Little Ones, Ruins, and the Basilica in Cartago

Another week has passed and I still continue to wonder where the time is going. Before I know it I will be on my flight home. Crazy how fast time flies! This past week consisted of working in the Kindergarten classroom, attending our host sibling’s Christmas concert and exploring the city of Cartago. Below I have included a review of the events from the past week (11/25-12/1):

Monday: Work today was a little different than usual because only the teachers were at the school with the exception of the kindergarten/preschool class. The teachers have an entire week of in-service. For this reason, I worked in the Kindergarten classroom today and I will work with this class for the remainder of the week. I learned a lot about Kindergarten here in Costa Rica today. First, the classroom consists of students ranging in age from 4.5 years to 5.5 or 6 years old. There are students that are in “transition” meaning that theses students are on the verge of moving from the preschool/kindergarten classroom to 1^st grade. However, the other half of the class is in the preschool/kindergarten classroom. The teacher in this classroom is given the task to teach to all age levels, learning abilities, etc. Second, the kids in this classroom are much crazier than the students in the upper grade levels. I entered the room and it was a bit chaotic. The students were yelling and running, etc. For the most part, the teacher has control, but things got out of hand every once in awhile. There is definitely a noticeable difference in behavior between these students and the students in the English class where I have been working. Today in class a girl named Brithany had her birthday. Her mom brought in cake, ice cream, candy, and games for the kids to play. The students first ate papaya (a native fruit) and ice cream. Then they played musical chairs and ate candy for prizes afterwards; next, the students gave the little girl her gifts (only a select few students brought presents). Finally, the students ate cake and drank juice. This was very messy as the students spilled cake all over the floor and they were very loud and rowdy due to all of the sugar. This party was similar to a birthday party that you would have with your kid’s friends on a Saturday, but it was in the classroom. After all was said and done, Brithany’s mom, grandma, and I all cleaned up the classroom. We swept the floor, cleaned up the garbage, and mopped. It was a very eventful and fun day in the Kindergarten class.

Tuesday: Another irregular day today consisted of helping Lui with making a spreadsheet of names of students with the days of the week, cleaning up plates of the teachers from other schools and aiding the kindergarten teacher with various in class activities. There are an abundance of teachers at the school this week because teachers from other schools are coming to our school in order to have various meetings. They were all very impressed that I knew Spanish and could talk with them. Some of the teachers kindly offered to have me stay in their house if I ever come back to visit Costa Rica…I may add that this was just minutes after they had just met me. This is a perfect example of the unique culture of Costa Rica and the hospitality and kindness of each person here!!

Wednesday: I worked all day with the Kindergarten class once again. Today I observed the activities that the teacher was doing with the kids when I arrived. She sang songs with actions to get some energy out of the kids. Then, the kids had breakfast. The process of eating breakfast is quite lengthy. First, the students washed their hands in the bathroom, and then they ate their main dish (today was gallo pinto), drank their juice, and ate their fruit. After everyone was done with breakfast each student brushed his or her teeth. It was interesting to me that this is not the first time that I have seen both students and teachers brush their teeth after eating. I think this is a cultural thing as the Costa Ricans only go to the dentist for a cleaning at the most once a year. As the class continued, I taught a select few students how to play dominoes today. The students loved this game and of course it is a privilege to play with me so they each wanted to play. It was very fun to be able to talk one on one and teach a select few students.

