived with a gracious Bolivian family and experienced firsthand many aspects of their daily life including the similarities and differences between Bolivian and Spanish culture, the impact of climate change on the local environment and the beauty of her host family’s native Quechua language.

With permission from her host family, Ms. Soria-Nieto recorded various conversations in Quechua. She plans to leverage the recordings to enhance her students’ language skills.

In addition to the homestay, Ms. Soria-Nieto visited Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Sucre, El Alto and La Paz, Bolivia’s major cities. She started the journey with other educators in Tiquipaya, a suburb of Cochabamba, where they visited KusiKuna School. During the day-long excursion, Ms. Soria-Nieto and her fellow educators participated in a workshop by local teachers from the most unconventional schools of the area. In El Alto, the group attended “Compañía de Teatro Trono,” where indigenous street children serve as actors and present work on diverse and controversial topics.

To end the trip, the group hiked across the landscape, which afforded sweeping views of the Andes Mountain range and offered a chance to see the Condorini glaciers.

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