Following the Equator | EF's Educational Travel Blog

Focus on: Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican army’s victory over France at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. After Mexico finally gained independence from Spain in 1821, its economy was in ruins, and the country was unable to repay its debts to France. As a result, Napoleon III used the debt as an excuse to send his army to Mexico to set up a satellite state. Under the command of General Charles Latrille Laurencez, the troops made their way toward the capital city, but were stopped by the significantly smaller Mexican army at the fortified city of Puebla. The following year, the French again attacked Puebla, and this time, the Mexican troops surrendered and many were sent to France as prisoners. On April 2, 1867, Mexican General Porfirio Diaz retook control of the city, thus ending the French occupation. Today, Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of Mexican culture and heritage.

Whether you are looking for some ideas to make your Cinco de Mayo more festive or ways to get your students excited about their upcoming tour to Mexico, here are some ideas.

• Decorate with the three colors of the Mexican flag: green, red and white. Green symbolizes hope and victory, red represents the blood shed by those who fought for Mexico and white is for the purity of Mexican ideals.
• Mexico has a population of more than 100 million and the largest number of Spanish speakers in the world. Try learning a few words of Spanish.
• Serve tasty treats like this trés leches cake.
• Play some mariachi music, a traditional Mexican music characterized by violins, trumpets, guitars, vihuelas (high-pitched, five-string guitar) and a guitarrón (a large acoustic bass).
• Watch a movie that takes place in Mexico.
• Celebrate with a piñata. The Aztecs and Mayans used to make clay pots in the shape of their gods and fill them with trinkets. Using a wooden stick, they would break the pots, signifying a profusion of good fortune from the gods.

Our 10 Best of 2009

Thank you to everyone for reading, sharing and supporting Following the Equator in 2009. We sure enjoyed posting great stories, facts, tips and profiles about educational travel and the group leaders who make it possible.

We're already planning some exciting new things for 2010. Most of all, though, we want to hear from you. What do you want to read and see on this blog—more interviews with teachers, more amazing travel photos, more fundraising and recruiting ideas, more tidbits about the things to see and do on tour? Let us know at equator@ef.com.

As we look ahead to an exciting year of travel in 2010, we thought we'd take a quick look back at a successful 2009 and our 10 favorite blog posts of the year. Feel free to post your own comments below.

10 things Americans should know about the world

We Americans come from a big, powerful and influential country, to say the least. As if being a big (No. 3 in population) and wealthy (No. 1 economy) weren't enough, we've also managed to have a disproportionately large world influence culturally. It’s like Goliath becoming the planet’s most popular TV-show host.

It's long been too easy for us Americans to be content to gaze a bit too admiringly at our own navels when it comes to our world view; this dulls our appreciation of how much of our everyday lives is provided to us by other countries that are often half a world away.

As part of the 2009 Geography Awareness Week Blog-a-thon, hosted by National Geographic's My Wonderful World Campaign, this blog post required us to boil down, to a list of just 10, the things that Americans should know about their world. It seems to us that the best use of these 10 is to help close the gaps we may have in fully appreciating our daily interdependence with the wider world.

Here we go:

EF Teacher Convention Tours

Imagine celebrating New Year's with the Moai on Easter Island or floating in the Dead Sea or snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef.

Many of EF's experienced group leaders won't just be imagining those dream travel experiences in 2010, they'll be living them.

EF's Teacher Convention Tours—offered through our Global Rewards program—give experienced EF Group Leaders unprecedented opportunities to explore the world's most amazing destinations with fellow educators.

There is still plenty of time for EF Group Leaders* to enroll on our 2010 convention tours. There are 10 different tours, including three over this New Year's, one in January and six next July:

Group Leader Spotlight: Carolyn Sanders

With 15 EF tours and nine convention tours under her belt, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Carolyn Sanders, a physical education teacher at Bill Reed Middle School in Loveland, Colorado, has visited 40 countries with EF.

Besides traveling to every continent (yes, she used her EF Global Points to take a trip to Antarctica!), she’s also met some of her closest friends through EF.

In the Group Leader Spotlight, Carolyn recaps some of her favorite travel adventures and talks about how she and some other EF Group Leaders once created their own EF convention to Thunder Bay, Canada.

Friday Fun Fact: Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo will be celebrated in Mexico—and countries around the world—on Monday. The festive holiday honors Mexican pride and heritage, but it is not Mexico's Independence Day, which is celebrated on September 16.

Instead, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican victory—under the command of General Ignacio Zaragoza—over Napoleon III's French forces in the Battle of Puebla, southeast of Mexico City, on May 5, 1862.