Thursday: This morning was the start to a very long day as I would be out and about all day. I also missed my family more than usual today because today is Thanksgiving and this is the first time that I won’t be able to spend it with my family. While eating breakfast this morning, I found the Thanksgiving Day parade channel on T.V. here, but I wasn’t able to watch it because I had to go to work. I arrived to work and was in the Kindergarten class again. However, today in class was a little different because only three students showed up to class. It rained all day and the kids/their moms didn’t want to come to school in the rain so the majority of the students just stayed home for the day. I played with the three students who showed up to class and talked with the teacher. I learned today while talking with the teacher that in order to be a preschool teacher here you have to go to school for 6 years at a university! The teacher that I have been with this week told me that she wants to take me to her house in Alajuela and show me around the town as well. She wants to take me on the train, to the market, and around her home and town. She offered to take me today, but I have class this afternoon and then a Thanksgiving dinner later at night so I couldn’t do it today! However, I hope that it works out soon. I think this is super kind of her to do and I can’t wait for it to happen! She also offered to have me sleepover at her house one night. We will see if this happens, but I told her I would just have to let my Mama Tica know if I was going to stay at her house. After work, I went to Maximo to use the Internet before class. I then had class as normal. After class, I FaceTimed with my family before they ate Thanksgiving dinner. It was great to be able to see all of them, but it also made me wish that I could be home. However, I am glad that they are providing us with a Thanksgiving dinner here at a local restaurant. Once I was done talking to my family, Tara, Kayla and I headed home to see if we could connect with our family because our mom’s sister (who lived in the U.S. for 8 years) is having a Thanksgiving dinner and we were invited to go with our family to the dinner. Sadly, it didn’t workout to go to our family’s Thanksgiving dinner because our Thanksgiving dinner through the school interfered. We ate at a local restaurant in Zapote called Taos. We had salad, turkey with gravy, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans with bacon, and pumpkin pie. I also had a strawberry smoothie with my dinner. It was delicious and I was stuffed afterwards as always on Thanksgiving. Although I missed being with my family and participating in the traditional Thanksgiving meal that we normally have, it was nice to have such a great group of friends to spend Thanksgiving with in Costa Rica. Before dinner, we all went around the table and shared what we were thankful for. I thought this was a very cool thing to do as we all have so much to be thankful for both here in Costa Rica and in the United States.

The Group at Thanksgiving Dinner :)

Friday: I helped with the choir practice for their big Christmas concerts next week as the Kindergarten class didn’t have class today. After choir class, Luigina told me that only the Kindergarten has class next week so I will help them on Monday. On Wednesday afternoon, I am going to go with Luigina and the choir to one of their Christmas concerts as a chaperone. It is in the afternoon and I am really looking forward to going with them. The Kindergarten teacher brought up the idea of me going to her house and having her show me around Alajuela again. She told Luigina today that she really likes me and that we get along well. She called me her “reina” today when I showed up to work. She is so so so sweet and I already know I am going to miss her! Kayla, Tara and I went to Valeria and Alonso’s Christmas concert tonight at 5pm. We showed up a little early to the concert because we had to wait in line to get a stamp on our arm and our tickets checked. Waiting in the line was definitely a little bit of a culture shock because the people in Costa Rica have no sense of personal space and all wait in line extremely close to one another. Once we were stamped and our tickets were checked we went and sat in our seats. I sat next to our host mom’s mom (our grandma). She shared with me that she lived in North Carolina for 3 years and worked at a Tico Restaurant there. She now works in San José at a restaurant where she works tiring hours of 5am to 7pm or later. She is the cook there and loves to cook but says that it is very tiring. After talking for a very long time we began to question when the concert was going to start. It turns out that the concert started at 5pm and la hora tica. The concert didn’t actually start until 5:40pm. Valeria preformed the song “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” and Alonso starred in a short Christmas play. Both performances were very cute. Valeria wore a white shirt, jeans, a Santa Hat, and make up that her mom did for her! Alonso wore a suit and a tall top hat similar to that of Abraham Lincoln. It was very cool to see what a Christmas concert here is like. No one in the audience was paying attention and if they are it is because their child is preforming and they are standing up taking a video while blocking the view for everyone else in the audience. There was a break in the show where we went to eat bakery items and soda that our mom bought for us. The show ended around 7:30 that night. We went home and watched TV while we waited for our family to get home and have dinner.

Saturday: Two weeks left in Costa Rica!! Where does the time go? I am ready to go home, but I am ready to enjoy these next two weeks as well. Today Kayla, Tara, and I went to Cartago to see the Basilica and the Ruins. We took a bus early in the morning to be able to spend the day there, hoping that we would miss the rain as it usually comes in the afternoon. We walked around the town for a bit because we didn’t know where we were going. However, we then were able to find the ruins after a little while because Tara had previously lived in Cartago for two weeks a couple years ago. We walked to the ruins. The ruins are from various attempts to build a temple to honor the apostle Santiago of Costa Rica but were destroyed multiple times due to earthquakes in the area. The ruins now lie in this place and serve as a beautiful garden and monument.

