Kerry (0:00)

Drum roll please. The wait is over. Woohoo. We are now accepting applications for our second annual Spanish Immersion Retreat in Ponce, Puerto Rico. And if you are interested in participating, today's video is going over essential information that you need to know about the retreat and the application details. I want you to first hear from our year one participants. We're then going to get into our 2026 itinerary. We'll go over Very important for you to pay attention to this section, the application details and finally, we'll close with our retreat, mission and values. Last year was our inaugural retreat. It was the first time that we had done anything like this. And truly the experience exceeded our expectations as the organizers. And I believe it exceeded the expectations of our first cohort as well. Who better to hear from than the participants themselves? So one student said, life affirming, nourishing and challenging in all the right ways. This immersion retreat was just what I needed to locate myself in my Spanish speaking journey, dig into learning and celebrate my progress. Transformative words can't capture the magic of my immersion trip to Puerto Rico with Spanish with Kerry, this experience has been transforming. Top notch. Carrie and Annette curated a top notch program of activities that are the essence of Borican, inviting us to immerse not just in the language, but in the rest of my beloved cultura Puerto Ricania. And since this student mentions Annette, I'd like to real quick take the opportunity to introduce our team, which is a dynamic duo. I understand that some of you may have been following me and our podcast for a long time, but feel like you already know me. I totally get that feeling. But some people might be coming to me for the first time because of this retreat. And so I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Kerry. I'm the owner of Spanish with Kerry. I have my bachelor's degree in Spanish and I'm in my fifth year of living in Puerto Rico. I represent those students who start from scratch. I have zero Latino family. All of my grandparents are born in the United States. Before that they came from Ireland, Italy, etc. So I came from zero Spanish in my family and still managed to become fully bilingual. Annette is my right hand in business and she's my communications manager. She is Boricua. Her first language was Spanish. She grew up in Florida and spent her summers in Puerto Rico. She, like many Boricua students, is on her own Spanish journey. As is the case for many people who are growing up the United States when their parents are from the island, often Spanish is their first language. And then as they go into school, English takes over. It's the language they're educated in, it's often the language they socialize in, and et cetera. So she's on her own Spanish journey, representing many other Boricua students who are in a similar place and is continuing to nurture her connection to the island that she loves so much. It is important for me that you guys know that there is a boricua in our team that's representing the reality of so many students that participate in this retreat. Last year, there was 15 of us total. So that's including Annette and I, there was 13 students. And of those 15, seven had Puerto Rican heritage, eight did not. So I'm representing half of that group, those students from the United States that just have a true love for the language and an appreciation for the culture. And Annette is representing those other seven participants who have Puerto Rican heritage and are here to reconnect to that part of their identity and their roots. And for those students with Puerto Rican heritage who are considering participating in this retreat, I'd like you to hear from one of our Boricuas who participated this first year. Okay. We split into small groups for our conversation classes. And this group of four women are all Boricua. I want you to listen from their perspective. For anyone considering taking part in this retreat to help with Spanish, do it. As a Puerto Rican who grew up hearing and understanding Spanish, but for some reason never speaking it, there's a sense of shame and embarrassment that comes from not speaking and being a no sabo kid. And that alone has prevented me from even trying because of fear that I would make a mistake, mistake and look foolish. This retreat provided a safe space to learn and grow without shame or embarrassment. If you want to grow in your Spanish comprehension and your speaking, this is the place to do it. You'll be surprised at how much growth can happen in just one week when you're immersed in the language and surrounded by people who want to see you grow. Let's get into our 2026 itinerary. Details. First and foremost, where and when is the retreat? Our 2026 retreat will begin on Saturday, March 14, and go through Saturday, March 21. And students will be staying in Elotel Belgica in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Here's a picture of the King balcony room. Here's a picture of the entrance. So this is a boutique hotel. It has lots of personality. And it's just steps away from Plaza Las Delicias. So el hotel is not exactly on the corner. There's one building between the corner and El Tel. You walk to the corner, cross the street, and you're right here in Plaza Las Delicias. Here's a picture of downtown Ponce. You can see that sort of Spanish style architecture. Very colorful buildings, very vibrant city. An important part of our itinerary are our daily small group conversation classes that take place in the business lounge in Ponce. We'll be up here in this meeting room, the business lounge, a beautiful space with a bar as well. If you're a little bit nervous about speaking in Spanish, well, maybe you have a glass of wine. For our classes