Almost Ready for the Rural Stay!

We just finished the 5th week of our program! 

Today was a pretty long day overall. First thing in the morning, we filled out the last of our course evaluations, and we took our Spanish Grammar mid-term, which actually went a lot better than we were all expecting. We won't know our grades until mid-October, but I feel pretty confident about it. After the test, we all split into our Conversation groups to prepare for our dramatizations. Each group has been preparing a short skit to present to the class encompassing some aspect of Costa Rican culture or our experience thus far. One group did a hilarious skit about how to interact with ticos (people from Costa Rica) by following the advice of several members of the ACM staff (the impersonations were truly incredible). Another group did 3 short skits about 3 field trips we have taken: Finmac (the cacao plantation), Arenal Volcano, and a particularly long and hot trip to a cemetery in San Jose (part of our architectural tour of the city). Again, the impersonations were spot on. Since Carly and I are in a two person Conversation class, we teamed up with our teacher Maynor to put together a reenactment of the first day of classes at ACM in which we all attempted to buy cheap cell phones. The process was difficult to say the least, and Maynor did a great job acting the part of a crazy cell phone salesman.

We had a delicious lunch at ACM to celebrate the end of the first part of our program. A few last minute things had to be taken care of, like getting money from Alejandra for our bus tickets and gathering all the supplies we'll need for our rural stay (for me that means rubber boots, a mosquito net, and some teaching supplies like markers and flashcards). We all made hesitant phone calls to our new host moms to confirm our travel plans for tomorrow. I can't imagine having called my San Jose host mom before I got here, but calling my rural host mom was surprisingly easy. Just goes to show how much my Spanish has improved without my realizing it! I came home a little earlier than usual today to get some of my packing out of the way. I'm mostly done, except for a few last minute things like my towel and pillow.

Sooooooooo... without further ado, here are all of the details for my rural homestay during the next three weeks:

I will be taking a taxi tomorrow morning to the bus stop in San Jose and taking a bus (by myself!!) all the way to Grecia. It's south of the Poas Volcano and north of the cities of Heredia and Alajuela - generally northwest of San Jose. In Grecia, I will meet my host mom Faynier (President of the Association of Agricultural/Industrial Women) and we will take a taxi together to San Luis de Grecia where the family lives. I will also be living with a host dad Victor, host brothers Jeffrey (31 years old) and Cristian (32 years old), host sister Jenny (35 years old), and Jenny's daughter Lucia (3 years old). There is (yet another) french poodle living in the house, a dog with puppies outside, and chickens in the backyard.

My volunteer work is a little up in the air right now. It sounds like I will be doing a little bit of everything, which will be great. I will spend some time working with my host mom and her group of women. They work with medicinal plants and make and sell natural products (like shampoo). I think I will get to work with each part of this process. Apparently their products are really good. One of the women from ACM orders from them all the time, and I'll be bringing back her next order when I return to San Jose in October. I will also be spending some time working with children who need extra help in their English class. I might even have the opportunity to incorporate some environmental science into my time in the classroom.

I'm really excited for the rural stay, but it's hard to believe I'll be on my own tomorrow! I'll have to settle into a new house and a new routine. That would be hard in the US (and in English), but it gets so much harder when you're trying to figure out how to work the finicky toilet, how the laundry works, or even just how to offer to do the dishes in Spanish. I've already done this all once before, so I'm hoping it'll be easier the second time around. And, worst case scenario, I'll be back in San Jose in 3 weeks, which is becoming pleasantly familiar.

I won't have internet in my house, but I think my host brother Cristian has internet access in the small market he owns, so I might be able to update a few times here and check my email/facebook once or twice. On the off chance that I can't get internet while I'm gone, I'll post as soon as I get back on Saturday, October 13th!

Independence Day!!!

This past weekend (Saturday, September 15 to be exact) was Independence Day in Costa Rica! On Friday, we had a class on all things Independence Day. We covered the national flag, anthem, and flower, as well as some of the most popular foods. 