A photo in the ruins in Cartago

After the ruins we walked to the Basilica. Here we saw multiple spouts of holy water that people were bathing in and taking water from. It was quite the site to see and amazing to witness. We then walked around to a separate room at the back of the Basilica to see a room where there were multiple displays containing charms that people had hung up to symbolize that a “milagro” or miracle had taken place in their life. This was truly moving to see how many miracles have been displayed in this room and to witness the amazing power of God. Also in this room there was a statue of “La Negrita” siting on a rock. The tale of this statue is as follows:

La Negrita (the Black Virgen) is a small (less than 1m tall), probably indigenous, representation of the Virgin Mary, found on this spot on August 2, 1635 by a native woman. As the story goes, when she tried to take the statuette with her, it miraculously reappeared back where she’d found it. Twice. So the townspeople built a shrine around her. Each August 2, on the anniversary of the statuette’s miraculous discovery, pilgrims from every corner of the country (and beyond) walk the 22km from San José to the basilica. Many of the penitents complete the last few hundred meters of the pilgrimage on their knees. (story taken from the Lonely Planet)

We saw this site first hand. Although it wasn’t actually August 2^nd for the day of the pilgrimage, there were multiple people in the Basilica who were crawling on their knees to make their way up to the alter to offer prayers. It was quite a sight to see and once again demonstrated to me the sheer power of God. I saw a women who could barely make the journey to the alter on her knees because she was in so much pain and had to stop every other pew for a break. However, by the power of God she was able to make it to the alter to offer her prayer. Truly amazing!! There was also a baptism happening in the Basilica with multiple families and baby dressed in beautiful white gowns. I haven’t mentioned the beauty of the Basilica yet, but the detail and artwork in the Basilica was absolutely stunning.

Holy Water at the Basilica

La Negrita

Just one of the many displays of the charms from miracles that have been preformed!!

People in the Basilica crawling on their knees to offer their prayers at the alter

After we were done at the Basilica, we headed back to the bus station to catch the bus back to San Pedro where we hung out at Maximo for a little bit before we went to the mall to watch The Hunger Games: Catching Fire at the movie theatre. The movie is called Los Juegos de Hambre En Llamas in Spanish. We bought our tickets for 1700 colones or a little under $4. It was quite a deal considering how expensive it is to see a movie in the United States. We also bought caramel popcorn that the theatre sells for $4 as well. I bought a movie ticket and popcorn for less than the cost of a ticket at home. It was interesting to buy our tickets because the movie theatre here has assigned seats to we had to pick which section and what seat all three of us wanted to sit in. Surprisingly, the movie started on time and there were commercials as usual but they started at 2pm like scheduled. The movie was in English with Spanish a subtitles, which was easy for us to understand! The movie was wonderful and extremely well directed! I would go see it again! I can’t wait for the next movies to come out! After the movies, we went home to eat dinner and hangout with our family. We talked with our mom for a long time after dinner and bonded with her.

Sunday: Today Kayla, Tara and I slept in, ate breakfast, went on a run and then got ready for our day. We spent that day at Maximo to use the Internet and catch up on assignments that are due for the next week.

Thank you for continually following my journeys in Costa Rica. Check back soon for the next post soon!

~Kailey

My Internship Continues and A Weekend Spent On The Caribbean!!

This week began the third week of my internship! It is crazy how fast the time is flying by. After this week, I will be halfway done with my internship and only have 3 short weeks left in Costa Rica. The week ended with a fun adventure to Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica. Below is my past week in review (11/18-11/24):

Monday: This week the students at the school have exams. So, I worked with Nathalia (the English teacher) as normal; however, rather than being in the classroom teaching the students, I watched over and entertained the students that were exempt from exams today.

Tuesday: The students had exams once again today. So, I helped with “coro” or choir for a majority of the morning. We practiced the Christmas Songs for their upcoming concert during choir.

