Late on Friday night, members of the Sister City Committee, supported by the St. Peter community, happily met at the Minneapolis airport to greet and receive our visitors from Petatlan, Mexico!
Sra. Leticia LaCunza, the wife of the Presidente of Petatlan, and their son Fernando (age 24) will be staying with gracious hosts Mayor Tim Strand and Joel and Susie Carlin for the duration of the week until May 15th! Although this is not the first time delegations of Petatlan have visited St. Peter (a group of representatives, including Presidente LaCunza, came in the fall), this is their first visit to St. Peter for both of them and we have a wonderful week planned ahead.
Their stay commenced with a kick-off celebration on Saturday, May 8th with a community-wide Cinco de Mayo celebration planned and facilitated by La Union Latina, a new organization based in St. Peter. Despite the unseasonably cold weather, it yielded an impressive turnout and people of all ages and from all parts of the city came to celebrate and to greet Leticia and Fernando. See the links below for coverage on this event.
http://www.stpeterherald.com/news.php?viewStory=2844
http://mankatofreepress.com/local/x892954619/Cool-event-shows-warm-relations
Later that night they attended Gustavus’ Diversity Ball and had the opportunity to meet a wide variety of Gustavus students! On Sunday, they spent the day in Minneapolis with Committee members and on Monday they took a tour of the health services in St. Peter. The rest of their week includes “Gustavus day” on Tuesday and other fun activities throughout the week that are open to all on campus! Stay tuned throughout the week for photos and additional blog postings!