The flag (horizontal stripes of blue, white, red, white, blue) is full of symbolism. The blue represents the sky as well as liberty and hope; white represents peace (because Costa Rica doesn't have an army), rest, and freedom; and red represents passion for work. 

The national anthem includes many of the same values represented in the flag. The music was written in 1852, but the lyrics weren't added until 50 years later when a contest was held to find the best lyrics for a national anthem.

The national seal is made of up 7 stars (representing 7 provinces), 3 volcanoes (Arenal and 2 others, representing the mountains), 2 boats (representing two coasts, both extremely important in trading), a sun (representing a new day and hope for the future), leaves (representing peace), and gold orbs (representing coffee grains). 

The national flower is a small purple orchid (Guaria morada), but everyone is so in love with their national flower that it's becoming extinct! Some of the wealthier families fill their houses with these flowers every day!

After our Independence Day class, we enjoyed a delicious Independence Day feast cooked by Iveth. We had everything from tortillas and picadillo (diced, cooked vegetables) to aqua dulce (sweet water, it tastes a little like molasses) and arroz con leche (rice with milk, basically rice pudding). As Friday was Mateo's birthday, we also got to finally experience one of Iveth's famous cakes. Mateo's was a chocolate, coffee, coconut cake! SOOOO good, although I'm not sure if it beats my snow day cake (chocolate and coffee - mom, I'm adding that to my list of food we need to make when I get home... maybe a late birthday cake?).

On Saturday, we headed into town for the Independence Day parades. Each school puts together some sort of performance (a band, a march, a dance) to repeat over and over as they head down the street. I'm pretty sure this parade lasted at least as long as the Macy's parade. Everyone in town seemed to either be performing or watching from the sidewalk, and every kid we passed had on clothes in the national colors, face paint, or adorable Costa Rican hats.

Here are a few photos from the day:

After the parades, we all went home to sleep for a few hours, but met up again at a nearby mall for dinner and... wait for it... Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. For those of you who have not seen or heard anything about this movie, PLEEEASE go look up a trailer (or better yet, go see it). It's something that cannot be fully explained in words. Actually, I'm just going to post a trailer here, just to make sure everyone sees it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Eo766iZZ0c SERIOUSLY GO WATCH IT

On Sunday, a few of us went to a big park in San Jose for the morning. The day included watching Adam play baseball with a Costa Rican team, pedal-boating around a small lake, and trying to find food. Apparently EVERYTHING closes on Sundays, except for this place called El Tostador (all they sell are peanuts and coffee, but we passed at least 3 of them, all open, while looking for real food. All in all, a very good day.

We are finishing up this part of the semester, with a meeting about our rural stays tomorrow, an exam and presentation on Friday, and picking our electives for the rest of the semester. My future host mom will actually be in San Jose tomorrow, and I think she is going to stop by tomorrow to meet me! I hope that'll make Saturday a little less scary when I show up to my new house!

A Few (Relatively) Calm Days

It's hard to believe that we're nearing the end of our fourth week in Costa Rica! I think we all are starting to feel like we've got the hang of this, for the most part. Interactions with my host mom aren't quite as awkward or forced as they once were, and I've finally started to settle into my daily routine:

Mondays - Grammar, Conversation, Introduction to Costa Rica, free afternoon, UCR Choir
Tuesdays - Grammar, Conversation, lunch, Biodiversity
Wednesdays - Grammar, Conversation, Introduction to Costa Rica, free afternoon
Thursdays - Grammar, Conversation, lunch, Biodiversity, UCR Choir
Fridays - still haven't figured this out yet... so far it's always been a field trip, but I think they're generally free days

Of course this is all theoretical... The national motto here is "pura vida," which literally translates to pure life. Basically it just means to go with the flow and not worry about sticking to schedules. I had to remind myself of pura vida several times this week when our schedule kept getting flipped around. On Monday our  teachers cancelled academic classes to let us sleep in and recover from our trip to the Arenal Volcano. I'm not sure how much we recovered though, since we had our second dance class that morning. It was a lot of fun, and our teachers helped us dress up in traditional costumes: long, flowing skirts for the girls and hats with bandanas for the boys. We learned El Torito (where the boys are bulls and the girls are bullfighters), El Punto Guanacasteco (it might as well be the national dance), and Swing Criollo (a fun twist on American swing dancing).