Wednesday: I arrived at school and helped with choir again. Today the kids made up actions to go with the Jingle Bell Rock song. I am excited to see them preform their Christmas songs for the concert. They are so cute! After choir I worked with the English teacher giving exams. I found out today that one of the teachers is sick. I am not sure what the school is going to do because normally if a teacher cannot come to work for a day or two then classes for those grades are just cancelled.  They do not have substitute teachers in Costa Rica, so we will see what happens.

An incident occurred today in the 1^st grade classroom that allowed me the chance to see how behavior problems are handled here in Costa Rica. A little boy in the classroom has recently been causing problems in the classroom and hitting students. Many students say that he is a bully and some sort of action needs to take place. He once again was acting out in class and I kept being told that this little boy was hitting students. The English teacher was then informed and she filled out paperwork in some sort of “behavior book”. I am not sure if all students have this type of book or if only this boy does, but the way that Nathalia decided to handle the situation is as follows. She went to talk to the principal about the situation. The principal then came into the classroom and called the child to her office. He went and talked to the principal about what happened. Then he came back to the classroom and the teacher left to talk to the principal once again. Once she came back from the principal’s office, she asked everyone in the class who had been hit or bullied by this little boy to raise their hand (keep in mind the child was in the room while all of this was happening). Nearly all of the class raised their hand. The teacher then proceeded to ask each student who was raising their hand what happened between them and the boy who had been taken to the principal’s office. This very quickly turned into an argument between students. The child who had been accused of bullying and the other students were defending their position and their story. It was crazy! After observing what had just happened, I now knew how not to handle a problem in the classroom. It was a very good experience and a great time for me to just sit back and observe what was going on and how I would handle things in my own classroom.

Thursday: I didn’t have to work today because the students only had class as in class I mean their last exams for less than 2 hours. Tara didn’t have to work either today so we took a little adventure to the Harley Davidson store in Escazu to get her dad a t-shirt for Christmas. After this mini-adventure, we came back to Maximo and had class for an hour in the afternoon. Once class was done, Tara, Kayla, and I all talked and decided that we wanted to go to Puerto Viejo this weekend. We quickly discussed the details of the weekend and made plans to leave tomorrow for the Caribbean.

Friday: Kayla, Tara and I woke up at the crack of dawn to get to Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica at mid-day today. Our mom called a cab for us at 5:10ish. The cab came and we were driven to the bus station. There we bought our tickets for the bus ride and boarded the bus. The bus left around 6 o’clock this morning and arrived in Puerto Viejo around 11. It was so weird getting somewhere so early in the day and having half a day to enjoy the beautiful beach. Once we arrived in Puerto Viejo we walked to our hostel (Rocking J’s) where we would be staying for the next two nights. We decided to stay in hammocks in the hostel that cost us $7 a night. We put our stuff in the lockers that we received and left to explore the beaches around the area. The water was incredibly warm and calm. The water was almost like bath water and it was so clear that you could see everything in the water. The beach directly outside of our hostel was full of coral so I wore my Keens the entire time. We saw sea urchins, little fish, snails, hermit crabs, and much more! Then, we walked to a hole that we saw in the coral. At the bottom of this hole it was all sandy. We decided to jump into the hole where we were swimming with mini Dory fish and little striped fish. It was really cool!! Afterwards, we walked to a beach where it was all sandy. We met two girls who were seven and nine. They both lived in Puerto Viejo and they were really cute and nice. After we spent time at the beach, we showered and walked around the town to find a place to eat. We ultimately decided on a cheap pizza place where they were selling a slice of pizza for 1000 colones. We decided that tomorrow night we would have a nice dinner out at a restaurant called Chile Rojo that one of the girls we made friends with on the beach suggested.

Rocking J's - Our hostel for the weekend

Saturday: Today I skyped with my mom and we went over my application for a summer internship through Junior Senior Scholars. I am really hoping that I am accepted for this position because I think it would be an awesome experience. Afterward skyping, we all got dressed to go to the beach. We walked about 2 kilometers to a beach nearby that was completely sand and super nice. We walked along the beach and found shells, sea urchin shells, and pieces of sand dollars. We were intrigued and wanted to find whole sand dollars, however this was short lived and we ended up just going in the ocean. It was a nice relaxing day at the beach and I had tons of fun. We then came back and ate lunch, then we went to the beach where we were at yesterday and met our two little girls who we made friends with yesterday. After spending some time there, we came back to the hostel to shower and then go to a nice dinner at Chile Rojo. I ate coconut-crusted sea bass with a special kind of banana sauce on the top. It was very good!! I would definitely go back to that restaurant again.

