Don Quijote Dialogue 2 (with Amable) – D57

I have been a “little” sick and my nose was dropping like a faucet, so I didn’t enjoy too much the Don Quijote dialogue. Today Karen joined us and brought Manchego cheese, quince jelly, and crackers (very thoughtful and Spaniard). Ana Isa also joined us for the dialogue. We discussed chapters IV and VI.

Later, we went to see the new MPC space and to visualize what we would like it to be and make a wish list. After that, it was lunchtime and I went home since I was sick. 

Don Quijote Dialogue 1 – with two great Quijotes, Amable and Giancarlo – D52

The countdown to our first Don Quijote dialogue finally came to an end, and to open these series of dialogues we had two great and true Quijotes! Amable facilitated the dialogue, although it was more of a lecture, and Giancarlo joined us for most of it. We also had Karen, Carla, and Susette España as guests. At first we shared our impressions of the book and feelings toward it. Then, Amable explained to us in a very detailed way the first three sentences of the first chapter of Don Quijote. It was a great dialogue. It’s just a pleasure to hear someone so educated and a great example like Don Amable.

*Here’s the link to the audio of the dialogue!

Gaby’s Morning Meeting? And Sharing – D50

Gaby was supposed to have facilitated today’s morning meeting, but she has been absent so far. Instead we decided to make the roster rubric so we are on the same page when a group is in charge of the chores of the week. What we came up with was the following,

Every assigned group must:

• Bring goodies, snacks, 2 pounds of coffee, 1 pound of sugar, 1 box of tea. All due on Monday.
• Clean all the common spaces.
• Open and close the windows.
• Have coffee ready at 7:45 a.m. 
• Take out the trashcan and empty it. 
• Pick up the water (garrafones) at Atención al Estudiante. 
• Check that the projector and lights are shut down before leaving.
• Charge the iPad. 

For the Agora time, we followed the sharing activities by telling everyone our linkage. Yesterday, or should I say today, at 12:00 a.m. made a Prezi presentation of my genealogical tree. It took me about an hour and a half, but I was very pleased with the result. I found a lot of fun facts, and the most interesting one for the MPC is that somehow somewhere, I’m related to Amable Sánchez, although not by blood you may say. He was married with a sister of the wife of the brother of my grandfather (of my father’s family). Cool, ha?!

What is a Pioneer? – Dialogue with Amable Sánchez, D2

“Si no sabemos lo que somos, ¿cómo podemos saber lo demás? (“If we don’t know who we are, how can we know the rest?”)

- Amable Sánchez

We had the privilege to have a dialogue with Amable Sánchez, a passionate for Don Quijote de la Mancha, and a great Spanish scholar. The subject was to discover what is really a pioneer. Before, I thought that a pioneer is a visionary, someone who dares to think differently, that leads the path and takes risks, an adventurous. While discussing with Amable, he told us the following Latin expression. “Nosce te ipsum”, which means “to know thyself”. It seems so simple, but at the same time so complex and abstract. How do we get to know ourselves? What is to know oneself? Life is a process to discover who one really is, and in this process one must take adventures in order to cross the sea.