After our dance class we were given our assignments for the upcoming 3-week rural stay portion of the program. I will be living in San Luis de Grecia, near the Poas Volcano, with a completely new host family (I think it's mom, dad, sister, and the sister's 3 year old daughter). I will be working with a group of women who work with medicinal plants and natural products and helping them sell their products in the market. There might also be an opportunity to teach English while I'm there, but I'm not sure yet. My family has (yet another) French Poodle in the house, a dog with puppies outside, and several chickens. I think we're all pretty nervous about starting at square one again with a new family in a new town, but I'm really excited to get started! It's funny to think that, after 3 weeks away from our families and friends in San Jose, everything here will seem so familiar and comfortable!

On Tuesday we all went to Immigration to have our fingerprints taken. Our current visas are good for 90 days, but we need to have them extended to stay until the end of the program, which means fingerprints. I think this was the first time any of us have had our fingerprints taken, so it was pretty exciting, and the fact that it all happened in Spanish made it all the more entertaining. The whole process took about 2 hours, so the rest of our day was pretty crazy.

Yesterday we only had about an hour of regular classes. Instead of our conversation class, Carly and I cooked gallo pinto (a really popular dish of rice and beans), while a few other students made fried plantains, picadillo (this can basically mean any type of warm diced combination of foods), and lime tea. It turns out that gallo pinto is extremely quick and easy to make, so we had a lot of time to goof around in the kitchen. The food was all extremely delicious. Mario cancelled our Introduction to Costa Rica because we will be doing some extra stuff for that class tomorrow. We all needed the free afternoon to crank out our first essay for Mario's class. I ended up writing mine on some of the different types of dances in Costa Rica and the importance of storytelling in the more traditional dances.

I thought today was going to be a fairly normal day, but I was wrong again! Instead of our conversation class, we had a short acting workshop. We are all preparing short skits for next week, and I guess our teachers thought we could use the extra help. We had a few spare minutes after the workshop, so our conversation class played "conversation Jenga" where each time you move a block you have to answer a question about yourself. For lunch, we ventured out to a nearby pizzeria. It ended up being a little more expensive than we anticipated, but the food was SO GOOD. I paid about $8 for a delicious pasta dish, but was able to keep some for lunch tomorrow, so it's really only $4 per lunch. I'd say that's fairly decent price considering I've been eating the same loaf of bread and cream cheese for lunch several days in a row (it's unbelievably cheap and surprisingly delicious). Hopefully by the time I get back from the rural stay I'll have a few more ideas of what I can cook at ACM between classes.

Independence Day is on Saturday, so tomorrow and Saturday will be filled with some cultural activities and plenty of food. I think I'll have a lot of time to get some work done this weekend too. I guess it couldn't hurt to start studying for our Spanish midterm next Friday!

Arenal Volcano Field Trip pt. 2

...After Eco Centro Danaus, we drove on toward the Arenal Volcano, which is AMAZING.

Before going to our hotel, we stopped to get some good views of the volcano and see some of the damage from the recent earthquake (there's a big trench to the right of the road that formed in the earthquake).

Our hotel was SO CLOSE to the volcano. This is the view from the front door of our house - the restaurant, lobby, and pools are in front, even closer to the volcano.

We spent one day out on the volcano with a volcanologist from the University of Costa Rica. He's practically famous in the town near the volcano, and he was able to share a lot of information with us about the volcano's history.

We also got to take a walk through the forest below the volcano to see some great wildlife, including toucans!! There were at least a dozen flying around us, but getting a picture was tough.

THEN... we saw the biggest tree I have ever seen in my life. I had no idea trees could ever be this big.

A lot of trees in Costa Rica form buttresses near the ground for added stability - some trees can even decide on an individual basis whether or not they need to form buttresses or not, depending on the soil, wind, etc.

I wasn't even able to see where the tree ended!

Arenal Volcano

Our private houses at the Arenal Springs Resort and Spa - absolutely gorgeous (www.arenal.net/hotel/arenal-springs-resort.htm)

The hotel even had hammocks!

