Week 3 Feedback (8/6-8/11)

Cultural lecture (woman from Tehuantepec):

• Interesting, but the woman was a little brash and too business-like.
• I wish there had been more time for questions and a more interactive format.
  

Traditional Healer Presentation at Becari:

• This was excellent!
• The woman and her daughter did a really great job explaining what they do. I felt like I had a much better understanding of what a curandera is after this.
  
• The demonstrations were very interesting and it was nice that they offered to use students in the demos
  

Trip to Calpulalpan:

• We should have left at 8am at the earliest, since by the time we got to the mountains a lot of things were still closed (e.g. they are 1 hour behind and the Benito Juarez museum and the church in Ixtla were closed when we stopped in these places). And it would have been nice to have been warned that there would be so many stops before the Traditional Medicine clinic, or maybe there should have been less...
  
• The road (175) isn't that windy; wouldn't recommend more than 1/2 a dramamine -- I felt out of it for the first few stops.
• The guide was excellent! Great storyteller, I wish the first sites had been open so he could have taught more.
• Traditional Medicine Clinic in Calpulalpan: the concept behind this joint traditional/western medicine clinic set-up is really interesting and was cool to see in person. The demonstrations at the traditional clinic weren't as impressive or comprehensive as the one at Becari. The tour there was very brief, it didn't feel like it was the main destination. We rushed off to lunch pretty soon after a few elected to buy limpias.
  
• Comedor de Truchas: there was nothing to eat besides truchas and spaghetti; this should be made very clear to the vegetarians so that people can bring lunches as necessary. And it was relatively expensive ~85/90 pesos if you had trout.
  

Spanish class:

• We didn't have Alfonso this week (Jose, or J. Lo instead), so the flow of progress felt interrupted.
• It would have been nice to have practiced more medical Spanish and mock patient interviews.