First Week of Work (02)


Mackenzie and I thought it would be great to attend the first round of student presentations at ECAA to get a feel of the teaching style, students' interests and knowledge, etc. After walking up the huge hill to ECAA (a terrible lapse in judgement), we watched about two-hours worth of presentations. Though everything was in Portuguese, we were able to see a lot of overlap between their topics and our own paper topic -- and we could see what our paper might look like. We also spoke to students there who expressed interest in helping us with our project but only after their final projects are finished (a fair request), and the professors invited us back for the next two rounds. We probably will try to return for at least the last defense. I think the session went over time, so we did not get back to INIDA until after lunch and did not get much work done.

Before we knew it, it was time to go and meet with the Parliamentarians. First off, the building looks quite nice and the newly-elected members that we met were enthusiastic about Wellesley partnering with institutions in Cape Verde. I was surprised to hear that the government is planning on sending many of their brightest students to the best schools in the World -- and are very interested in US school collaborations. We were also given a tour (and lovely gifts), and all three of us had the pleasure of sitting in the chamber along the President's bench. I'd call it a nice visit and we hope to keep the connection strong.

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