Jenna studied Spanish with Nueva Lengua Medellin for 5 months, he arrived with no Spanish at all and now lives and works in Medellin, the city he fell in love with when he arrived in Colombia!
My name is Jenna, I am from Colorado in the United States and I studied with Nueva Lengua for the first time during the summer of 2016.
It was very difficult to chose my favorite Nueva Lengua memory because I have so many that I cherish.

However, the memory that stands out the most in my mind was an immersion day trip that I took with the Medellin school to Barbosa, a pueblo about an hour outside of the city.
We hiked in the country side of Barbosa, visited a sugar cane farm, picked some of the sweetest oranges I have ever tasted, to eventually arrive at the family home of Lily, (who is the treasured house keeper for the school in Medellin), and enjoyed a traditional Colombian meal “Sancocho”.

In my mind this was the perfect day, complete with incredibly beautiful landscapes, lovely people, delicious food, and both language and cultural immersion.
I remember meeting Lily’s family with very few Spanish words in my vocabulary at the time, and yet feeling as though words were not necessary in expressing some of the most valuable of human sentiments.

This article was originally written in English