Reflecting On My Trip

Looking back on my trip it seems like it all happened FOREVER ago!  When I arrived back home, I took a night to spend time with my parents, grandma, and aunt to show them pictures from my trip and tell them about my adventures.  It literally took me several hours to go through all 1700 pictures I took and reflect on all the great memories and details from each picture.  Talking with my friends at home, I am already convincing people to go visit Costa Rica and plan a trip to go with me after I graduate.  I absolutely loved this experience and everything I got out of it! I will always remember the great moments I had and I know I will be able to use this experience in my life and future teaching.  Now that I am back home, I must return to my “normal” life of work, school, and spending time with my family and friends, but deep in my heart I will always remain in Costa Rica.  Pura Vida!

My final days in beautiful Costa Rica!

On Friday June 1^st, we had a free morning to enjoy our last day in Monteverde.  I spent my morning with Catherine and Kristin shopping for souvenirs and enjoying one of our last days together.  That evening, we returned early to finish working on blogs and inquiry projects.  During this time, I interviewed our chaperon Joe for my inquiry project.  He helped me make sure my translations were correct from the day before and he gave me a lot of insight into Costa Rican pop culture.  After our free morning, everyone was gathered back at CPI for a presentation by Joe.  Because Joe was with us during most of our activities, he had taken pictures and created a little video for us.  I am so sad tomorrow will be my last morning seeing Joe.  He has been such a great mentor and friend through this experience and I will be eager to come back to Costa Rica and see him again!  After our video, I went home and spent my last night enjoying time with my family.  I also interviewed my mama Tica for my inquiry project.  These past 3 weeks have gone by so fast and I am amazed at all the adventures we have had in such a short period of time.

On Saturday morning, we left Monteverde early and made our way to San Jose.  I couldn’t help but to cry when leaving my family and Joe.  I am going to miss them all so much!  When we arrived in San Jose, we picked up Javier to guide us around town.  In downtown we got to see an old theater, visit an open market, and experience our last bit of Costa Rican culture.  That night, we went to dinner at a restaurant we visited our 2^nd night in Costa Rica.  It was a great way to end the trip enjoying good food, reflecting on our experiences, spending our last bit of quality time together, and celebrating Dr. Crawford’s birthday. 

On Sunday June 2^nd, we left our hotel in the morning to go to the airport.  I still cannot believe this trip is over and I cannot wait to get back on a plan and come back to this wonderful country!  I arrived back to Wilmington around midnight Sunday night to great my dad and make my way back home the next day.

Pura Vida!

Gone by too fast

This week has gone by way to fast!  I cannot believe it is already Friday!

On Monday, May 28th, we got to have a relaxing late morning.  I enjoyed time with the girls and started souvenir shopping for my family.  I found a lot of great items so it is going to be hard finding a place for everything in my bags.  In Spanish class today, we got a new teacher for the week.  Our chaperon Joe, told us he liked to sing and play his guitar so the first thing we asked him to do in class was sing us a song.  He taught us "You are my sunshine" in Spanish, so it was a great introduction to our class for the week and a new and interesting way to learn some more Spanish. 

On Tuesday, May 29th, we started our day touring the Monteverde Cloud Forest School.  This school is absolutely amazing!  The children look so free and everyone was extremely nice.  Our tour was guided by a 7th grade boy, who knew a lot about the school and how it started.  The school just turned 20 years old this year, so it is very new!  They mostly teach in English and a majority of their teachers are international (mostly Americans) so they have a high teacher turn over rate.  If I ever decided to come back and live in Costa Rica, I would love to teach at this school and teach with the freedom the teachers had here.  In Spanish class, our teacher taught us another song.  He has an amazing voice and I love that he uses music as a form of teaching in his class!

On Wednesday, May 30th, we went to Life Monteverde Coffee Plantation.  Here we learned more about coffee and we got to meet on of the incredible owners and founders of the plantation.  This man is so knowledgeable of his country and the environment, so it was great to hear from another expert of Costa Rica.  At the coffee plantation, we got to help fertilize many of the coffee plants with compost and we got to plant trees on the plantation.  This was a great experience and I thoroughly enjoyed this service project!  After the coffee plantation, we came back to have Spanish class then went home to spend more time with our families.

