Friday, July 18, 2008

Geography Camp

Another year has passed and its time once again for the famous Summer Academy for Minority Scholars at Texas State University in San Marcos. So far we have been to the Institute for Texan Culture in San Antonio, taken a tour of 4 different religious sites in Austin, and participated in a necrogeography tour of the San Marcos area, visiting 3 old cemeteries. One of the burial grounds was that of slaves from the Kyle area; most of those graves were unmarked, but clearly distinguishable by sunken places in the ground.
The 30 students and their teachers are preparing PowerPoints about the many different cultural groups that settled Texas, including the Wends, Irish, Czechs, Vietnamese, and my group, the Lebanese.
Tomorrow morning we'll do our presentations and depart for home. Some groups have as far to drive as Los Fresnos, and another is from Buda, 20 minutes away. All of us plan on returning next year.
Barsana Dham, Driftwood


Uhland Cemetery


Log cabin, Institute for Texan Culture


Synagogue, Austin