The Beautiful Caribbean

 Sunday: The three of us girls took our time getting ready this morning and then walked to the bus station at 9 to get there around 9:30 so that we could buy our tickets back to San José for the 11 o’clock bus. However, little did we know that the bus would be full already and we could only buy tickets home for standing room only (de pie). We decided we didn’t want to wait for the next bus at 1 o’clock so we bought our tickets knowing that we would most likely be sitting on the floor or standing. Much to our surprise, when the bus arrived there was enough room for each of us to sit in a seat and we didn’t have to stand at all. It was a very nice surprise. We arrived back in San José around 3:30 that afternoon. The remainder of the afternoon we spent unpacking and hanging at home.

Our bed...or should I say hammock :)

I only have three short weeks left here in Costa Rica! My time is going by incredibly fast and I can’t believe it is nearing the 15-week mark of my total time in this wonderful country. Check back soon for another update. Thanks for reading!

~Kailey

Internships, Volcanoes, and More!

This week I continued my internship at the school, which once again kept me very busy. Additionally, my weekend adventure consisted of travelling to the Arenal Volcano and the Baldi Hot Springs. The following are more specifics on the happenings of the last week (11/1-11/17):

Monday: Today I didn’t have to work at the school because the students and teachers didn’t have school due to a protest occurring at the capitol. It was interesting to hear on Friday that the teachers already knew that there wouldn’t be school today. Therefore, today was “un día libre” (a free day) for me. I decided to come to Maximo Nivel, the school that I am attending here in order to catch up on a number of small tasks that I have been meaning to complete. Also, Kayla, Tara, and I all talked to someone from our school today about switching houses because the house that we were in watch very dirty and the family had dogs that barked frequently and at times that were very inconvenient. After further discussion with our school, we had established that it would be best if we moved houses and found a different place to stay.

Tuesday: Things at school were back to the normal today. I showed up to school and worked with Luigina for a couple of hours helping out with choir classes. We worked to perfect the songs for the Christmas Concert coming up soon. After choir, I went back to working with Nathalia in the English classes. It is so rewarding to see the students learn and remember so much English in such a short period of time. After work, Professora Cook, Kayla, Tara, and I all met for moving day. Just before dinner we were picked up from our house in Zapote and moved to our new house in Cedros. Just by walking in the house, I could tell that our new host mom kept things very clean and that we were going to like our new home in Cedros! We settled into the house and then our mom brought us to the restaurant that both her and her husband own. There, we met her husband. They are such a nice couple and I can’t wait for the weeks to come living in their house. They also have two children, Alonso (11) and Valeria (6).

Wednesday: At school, I worked with Lui to help the students with their Christmas songs again. After I was done with this, I went back with Natalia to work in the English class. It was a little stressful today because I was left in the classroom alone without the English teacher. Natalia was helping solve a problem that was occurring in the principal’s office. One of the teachers in the school decided to self-medicate a problem that she was having and in the middle of class she couldn’t walk or talk. It was very scary and she ended up going home for the day. Natalia and I talked about how many Ticos offer advice to one another about illnesses and how this is a major problem in Costa Rica. During the time that Natalia was in the office, I was left to manage the classroom on my own for about 45 minutes. I LOVE that she trusts me enough to leave me alone in the classroom with the kids, but with this responsibility comes a lot of pressure and stress. Today I was left to teach a group of students about duties and activities within the classroom along with knowing how to say what time it is in English. For the most part the students listened but of course there were times where the students talked over me and it was difficult to get their attention. The one difference that I see between control of the teacher in the classroom between schools here in Costa Rica and schools in the U.S. is the fact that teachers in the U.S. are viewed as authority figures and are given proper respect whereas here in Costa Rica the teachers are more of friends to the students than authority figures. It is a bit difficult adjusting to this cultural aspect. The remainder of the afternoon Kayla and I spent exploring the town of Cedros. We went to the local grocery store and bakery.

