NATCHEZ — Camille Taylor never imagined she could have so much in common with students 2,000 miles away who speak a different language.

That changed in November when the Trinity Episcopal Day School eighth grader began communicating with Santiago, a student at Institución Educativa Antonia Santos in Cartagena, Colombia.

Trinity Spanish teacher and Colombia native Indira Batista partnered with the school to create a pen pal program as part of Trinity’s global initiative studies.

The initiative is aimed at broadening the students’ horizons through a variety of interactions with students from across the globe.

Taylor’s pen pal communication culminated Tuesday, when the Trinity student was able to communicate with Santiago through a web camera in Batista’s classroom.

“It was awesome,” Taylor said. “We have never been able to do anything this interactive with Spanish before, and I feel like it totally changed how I look at the language and other cultures.”

Taylor was one of 19 students in Batista’s class Tuesday who were able to speak to their respective pen pals.

The communication between the students, Batista said, is vital in helping the Trinity students feel more comfortable speaking a language they are in the process of learning.

“The more the students are able to communicate with other Spanish speakers, the more they lose the fear or intimidation factor,” Batista said. “It helps them gain the confidence in themselves they need right now.”

The Colombian students, who are learning to speak English in their class, spoke to the Trinity students in English, and the Trinity students responded in Spanish.

Only a few moments of slight embarrassment occurred Tuesday as students incorrectly used a word or fused Spanish and English together in the same sentence.

One moment of the students breaking down the language barrier and connecting as ordinary teenagers came through senior Stewart Mallory’s conversation with his pen pal.

“I told him I get all the girls at my school, and he told me he did, too,” Mallory said, smiling. “It was pretty cool to see they’re just regular kids like us.

“My pen pal plays baseball like me, and we both like a lot of the same things.”

Those types of connections, Batista said, benefit the Colombian students just as much as the Trinity students.

“These are students from a very low social economic class who are surrounded by extreme poverty,” Batista said. “So them being able to interact with other students and see that there is something else out there for them can help motivate and inspire them to do great things.”

One portion of the global studies initiative involves a service-learning project, and Batista’s Spanish class filled backpacks with school supplies and sent them to the Colombian students.

During their conversations Tuesday, each of the Colombian students thanked the Trinity students for the backpacks, saying they were grateful for the partnership with the school.

The comments tugged on the heartstrings of the majority of the class, including Taylor.

“You don’t really think about how well we have it here until something like that means so much to them,” Taylor said. “I think this has made me a lot more open minded and interested in learning more about different cultures.”

Batista said her goal is for the students to communicate every 15 days through the video link with the eventual hope that some of the students might be able to visit Natchez in the near future.