Sixteen students, teachers and friends participating in Coastal Bend College’s Intensive Spanish Program in Cuernavaca, Mexico, recently enjoyed climbing pyramids; getting to know their Mexican families; speaking lots of Spanish in and out of classes at the Instituto Mexicano de Español y Cultura; eating delicious home-cooked food; swimming in the school’s pool; enjoying the pleasant July temperatures; and shopping for beautiful Mexican handcrafts.

The IMEC has moved to a new location in Cuernavaca, on the campus of the Universidad José Vasconcelos, closer to the center of the city than the former building. The large campus with beautiful gardens, Mexican architecture typical of the 1930’s, and a large swimming pool, provides a perfect setting for studying Spanish.

A bit of excitement followed one of the swimming parties when a freak thunderstorm dropped large amounts of hail which collected in drifts that resembled snow, an unheard of phenomenon in Cuernavaca. The school director’s yellow lab puppy thought the hailstones were ice cream and ate many of them.

The Texas group included four Coastal Bend College students and five A. C. Jones High School dual-credit students who all received a semester of college credit for their intensive study. CBC students were Blanca Sánchez of Beeville, Alexandría Saldívar of Tilden, Jessica Seals of Dilley and Jeffrey Carisalez of Victoria. JHS students included Ben Castro, Victor Hinojosa, Roberto Morales, Sera Quiroga and Isabel Salazar, all of Beeville.

Seals made history by returning to Cuernavaca for the fourth summer, thus earning all four semesters of her required Spanish credit for her Texas State University degree through CBC’s Cuernavaca program.

In addition to those studying for regular college credit, Drennan Dozier of Fort Smith, Ark.; Ellen Tucker of Buena Vista, Colo.; and Landry Pool of Pleasanton received continuing education credit from CBC for improving their conversational Spanish and learning about Mexican culture. Gayle García of Jourdanton also studied Spanish conversation with the CBC group.

A. C. Jones High School Spanish teacher Cristina Partida took advantage of the opportunity to learn more about Mexican history and culture and receive CBC continuing education credit towards renewing her teaching certificate.

Ramón De León of Jourdanton and Janette Cumpián of San Antonio accompanied the group for several of their excursions.

Floresville High School Spanish teacher Gloria García and CBC Spanish instructor Kay Past also accompanied students.

Alexandría Saldívar, Blanca Sánchez, Ben Castro, Victor Hinojosa, Roberto Morales, Sera Quiroga and Isabel Salazar were this year’s CBC Barnhart Cuernavaca scholars. They earned partial scholarships from the Joe Barnhart Foundation for their Mexico studies. In addition, Cristina Partida received a partial scholarship for her study of Mexican culture, which will enrich her teaching.

Students attended classes from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. daily at the Cuernavaca language school and then returned to their Mexican homes for a large, home-cooked dinner, the main meal of the day. In the afternoons they visited places of interest in the beautiful Cuernavaca, a city of eternal springtime which is located in the mountains about 40 miles south of Mexico City. They toured the Cathedral of Cuernavaca, one of the oldest churches in this hemisphere; the Palacio de Cortés, the home built by Hernán Cortés in the 1500’s, after he conquered the Aztec empire; Museo Robert Brady, the home of the American art collector who left his extensive collections for a museum in his unusual home; and Jardín Borda, now a museum and park, but previously home or weekend retreat of many famous Mexicans and of Mexico’s French emperor Maximiliam and his wife Carlota.

The group visited the Casa Hogar de Niños, an orphanage for Mexican children. They enjoyed playing games, practicing soccer, reading and practicing their Spanish with the children.

One afternoon the group enjoyed a movie in one of the multiplex theaters in Cuernavaca’s beautiful shopping center, Galerías, probably more elegant than most shopping centers in the United States. They also spent a couple of evenings in the Zócalo, the central plaza of Cuernavaca, where musicians, dancers and artists perform for local people and tourists.

On weekends the group made excursions outside Cuernavaca. They visited Tepoztlán, an Indian village near Cuernavaca with a small pyramid at the top of El Tepozteco, the mountain for which the town is named. Most of the group climbed the steep stone steps to the top of the mountain.

In Mexico City, they attended the country’s world-renowned professional Ballet Folklórico performance at the Palacio de Bellas Artes; toured the Museum of Anthropology where they saw the original Aztec calendar and many other important pre-Colombian artifacts; visited the Basilica de la Virgen de Guadalupe; admired Diego Rivera’s murals in the Palacio Nacional; and visited the huge Cathedral.

The CBC group climbed the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan and admired the ancient city’s artifacts, dating from approximately 500 AD. They also visited Xochicalco, an important archeological site near Cuernavaca where Indian priests from several different cultural groups evidently gathered for astronomical observations to adjust their calendars, so that corn planting could be done at the best time for a good harvest.

Taxco, the city of silver mines in the mountains southwest of Cuernavaca, was one of the favorite excursions. Students used their Spanish skills to bargain for the best prices for beautiful silver jewelry, and they took pictures of the city’s striking church of Santa Prisca y San Sebastián, built in gratitude to God for his riches gained from silver by José de la Borda in the 1700’s.

The students enjoyed a farewell dinner with their Mexican “mothers” and their IMEC teachers at the school on the last Friday of classes, when they performed skits for the group, received their diplomas for their studies, and sang traditional Mexican songs with Cuernavaca musician Gabriela de la Paz. They sadly said goodbye to their Mexican families when they boarded the bus for the airport Sunday morning to return to Texas.

All agreed that they had learned a great deal about Mexico’s history and culture, acquired a great deal more Spanish and made many new friends. Several are already planning to return as soon as possible.