Thursday: Today at school I helped with music class again and helped the students to improve their pronunciation of the English song (Jingle Bell Rock) that the students are singing for their Christmas Concert this year. After this I went back to helping with English class. The kids were getting a little bit out of hand today for some reason…just kids being kids I suppose! I pulled out the American flag stickers that I brought to Costa Rica with me to motivate the kids to concentrate and get their work done. One thing that I found interesting in the school that I noticed today was the fact that the teachers have their cell phones with them at all times and if their phone rings during class they don’t hesitate and answer their cell phone in the middle of class. ¡Pura Vida! After work, I went to Maximo Nivel for class this afternoon and then headed home to enjoy a relaxing night.

Friday: Today I didn’t do a whole lot. I didn’t have to work today because the students have exams next week and they had the day off to study. I slept in, ate breakfast with Tara, and went to Maximo to work on emails and other odds and ends that I needed to catch up on since we don’t have Internet at our house yet. At around 2:15 this afternoon, I left with Profesora Cook and a group of students to go to the Arenal Volcano and the Baldi Hot Springs. We all loaded in a van from Maximo Nivel provided by TransLeo and arrived at the bus station. We then bought our tickets to ride the bus from San José to Ciudad Quesada where we have to switch buses and get on the next bus to La Frontera where we would be staying for the weekend. The first bus cost 1800 colones and lasted for about 3 hours. Once we arrived at Ciudad Quesada we realized that the next bus didn’t come for another hour and a half so we spent some time in the cafeteria and ate dinner. Our bus arrived around 7:30 that night. We stood in line for a little bit of time to get on the next bus to La Frontera, which is very close to Arenal. This bus lasted around 2 hours. We arrived at the last stop in La Frontera and got off the bus. We then had to take two taxis in order to fit all of us from the bus stop to Hotel Sierra where we were all staying. We arrived at the hotel room where the six girls that came along for the trip would be staying in one hotel room for the weekend. We dropped all of our stuff off at the hotel and went to enjoy explore what the area around our hotel had to offer.

Saturday: Today the group of us that went to Arenal/Baldi woke up and went to a cute little café nearby the hotel to eat breakfast. I had the Costa Rican breakfast at the café, which consisted of gallo pinto (very flavorful, moist, and just about the best I have ever tasted), avocado, goat cheese, bread, and eggs. It was delicious! We then took a cab from the restaurant to Baldi where we spend the rest of our day relaxing. Baldi consisted of multiple hot spring pool heated by the volcano itself. Some of the pools were so hot that I could not even go in them because my heat throbbed and stung from the heat of the water. We stayed at Baldi from noon to 10pm. It was a very relaxing day in all. We all ate a buffet at Baldi with delicious food. It was all you could eat and we paid $20 a person. This was a little pricy, but it was well worth it and there weren’t many restaurants around the resort to eat at. On a clear day one would be able to see the volcano from Baldi. However, we could not see anything because it was very cloudy and rainy the day that we went. After spending plenty of time in the hot pools, the water slides, and the sauna, we called a cab to go back to the hotel to shower and go to bed.

A view of what the Arenal Volcano looks like on a clear day!

Sunday: Today was another day of travel in order to get back to Cedros with my host family. We at breakfast at the same café as yesterday and I had the Costa Rican breakfast once again. We packed up our things, paid for the hotel ($30 per person for two nights), and walked to the bus station. Our direct bus for San José left at 12:45pm and only made once stop in Ciudad Quesada. We arrived back in San José around 4:15 this afternoon. We all decided to walk to take the buses home instead of taking a cab. This walk was a little bit sketchy though because there were multiple homeless people along the street for a part of the walk (this was really sad to see). We safely arrived at the bus and Kayla and I arrived back at our house in Cedros safely around 5:15pm. The remainder of the night we ate dinner and hung out. I went to bed somewhat early because I had another early morning of work tomorrow.

This past week Thursday marked the one-month mark for my time left in Costa Rica. It is still crazy to me how fast the time here is flying by. Although I know that I am going to miss Costa Rica when I return to the States, I am getting ready to be back at home. I can’t wait to see my family and friends! Thank you all for reading.