that are in the evening, some of those are in the morning. So let's take it easy. Right? Students participate in small group conversation classes according to level. And when I say small group, I mean four or five students. Since many of our activities are listening heavy, these classes ensure that students get structured, consistent speaking practice throughout the week. I teach a yoga class in Spanish on our first full day of the retreat. Because speaking a foreign language can be scary stuff. We get nervous, we feel frustrated. We tend to replay our mistakes over and over again in our heads. So this class at the start of the week is to help set an intention of being present, mindful and compassionate towards ourselves throughout this experience. Plus, like I said, this is our first full day of the retreat. It's after students travel day, so especially those who are coming from the west coast and may have had a really long travel day, lots of time on a plane. Then this will help stretch you out and get your body feeling better for the week. On Monday, we take a trip to the grocery store and we have a cooking class. Please remember all activities are in Spanish. Our cooking class is taught in Spanish and this trip to the grocery store earlier in the day is to, number one, get some of the ingredients that we need for our cooking class. As you'll see here, here are some of the students buying 2 pounds of cilantro, which we did end up using. And it's also so that students have a chance to get some essentials, the things that'll make them feel a little more comfortable throughout the week. You want some snacks? You know, the, the hotel rooms have fridges, so if there's some sort of fruit or beverages that you'd like to keep in your room, this is an opportunity for students to get those essentials. On Tuesday, we have a historical walking tour of Ponce with Isla Caribe. Remember, all of our activities are in Spanish. This year our guide was Nori. She was absolute fantastic. She made it so entertaining. She has a beautiful singing voice and since Ponsse has such a rich tradition in arts and music, she was able to share some of those songs that were written from composers from Ponse throughout the tour. It was truly such a fun and impactful experience and we're really looking forward to doing the tour again with Isla Caribe next year. On Wednesday we'll have class with Chayla from the Electo Boricua, and in the evening we'll have Una clase de Bomba. In our class with Chayla, we have the opportunity to learn about the influences that help shape the Puerto Rican dialect. As you'll see here, she talks about la influencia, Taina Influencia espanola, la influencia Africana y la influencia de los Estaos Unidos del Ingles and El Dialecto Boricua. It's an excellent class and at night we have our place de bomba. We started off with a little lecture and learning about the history of Bomba. We then learned about the different rhythms that are used around the island. As you see here we were with our maracas learning some of those rhythms and then we got up and danced. On Thursday we take a trip to Arjuntas, which is in the mountains just north of Ponce, to Tour Casa Pueblo. Casa Pueblo is a community organization that was originally founded to help prevent a mining operation that was set to be established in Arjun. They were successfully able to prevent that mining company from setting up its operations in Adjuntas and have since continued to work for the community and for the protection of the environment. We start off with a tour of their facilities and then we head to El Borjuela. We take a little bit of a walk and get a taste of El Campo in Puerto Rico. Friday is our beach day. We head to Playa Santa in Guanica and we start off with a beach cleanup. As you can see here at this point we had even thrown out some of the bags so we had collected even more than what's shown here in this photo. We do that early in the morning to not get too hot and then enjoy our beach day. This is what it looks like upon arriving to Playa Santa in Guanica. Beautiful beach. And Friday evening we have our goodbye dinner at Panorama Sientochenza in Ponce where there's a beautiful view of all of Ponce out to the ocean and we'll be able to catch the sunset there. Excellent food and a really nice way to close out the week. Additional Information Breakfast and dinners are Included every day of the retreat, students get a midday break, offering valuable time to rest, regroup, or do independent activities, so lunch is on your own. Transportation for all activities, including going to and from the San Juan Airport to Ponce, is included in the retreat. Students are not responsible for coordinating any bit of transportation unless they want to do independent activities during their break time. Then of course, that's on them. Hey, this is Carrie coming to you from the editing floor. I want to make it abundantly clear that participants are responsible for their travel to and from the island. I just mean to imply that you're not responsible for getting anywhere that's involved in the itinerary. Anything you'd like to do on your own on the island is your responsibility. A very important section for you to pay attention to. Let's go over our application details. Applicants must be 21 years or older and be at an intermediate or upper intermediate level of comprehension of Puerto Rican Spanish. Again, we want to reach students in La Diaspora that maybe have grown up hearing Spanish but don't feel as comfortable speaking it. You don't need to be at an intermediate, upper intermediate level of speaking, but because all of our activities are in Spanish and are led by Puerto Ricans, you must have an intermediate to upper intermediate level of comprehension of Puerto Rican Spanish, which is spoken much faster