The struggle, like life itself, should be joyful.

~ Miriam Miranda

As we enter the second month of our work this year, we are all seeing peaks and valleys. We have had many joyful events and much to celebrate. Our high school Areyto on Friday was awesome! Both our JV and Varsity volleyball teams won games! Attendance is trending well. We have a strong sense of community!

This year’s 1st Areyto (Taino word for ceremonial gathering) featured the beautiful and talented Fabiola Mendez. Ms. Mendez is a talented cuatro player. The cuatro is a stringed instrument that is the national instrument of Puerto Rico. Ms. Mendez began playing the cuatro at age six. She loved playing it so much and was so fascinated by it that it has become her mission to celebrate this folkloric instrument and all Latin folk music.

Our students loved the music. For some of them who are from Puerto Rico, it brought back happy familiar sounds. They were a rapt audience and joined her with clapping and singing on one of her songs.

Currently Fabiola performs with her Quartet nationally and internationally and teaches at the Longy School of Music at Bard College. Ms. Mendez performed for us through the courtesy of the Celebrity series of Boston.

Preparing tostones, looking for the Maillard reaction and seeing the browning take place.

We are just in the third week of school but a quick walk around the grades has one seeing and listening to students that are engaged in a variety of lessons that include: how to calculate for making a scale copy in 7th grade math; recording observations on the different state of ingredients and measurements as students make flat bread in science; 9th grade Crew making academic reflections as they go forward; 9th grade art students studying complementary colors on the color wheel and making water color designs out of the basic shapes – triangles, circles, squares, rectangles; 12th graders studying the Maillard reaction in which amino acids and

reducing sugars are heated and one sees evidence of the browning that takes place as they made tostones*; and in each of the classes students doing self-evaluations as to their collaboration in class.

*tostones are thick slices of green plantain that are fried, flattened, and then fried again.

With the beautiful weather we have been having it seemed desirable to have some flowers in the school’s otherwise barren garden. The class from Ms. Quiñones’ Learning Center stepped up to the task as a part of their Community Service. The focus this time to help their school become beautified a bit. The designated area had earth that was dry, hard and full or rocks, but that did not deter the determination of these novice gardeners to till the soil until it was soft enough to mix in new soil and then plant the new mums in the designated areas in the circle around the lone birch trees. Thanks to this team, the round area on the side of the parking lot has a look of autumn about it.

When you give to Margarita Muñiz Academy, you provide resources that enable our Boston youth to experience the power of playing a musical instrument, finding the intellectual thrill of solving a math equation or writing a poem and becoming a leader in the community.