~Kailey 

Kids Will Be Kids!

My new adventure of the week was beginning my internship in a local school.  This kept me very busy throughout the week and on the weekend; I travelled to the Poas Volcano and La Paz Waterfall. The following events are more specifics on my week in review (11/4-11/10):

Monday: Today I had a free morning to relax after a very fun but at the same time busy trip to Nicaragua. I didn’t have anything for my internship today as that doesn’t start until tomorrow. I spent the morning relaxing and getting caught up on emails. In the afternoon, our group was scheduled to go on a walking tour of San Pedro (the town in which our school is located) and San José (the capital of Costa Rica). On this walking tour I saw multiple buildings, theatres, museums, and restaurants that I want to visit before I leave Costa Rica.

Tuesday: I had orientation for my internship today. This orientation included a general session discussing expectations and guidelines for an internship at Maximo Nivel. For the second part of the orientation, an employee of the school that I attend took me along with my professor from NCC to the school where I would be interning for the next 6 weeks. Upon arriving at Centro Educativo Josefita Jurado de Avarado, I was introduced to the principals and administrators of the school along with Natalia, the English teacher at the school. For the next 6 weeks I will be working with Natalia to aid in teaching the students English in this specific school in Costa Rica. I am really looking forward to this experience, as all of the teachers seem extremely welcoming and willing to help me to improve my Spanish while at the same time helping the students to learn English.

Wednesday: Today was my first day at work by myself. Everything went smoothly as far as commuting to work and arriving on time. I worked with the English teacher, Natalia, for a little bit in the classroom before having a breakfast break. The lunch ladies at the school feed the teachers and all of the students. This morning they served gallo pinto, eggs, and watermelon. Additionally, they fed me lunch today. I then “shadowed” the English teacher at the school for the remainder of the day until I went home at 1pm. I felt so welcomed throughout the day. All of the teachers are very kind and I can’t wait to get to know them better as time continues. I feel like an employee of the school while I am there. The teachers treat me as an adult and I eat in the teachers lounge with them. Natalia would leave the classroom and I would have the opportunity to teach the kids on my own from reading stories to telling time to teaching the days of the week. Natalia (or teacher in the eyes of the students – they call her “teacher” when they want her attention) has worked as a teacher for 16 years and has spent 7 years teaching at this particular school. She studied in Iowa for a year to practice her English. She is very appreciative of my help in the classroom and I think she finds it very interesting and helpful for the kids to be able to hear a native English speaker. Each classroom has a desk in the front for the teacher, small desks and chairs for the students, a storage closet, a whiteboard, and windows. The classes do not have a computer or clock. After my first successful day at work, I took the bus back to San Pedro to spend the remainder of the day relaxing after a busy first day at my internship.

Thursday: Today was my second day at work and I can already tell that my Spanish is rapidly getting better and better! It was once again easy to arrive at work. However, the bus was extremely packed today. At one point, the bus driver had to get out of his seat at one stop and tell the people standing in the aisle to move as far to the back of the bus as possible to make sure that the people getting on the bus could squeeze on. I worked with the English teacher again once I arrived at work. I preformed similar tasks as yesterday and was left to do many things on my own. The students asked me many questions, as they are all very interested as to what life in the United States is like. Many of the students really want to travel to the U.S. Even though it has only been two days, I know I am really going to miss working at this school. I only worked until noon today as the English teacher only stays for half a day on Thursdays. As with everyday in a school working with children everyday is different and there is always some story to tell. The following are a few stories I encountered in the classroom today:

• ·      I received a lot of attention for my hair color and eye color today in the school. The girls particularly were fascinated with the “machita” or “blondie”. They kept saying “que linda” meaning how beautiful when talking about my hair and many of them would come and touch my hair. It was eye opening to experience what being of a minority in a school setting felt like.
• ·      After discussing multiple topics about the culture in the U.S. the topic that the students seemed most interested in was the fact that in Wisconsin we have four different seasons. Many students said that they wanted to experience this, specifically snow.
• ·      The “hellos” and “goodbyes” from the students and teachers are very affectionate. It is customary in Costa Rica to hug and kiss someone on the cheek (put your faces next to each other and make the kissing noise). In the school setting this is very common.
• The main similarity that I saw in the school was the fact that kids will be kids. They will always be curious, want to learn, and explore the world around them. 