On Thursday, May 31st, we started our morning off at Sky Trek doing a canopy tour (ziplining).  I have been on 2 small ziplines before, but they were nothing compared to this experience.  We did 10 ziplines in all and they all provided us with amazing views of the cloud forest, not to mention a great adrenaline rush for the morning.  On the next to last zipline, I went with one of the instructors and got to go backwards and hang upside down!  Although I was nervous at first about this whole experience, I am so glad we got to have it and do something really extreme on this trip.  After the canopy tour, we came back to CPI for our last Spanish class.  Dr. Crawford and Mrs. Bramley wanted to let our last day be a free day, so they decided to not have Spanish class on Friday.  I was really sad that it was our last day because all of my teachers had been amazing!  Since I could tell this teacher loved music so much, I interviewed him for my inquiry project on pop culture through music and television in Costa Rica.  He helped me translate my questions and answered the questions for me so I was very thankful for that!

I cannot believe this week has gone by so fast!! I am absolutely in love with this country and I cannot believe we are about to go home!! I cannot wait to come back and visit this place!

Pura Vida!

Closing Out Our 2nd Week Here

We have come to a close of our 2nd week here in Monteverde.  This place is absolutely amazing and has felt like a home away from home.  The people here are incredible and this town is small, yet beautiful.  On Thursday, May 24th, we spent our morning at the Elementary school in Santa Elena for a second time.  During the 1st half of our time there, we got to observe a classroom, I was in a 4th grade class.  It took Kelly and I a little while to figure out what was going on, but we figured out that the P.E. teacher was "teaching" the class about rules and responsibility.  I enjoyed watching his style of teaching, because he guided the students through questions but relied a lot on student input to led the class.  After observation, we went into a 6th grade class, which my sister Tica was in, to teach a lesson and play a game that involved the animals of the rain forest.  We wanted the children to learn the English names of the animals, so our game involved them having a piece of paper with a picture and the name of the animal around their neck.  We then took koosh balls and had the students toss the ball to another student in the group and say the name of that students animal.  We then added another ball to turn it into a juggling act.  I think the students really enjoyed the game and learning the names of the animals.  After we visited the school, we went to CPI for our Spanish classes.  After Spanish, we got to have Latin dance classes.  I absolutely loved the dance classes and the teacher we had was great!  We got to learn how to Salsa and a little bit of Merengue.  The class was interesting because since our group is only girls we got to learn both the female and male roles of the dances.

On Friday, May 25th, we went to the Santa Elena Reserve, where we hiked and learned more about the cloud forest.  While we were hiking, our guide spotted a very rare bird so we spent a lot of our time "chasing" after this bird and trying to get a good look at it.  Unfortunately it was too fast and very good at hiding, because we only barely got to see it and no one was really able to get a picture of it.  It was cool to hear its call though because it almost sounded electronic.  After we went to the reserve, we ate lunch together in town and headed back to CPI for Spanish class.  After Spanish we went back to our homes and enjoyed our time with our family.  I cannot believe our first week with our families has gone by so quickly.  My family is so nice and I have loved spending time with them each night and being immersed in their culture.

On Saturday we made our way to Arenal Volcano.  Our guide from last weekend, Javier, accompanied us again on this journey.  The ride to Arenal was quite long, taking about 3 1/2 hours.  The view throughout our ride was amazing!  We stopped on a few occasions to check out local street vendors and take pictures of the Volcano and Arenal Lake.  Once we arrived in La Fortuna, the town around the volcano, we got to eat and shop around.  We then went closer to the volcano to our hotel.  The hotel we stayed at was one of the best and most beautiful places I have ever stayed in.  It had 5 or 6 pools, heated from the hot springs with natural water, and our rooms were in these little villas around the property.  Just our view of the volcano from our room was breathtaking, not to mention all the beautiful plants and scenery they had on the hotel property.  We were all so thankful we got this day to relax and just enjoy our evening in the hot springs.

The next morning, only 3 of us and Javier went to take a hike around Arenal Volcano.  The rest of the group decided to relax, which Kristen, Catherine, and I debated but decided we would much rather look back and think I am glad I got up early to hike instead of sleeping in and swimming in the hot springs.  To begin our hike, we got to look and take pictures at an amazing view of the volcano.  While we hiked, we spotted many birds, bugs, lizards, and howler monkeys.  Javier is extremely knowledgeable of all the animals, so it was great having a guide show us all the different plants and animals living there.  After our hike, we came back and enjoyed another hour in the hot springs before we had to pack up and leave the hotel to go back to Monteverde.  On our way back, Javier got our driver Benjamin to take us on a side road where we got to see a mountain range in Nicaragua.  This trip was amazing and if (when) I come back to Costa Rica I would love to come visit Arenal and the beautiful hotel we stayed at again.

Pura Vida!