than, say, Mexican Spanish. It has different vocab, different inflection, etc. Because if not, you will get nothing out of the retreat. You will be lost during all of our activities. How to Apply Follow the link in the description of this video Right below this video in all caps it says apply here and then there's a link to a form. Click the form, fill out the application. That's how you apply. If you're listening to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts again, the first thing in the podcast notes or the episode notes is going to be the link to the application. Applicants will be selected based on meeting the basic requirements A. You must be 21 years or older and you must be at an intermediate upper intermediate level of comprehension of Puerto Rican Spanish. Number two a connection to Puerto Rico. We especially want to reach students who have a connection to Puerto Rico and then finally the overall strength of your application. Students who put minimal effort into their application will not rank as highly as those who demonstrate that this will be a meaningful opportunity to them. And I want to speak to you guys for a second because this is incredibly important to us. A few weeks after the retreat, I was teaching a class on my platform and we had a couple minutes at the end, end of class. And I said, anybody have any questions? And a student in the class said, well I. I'd like to hear about how the retreat went. And in that class I had one of the students who had come to the retreat, so I asked her to speak about her experience and she shared and gave us a glowing review. And at the end, the other student who originally had the question said if there's one thing you could say that just really stuck out that really made the experience as amazing as you've described it to be, what would that be? And she said, the group Remember half of our participants in our first retreat have Puerto Rican heritage. They may have therefore had the experience of being made fun of for their Spanish, their accent, their mistakes and etc. Our highest possible achievement in this retreat is to change those students relationships with Spanish. Our group of participants in our first retreat were amazing, incredibly supportive, incredibly kind and incredibly connected to this island and this language. The energy that you bring to this group matters and we will try to get a feel for that on your application. Do we have a sense that this matters deeply to you? Because it matters deeply to the students around you? And curating a positive experience for the participants of this retreat is of utmost importance to us. Show us that this will be a meaningful opportunity to you because that's the energy we're looking for. From our group application timeline. Applications open today, May 19. The deadline for submitting your applications is Friday, June 6. Again, the deadline for submitting applications is Friday, June 6. If you try to click on that form after Friday, June 6, it will say we are no longer receiving form submissions. You won't even be able to apply. Please make sure you get your applications in by Friday, June 6th. Or you got to wait for 2027. Between June 9th to June 16th, we will be reviewing applications. Between June 16th to roughly June 27th, we will be doing applicant interviews. If we are considering accepting you into the retreat but have not had any interactions with you previously, like through my platform and etc. Then we'd like to just have a quick conversation with you before we send out that acceptance email. Remember, this application is available to anyone on the Internet and there are some crazies out there. It's in everyone's best interest to make sure that some rando on the Internet is doing this with the right intentions. Okay? And that's what these interviews are for. These interviews will be held with Annette. After that, around July 1, applicants will receive their acceptance wait list or rejection email. Last year we did have 50 applicants and there were 13 students accepted into the retreat. So there will be some rejection emails. There will be some waitlist emails as well. If you're accepted into the retreat, deposits are due on July 15th in order to secure your spot. So if you receive a email that informs you that you're on the wait list, don't give up hope, because if we don't get someone's deposit by July 15, you will be offered a spot right away. And lastly, I'd like to share our mission and our values for this retreat. Our Spanish Immersion retreat in Puerto Rico is all about deepening your connection to both the Spanish language and Puerto Rican culture. We focus on fluidity and connection rather than perfection, and we strive to bridge the gap between the Diaspora and Puerto Rico through engaging cultural experiences and community projects. We want to enrich your understanding of Puerto Rican history and help you learn Spanish with a clear sense of purpose. If you have additional questions, please send me an email@spanishwithcarimail.com if you send me a message on social media, there is a good chance that I will not see it in a timely manner. And this is all very time sensitive. We need to get these applications in by June 6th. Mi gente. June 6th. Okay, so if you have a question, please email me. I will absolutely see it if you send me an email. Thank you so much for your interest and for your support. Our first retreat this year was an incredible experience, both for the students and for Annette and I, especially since I have a virtual business. It was incredibly nourishing to see the impact that this community has had on students, and that was coming from zero experience in having put something like this together. So obviously, we're so excited about what year two will hold. Thanks again and I truly hope to see you here.