After our internships Kayla, Tara, and I met at Maximo. We then went with Professor Cook to a Chinese restaurant right next to school. The food was delicious and they give you plenty of food. I was stuffed afterwards. We found out that our house was getting inspected once again to see if anything had changed or improved. We will see what happens. I spent the rest of the night watching TV and went to bed early so that I would be ready for another busy day at my internship tomorrow.

Friday:  

Work today was a little slower paced. I arrived at school during the breakfast break. The teachers asked me if I wanted any breakfast, but I said that I normally am not hungry for breakfast because I eat at my host house before I arrive. After this break, I helped Luigina, the principal, with music classes today. She asked me if I could look up Christmas songs online that have both English and Spanish lyrics.  I gladly agreed to helping her out with this so that she can have more options of songs to sing at the Christmas concerts in years to come. After practicing two songs and taking 30-45 minutes to take a picture of the kids for the newspaper with their Santa hats on, classes were over. I spent a period of time talking to Luigina’s son before eating lunch. After lunch, I tried a new dessert called “miel de papaya”. It was almost like caramelized papaya that you eat with ice cream. It was very tasty. I then left my internship and headed for San Pedro. The remainder of the afternoon and night Kayla, Tara, and I hung out at our house as tomorrow we have to be up somewhat early for a day at the Poas Volcano and La Paz Waterfall and Gardens.

Saturday: I woke up early this morning to go to the Poas Volcano and La Paz Waterfall and Gardens. We drove about an hour and a half to get to the volcano. The roads were filled with lots of cars and it was stop and go for a little bit because there was a lot of traffic. The roads in Costa Rica are not meant for the amount of cars that they carry. They are more so meant for las carretas (the oxen drawn carts that were used many years ago). Upon arriving at the volcano, we walked a short distance in order to arrive at the main crater of the volcano. When we arrived to this crater, the air was full of sulfur and we could feel that it was very hard to breathe and our eyes stung. We weren’t able to see anything but the edge of the crater and even then it was very difficult to make out what we were looking at.

The foggy view of the crater

 The one thing that I was able to see was a spray of condensed gases coming out of the ground right next to the crater. After this, we walked through the woods on a cement path to another lake filled with rainwater. It was much clearer here and we were able to see across the entire lake. We took many pictures and enjoyed the beautiful view before we went to see the waterfall and gardens.

NCC Group at the Poas Volcano

Before we went to see the waterfall and gardens we ate an enormous and extremely delicious lunch. It was a buffet style with salad, rice, beans, many different kinds of pasta, chicken, pork, rolls, arroz con leche, and juices. Although the volcano was kind of a bust and we didn’t see much, the waterfall and the gardens were a major success and it was super cool! First we walked through the gardens where there was an abundance of animals native to Costa Rica. We saw various birds, butterflies, cats, and snakes. The highlight of the gardens for me was being able to have a toucan on my arm in the bird exhibit.

Toucan Sam and I :)

 We then walked many steps both up and down to see two different waterfalls at La Paz. It was very cool to see the waterfalls so close to the volcano!

La Paz Waterfall

 Once we were all tired of taking pictures and exploring, we hopped back in the mini bus to travel back to San Pedro and rest for the afternoon.

Sunday: Today, Tara and I decided to go to San José to explore and get more acquainted with the city. However, once we got to the city it started to rain really hard so we decided to sit down have some churros and shakes for lunch. What could be better, right? Once it was done raining, we decided to catch the bus back to Zapote. However, we weren’t sure where the bus dropped us off because it was the first time that we were taking this bus. We drove for a while in the bus and we both didn’t recognize where we were. Suddenly, I noticed a Subway that I had went to one day for lunch and so we got off the bus and had to walk a little ways home but it was not a bad walk at all. Once we got home we chilled in Tara and Kayla’s room until dinner and after dinner as well. 

~Kailey