Our Start to Beautiful Monteverde

Monday, May 21st, we had our first morning with our host families.  My family is so nice and they enjoy joking around with me, especially with my Spanish.  Before we arrived at CPI our chaperon Joe showed us around the town we are staying in, Santa Elena, and around Monteverde.  This area is so different from Heredia and Manuel Antonio.  Life is much simpler here and Monteverde has a lot of small-town charm.  While walking around town and to the school it felt more like a hike, Monteverde is mostly made up of mountains and hills.  Although the hike was hard, the town is beautiful and I enjoyed seeing all the shops in town and the beautiful scenery that surrounds us.  Monday we had class with Dr. Crawford and Mrs. Bramley, in preparation for our school visits on Tuesday and Thursday.  After class we had cooking classes, where we made Chicken Fajitas; then we had our Spanish classes.  My new Spanish teacher is hilarious so I can tell I am going to have a lot of fun in her class.

On Tuesday we got up early and went to the Elementary school in Santa Elena. This school is small, but it felt similar to the school we visited in Heredia.  During the 1st half of our time there, I observed a 5th grade math class.  It took me a little while to understand what they were doing, but I figured out they were studying place value.  The class was quite interesting to see.  To begin the teacher wrote on the board practice problems for the students and the students copied them, they then went up to the board and filled in the answer to the problems on a place value chart.  During this time, the students freely moved around the classroom and talked to their classmates.  It seems there is a lot more freedom for the students here and most of the discipline responsibility is placed on the students, instead of like the United States where the teacher has to constantly tell the students what to do.  After observation, the whole group got back together and we went to a pre-kindergarten classroom.  We tried to read the students a story, but they became restless so we ended up just singing songs and dancing with them instead.  We then left the school and went back to CPI, where we had Spanish classes for the rest of the evening.  After school, I went with Kristen, another one of the students on the trip, downtown to look at the shops and walk around town.  That night I ate dinner with my family and just enjoyed time with them.  Unlike my family in Heredia, my family here watches a lot of television.  We watched a few shows (like soap operas) and some kind of competition show called Combate.  My family is very nice and hilarious.  Their youngest daughter Sofia is 2 years old, almost 3, and calls me "Blandy" instead of Brandi because she cannot say her r´s yet.  The whole family is really cute.

On Wednesday, we got to sleep in a little; I got up at 6:30 instead of my usual 5 am.  Before school, we went to Trapiche Farm.  This farm primarily grows coffee beans and sugar cane, along with other fruits and vegetables.  At Trapiche, we got to see the whole process of how coffee is made: from the plant, to machines that take off the shell, the drying process, and then how they are roasted.  I never knew how much work actually went into making a simple cup of coffee.  After they showed us the coffee, we got to ride on an oxcart to the site where they work with the sugar cane.  They showed us both the old way and the more recent way to get the liquid sugar out of the sugar cane plant.  We then got to make a candy, like fudge, out of the sugar.  We made 3 different kinds: one with chocolate and nuts, one with coconut, and one with coffee beans.  They were all delicious and we got to take the batches home with us.  At Trapiche we ate a homemade lunch, which was delicious and mostly vegetarian.  After Trapiche we came back to CPI where we had Spanish classes for the evening.  After school, our group decided to go to a small restaurant in town called Morphos (which is a type of butterfly here in Costa Rica).  The food was delicious and it was a great opportunity for our group to spend time relaxing and celebrating our half-way point of our journey.  I still cannot believe we are half-way done! This week has gone by very fast and I know the rest of this week and our last week here is going to fly by!

Pura Vida!

An End to a Wonderful Week

Thursday night, May 17th, my family took the entire group to the Country Club (El Castillo, which means castle in Spanish).  This was a very big deal because this country club is extremely expensive to be a part of and the members are only allowed so many guests per month so it was very nice my family did this for us.  At the country club we got to swim in the indoor pool, then we had dinner, and watched a karaoke competition.  It was a great experience and something different for the group to do.  On Friday we went to La Carpio.  This place is a shanty town outside of the city for the Nicaraguan immigrants that come to Costa Rica.  The area was extremely impoverished and it was so sad to see the conditions those people had to live in; however, the people were so nice and you could tell they were grateful for what they had.  There we worked at a school/day care that was one room and had children age 2-10 in this one class.  We sang songs with the children, drew pictures with them, and just played with them during the time we were there.  The children were all very sweet and took care of one another and their siblings.  After La Carpio we went back to the school for Spanish class.  That night, I went with my family (along with several other girls and their families) to a dancing event at the church.  It was amazing to see how many people know how to dance and how great all of them are.  My Papa Tico and Mama Tica were so cute as they danced together.  They also tried to teach me how to dance, but it was a little difficult learning all the different steps they know.

