For the 3 months that Daniel and Maria spent with Maria's parents in Cali, we enroll Daniel in a school that is sponsored by the government of Spain to foster relationships with Colombia and to help preserve the Spanish heritage and language. This school was ideal since, though English was taught as a subject it was not spoken in the school. The emphasis of the school is on producing top students in math, science and Spanish.

The school accommodated Daniel's needs, allowing him to continue his long-distance online school program (K12) while attending only some of the classes - Math, Computers, Music, Spanish and, occasionally, the English classes where Daniel was asked to help students. It was a bit hard for Daniel at first as all kids in his grade wanted to be with him while others shun him for being so popular and called him a "gringo". However, from the beginning he joined the soccer games hat formed around break time and hung around with friends he made. He quickly learned bad words in Spanish that were shouted by kids while playing.

Socially, Daniel was sort of younger than many of the kids in his grade as in Colombia kids mature faster and socialize significantly more than in the US. Girls were already flirting and Daniel experienced this as he never had. One time when he was walking home from the school which was only 3 blocks from the house, a bus full of mostly girls about his age from the school went by and the girls stuck their heads out and screamed out loud "Daniel, Daniel, Daniel". He was embarrassed and shy but waved at them and smiled.

On November 30, the last day Daniel was attending school, Maria gave a presentation about our sailing trip from the US down to Colombia in the school's Arts Theater, a full-sized theater for the performing arts which is used for school performances as well as for national and international performances for the city of Cali. The primary purpose of the presentation was to educate kids on geography & sailing (including some technical aspects of it) and to share with them what we were doing as most kids in this part of the country have never even seen a sail boat nor do they know that one can sail around the world in one. The presentation went well, candy was distributed to all kids upon exiting (they were going home after the presentation) and the prizes that Maria gave to the kids who answered the question "explain why a sail boat moves and why does it move forward" gave the presentation a festive end.