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!
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