And several different natural hot springs, complete with a wet bar and a sushi bar - we hardly deserved any of this, but our famous volcanologist was able to get us a great deal on the hotel and food.

One of the beautiful hot springs

We stopped at a gorgeous waterfall for a quick swim before the drive back to our houses in San Jose - to get to the pool at the bottom, we had to walk straight down a set of stairs for about 20 minutes...

But it was well worth it for a swim in the cold water!

Arenal Volcano Field Trip pt. 1

This past weekend, we took our second big field trip to the Arenal Volcano. The volcano actually ended up being only a small part of the field trip. Before we even got to the volcano we stopped at Eco Centro Danaus (danaus refers to the scientific name for a butterfly - www.ecocentrodanaus.com). At Eco Centro Danaus we took a short tour of the property and got to see tons of animals in their natural environments.

Butterflies in a small butterfly house

Red-eyed tree frog!

Our guide said this is called a basilisk (yes, like in Harry Potter), but according to Wikipedia they are mythical creatures... not sure what to make of that. **According to a different wikipedia page, The Common Basilisk (Basiliscus basiliscus) is a lizard found in Central and South American rainforests near rivers and streams. Thanks for the help, Grandpa!** It's also sometimes called a Jesus Christ lizard because it can run across water.

A mama and baby caiman sunbathing

Some sensi-plant! Caitlin, I hope you're reading this!!! There is an UNBELIEVABLE amount of sensi-plant in Costa Rica. Thankfully I've shared the joy of sensi-plants with some of my classmates, so now I'm not the only one getting excited. For those of you who have not yet experienced the joy of sensi-plants, please click here and prepare to be amazed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLTcVNyOhUc

Upside down sloth munching on some tree

There are also Heliconias all over Costa Rica! They collect water and attract hummingbirds.

I forget what this was called, but it was adorable. When it stands up it sort of looks like a teeny tiny pig. Possibly a relative of the tapir?

After lunch we went to the nearby Maleku House to learn about the religious ceremonies of the Maleku people (an indigenous group in Costa Rica).

Megan even got to be a part of the ceremony!

The house was full of beautiful wooden masks, rain sticks, and drums.

After our time at Eco Centro Danaus and the Maleku House, we headed on toward the Arenal Volcano...

National Museum Field Trip

Here are a few photos from our field trip a couple of weeks ago to the National Museum in San Jose:

The tour of the museum began by walking through a huge room filled with butterflies!

More butterflies

And more butterflies

And even more butterflies. I wish the pictures could show how huge they were!

View of San Jose from the balcony of the museum

Afternoon rain coming in over the mountains

Tirimbina Photos

Here are a few photos from our trip to Tirimbina, a well-known ecotourist destination and biological reserve:

The Sarapiqui River (taken from the longest suspension bridge in Costa Rica)

Suspension bridge (it was too long to see the end!)

Spiral staircase leading from the bridge down into the rainforest

Murcielagos! Tiny white bats that make houses under large flat leaves!

Colorful cacao pods

Biggest tree ever!! Although we found a MUCH bigger one the following weekend at the Arenal Volcano (photo to come)!

Finmac photos

A few photos from Finmac (a nearby chocolate/banana farm and the first of two stops on our first weekend field trip)

Cacao pods fresh off the tree - they are collected in hanging bins and then dragged along a cable from one end of the farm to another

The inside of a cacao pod - every one else seemed to like eating the fruit, but I couldn't quite get on board - too slimy

My first ever interaction with a sloth - his giant claws were a little scary once he started swinging!

More adorable sloth - this seemed to be his favorite position - not too comfortable in my opinion, but maybe he thought he looked scarier that way (he forgot to stop smiling though)

Pensive sloth

Mama sloth with her 4 hour old baby - you can see the baby's arm sticking out around her belly

Those are bags and bags and bags of cacao beans ready and waiting to become chocolate

The banana part of the farm had a similar process of hanging the fruit and dragging it all along a cable

The banana processing area - I've never seen that many bananas in my life!