Day Four Morning

We travelled to Old San Juan where we visited a public elementary school located on the coast. The school was named after Abraham Lincoln, and an older gentleman at the school had insisted on taking me to see the statue of Linclon while we were waiting for the principal of the school. He was extremely proud of the marble statue and said how every penny was raised for it by a past principal. To him it was extremely important and a necessity to see. It's funny how none of the teachers or principal thought to give us a tour or show off this aspect of their school.

If you visit Val's Blog you can see me presenting my blog to the teachers at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School.



However, we did get special permission to visit the unique neghborhood of La Perla which is a small community outside of the walls of Old San Juan which is right across the street from the school. In the Spanish colonial days the slaughterhouse and cemetary had to be moved outside of the city and so the people connected to those two industries moved, too. It has a lot of history with a low level of education and immigrants from the countryside in the 50's with 2000 families. Although it is known for having problems with drugs, it is a closed community today with only 100 families and is trying to better its image. We even went into a head start classroom.

View from a roof of a house in La Perla.



Neighborhood cat in La Perla.