On Saturday we said good-bye to our families and traveled to Manuel Antonio (a beach on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica).  It was hard to say good-bye because my family had been so nice and wonderful to me.  I also could not believe we had already been here a week!! After several hours of driving, we finally reached Manuel Antonio, where we got to enjoy the rest of the day at the beach.  The sand there was a grayish color and felt more like mud than sand.  The waves were also a little rough so we ended up just walking along the beach to pass our time.  We also went to several shops where I bought a hand made hammock! After the beach we went to our hotel, then dinner, then myself and a couple of the girls went with our guide Javier to a bar to watch the final Heredia game, where Heredia won! We then got Javier and some of the locals to teach us to dance, and we all had an amazing time!  On Sunday, we went back to Manuel Antonio, but went to the National Park there.  Along the trail, we got to see sloths, birds, and monkeys all living in their natural habitat.  Our guide Javier was so nice and knew so much about all of the animals we saw.  I was so glad we had him because we probably would have missed many animals without him.  At the end of the trail, we got to the beach.  This beach was very different because it had white sand and calm waters, even though it was only a 1/2 mile below the one we were at the day before.  While we were on the beach, several white-faced monkeys came and everyone was taking pictures as they jumped around above us in the trees.  After the monkey commotion calmed down we went back through the trail, to the hotel, then got on the bus to travel to Monteverde.

The trip to Monteverde was so long! It took us 5 hours to get there and we literally were going up the side of the mountain.  Right when we arrived in Monteverde, we got to meet our new families.  My family is younger this time (in their 30s) and they have two children, who are 12 years old and 2 years old.  When I got to the house, the family was so nice and I can tell I am going to have a lot of fun with them.  They joked around the whole night, and their oldest daughter danced and sang for me.  I am already comfortable in my home stay and I am thankful for this new wonderful family!  Pura Vida!

So far... so good!

I cannot believe we have been here almost a week!  The time has gone by fast, yet I feel like we have done some much while we were here.  Our first day (Friday, May 11th) was extremely long, between getting up early to go to the airport, flying, changing time zones, and riding around the city, we were all exhausted by dinner.  On Saturday, we got up early and went to La Paz Waterfall Gardens.  This place was absolutely breathtaking!  We got to feed toucans, hold butterflies, learn about the culture, and see the beautiful waterfalls.  When we got back to the hotel, Mrs. Bramley decided she wanted to go Salsa dancing somewhere.  Our guide, Joe, called around and found out there was a soccer (futbol) game that night in Heredia for the National Championship.  Myself, and several of the girls, decided to go downtown to watch the game and experience more Costa Rican culture.  Heredia won the game and the whole town was ecstatic!  It was an amazing, once in a lifetime experience to be in the hometown of a team and watch the team win the Championship game, that was going on a mile down the road.  I will never forget that experience!  The next day, Sunday May 13th, we went to Poas Volcano.  That day we were quite lucky to actually see one of the craters of the Volcano, since normally the clouds cover it up.  After we visited the volcano, we came back to CPI Heredia (our school) for orientation and testing.  We then got to meet our families and go home with them for the first time.

My family is made up of a mother, father, and their 29 year old daughter.  The mother is a housewife, the father is a taxi driver, and the daughter is a secretary and student.  I was quite nervous to meet the family, but I cannot be more happy than with the family I am with right now.  They are amazing people and they have been housing students for 15 years now.  I mostly spend time with the mother, my Mama Tica, and she is so patient with me as I am trying to learn Spanish.  Their home is very nice too, so I am very comfortable in my home stay.  I have my own separate entrance, with my own bedroom and bathroom.  It is simple, yet very beautiful.

Throughout this week, we have taken Spanish classes and class with Dr. Crawford and Mrs. Bramley.  On Tuesday, May 15th, we visited Ecovillas; a self-sustained community run by an American who feel in love with Costa Rica 17 years ago.  This place was extremely interesting, not to mention beautiful because it is so connected to nature.  Today, Thursday May 17th, I walked with my family and their church around the neighborhood as they prayed and sang songs.  Although it was 5 am when we did this, I am extremely glad I got to have this experience and see the religious side to Costa Rican culture.  Today we also went to a school, 2 houses down from where I live, and sang songs and taught a small lesson on the rainforest.  This school was for more of the lower income families, yet it was beautiful and interesting to see.  The children were very nice, and to my surprise knew a lot of English.

So far, I have had a wonderful experience in Costa Rica.  With 1 week down and 2 more to go, I know I will gain many more experiences and see more of the wonderful Costa Rican culture.  Pura Vida!!

Tomorrow I will be spending my first night in Costa Rica! Right now I am extremely excited, yet very nervous about this adventure I am about to embark on. I have been out of the country before with my family, but I have never traveled abroad without them. I am having a great time getting to know the girls before we depart and I know we are going to have a great time! Less than 24 hours to go! I can't wait!