Foreign Languages Update

by Olga Vilella, Director

A group of Saint Xavier students, joined by a student from Chicago State University, will be traveling to sunny Oaxaca, Mexico, in January 2000 as part of The Oaxaca Project, our service and learning semester abroad program. The beautiful Spanish colonial city of Oaxaca, capital of the state by the same name, is nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountain range, some 200 hundred miles southwest of Mexico City. In Oaxaca, the students will study Spanish under the directorship of Jan Moreno, our faculty member in residence. Those students who qualify will also have the opportunity to volunteer their skills, in the Mercy tradition of service to the poor and disenfranchised, by taking part in an internship with local Oaxacan agencies.

When not otherwise engaged in thanking their stars for escaping our notorious winter, the entire group will also take a course on the History of Mexican Art and an Anthropology course on Indigenous Peoples of modern Mexico. While in Oaxaca, they will also have the opportunity to tour the ancient pre-Hispanic Zapotec ruins of Monte Albán and Mitla, as well as bask in the warm beaches of the Pacific. ¡Buen viaje y hasta la vista!