It's almost over??

What a view from the platform!

I cannot believe today is our last day in Costa Rica. I'm not ready to go home at all! I have learned so much here, experienced so many new things, and made a lot of great friends. Today we went zip-lining in the canopy, so that was AWESOME! It was so cool to be flying through the air and looking out over the beautiful forest. It was so clear, we could even see the water! Zip lining on 9 cables stretching a total of 2 miles was something I would have never imagined myself doing, but it was an incredible experience. One of the lines was even 456 feet high!

Casually zooming through the canopy at 45 miles per hour!

After that exciting adventure, we hung out in Santa Elena for the last time and had lunch. We had our last Spanish class today-- this week of classes has been good. Even though sometimes I think I have no idea what's going on in class, I really have learned a lot of Spanish. Our teacher this week did a really good job of keeping us interested by talking about topics we were interested in and using the grammar we were studying to relay information about Costa Rica. After completing 60 hours of class, I successfully graduated from Spanish Immersion School!

Jose presenting me with my Spanish Certificate

We had to say goodbye to all our instructors and the Missouri State girls today which was hard, they've all been so fun! I had dinner with my family tonight and gave them their gifts for hosting me. I gave the little girl and boy books about animals in English because they love animals. We played a game where they had to name all the animals in English and I had to name them in Spanish. We had so much fun and they were pretty proud of my Spanish (I did have to use my dictionary for rabbit and eagle).

My precious host brother and sisters

The kids all "helped" me pack and even went out to the store and got me a gift- a Costa Rican mug! I'm going to miss these sweet little kids!

Life Monteverde

Coffe fields at Life Monteverde

We spent this morning at Life Monteverde, a sustainable coffee farm. Felix, our guide took us for a tour of the coffee farm and we saw coffee plants in different stages. He explained that to pick a bushel of coffee in their cooperative of twelve farms, a workers earns a minimum of $235 as opposed to the national minimum wage for coffee picking, $1.50. This ensures that the coffee pickers take pride in the work and pick only the best beans. Most of the coffee pickers are migrant workers because Costa Ricans don't typically look for manual labor jobs. 95% of people in Monteverde are employed in some way by tourism, so locals picking coffee is rare. After our coffee talk, we went into one of the small forests in the fields to discuss the importance of forests in agriculture. Forests attract pollinators like birds birds and bats, provide shade breaks for workers, regulate the temperature, prevent erosion, act as wind breaks, provide nutrients to the soil, give wild animals something else to eat besides the crops, and keep the environment natural.

Coffee plants

After learning all that, we took a tour of the farm with all kinds of vegetables, corn, bananas, rosemary (as a natural insect repellant), zucchini, and much more. They had tilapia ponds, pigs for methane, goats, and chickens. We even got to hold a baby goat to "become connected with agriculture." We discussed the importance of integrating agriculture, sustainability, and the outdoors into our future classrooms and planted little baby trees in one of the coffee fields.

The baby goat

Planting my tree

Our group hanging out at Life Monteverde

New Spanish Classes

This morning we had class with Professor Powell and got to discuss a little bit of what we have learned so far on this trip. It's interesting to get to go around the room and hear about everyone''s individual experiences-- so much is going on! It's also interesting to compare our experiences as struggling learners with those of our students. I'm starting to realize why struggling learners do some of the things they do. It can be very frustrating to not understand the language or just not understand what's going on in general.

Reading comprehension at Los Llenos

I know I had a particularly trying day last week where I was ready to do anything but speak Spanish! In the morning we helped at Los Llenos with the lesson their teacher was doing- a reading comprehension assignment in Spanish- which was cool, but I didn't really feel that comfortable helping students with what I didn't understand fully. And a lot of the other girls know less Spanish than me, so I was trying to help them translate also. It was a really cool experience, and I really enjoyed getting to use the Spanish I've picked up on, but by the time we got to CPI for our 4 hours of Spanish class, I was beat. Our professor last week insisted that we only only only speak Spanish in class, so I found myself barely participating at all... my brain was fried. By the time break rolled around, I was ready to just be done! Sitting through the second half of class- the grammar portion felt almost like a form of torture, and I couldn't help but to think about the ESL kids who will sit in my future classroom feeling this way. As I was sitting there completely exhausted, in Spanish overload, and not understanding the grammar rules she was teaching at all, she called on me to answer a question which I apparently did completely wrong. It was so frustrating to sit there and try so hard to listen while not understanding a single word the teacher was saying, then get called on and lectured for doing what she was apparently saying not to do. I had absolutely no idea what was going on after that, so I pretty much tuned out-- and in that moment I completely understood why struggling learners space out or act up in class.
Thankfully today, we got our new Spanish instructor

Wild toucans outside CPI!

for the week who hasn't seen me struggle uncontrollably, and hopefully I can keep it that way! Our new instructor, Jose, was very interesting and shared a lot with us about Spanish in different regions of the world and answered our questions about why Costa Ricans don't use the informal tú form. He even showed us toucans out the window! Hopefully Spanish class will be a little better this week.

Arenal

Something I have gotten used to in Costa Rica is hearing a lot of crazy animal sounds at night. In both of my host homes there have been geckos-- and who knew, but those little things make some crazy noises! I have gotten pretty used to sleeping with geckos screeching at my window, what seems like all of the 900 different species of birds chirping, bugs buzzing everywhere, roosters crowing at all intervals of the early morning beginning around 3am, and plenty of neighborhood dogs barking up a storm. But last night, I had a different encounter, there was a cow at my window! Yes, a real live cow and I have no idea where it come from. We become quite good friends because he mooed at about 15 minute intervals starting at 4am... he was a real chatty guy! I guess you never know what to expect here in Costa Rica, but you can't make this stuff up! After that interesting experience, our group headed off to La Fortuna for the night. I hiked up the mountain with my overnight backpack (and now that I know I somehow made it up in

Wind turbines on the road to Arenal

 10 minutes, it seems just a little bit easier) and hopped into the van for the 4 hour ride back down and out of Monteverde. I am always amazed at how bumpy the dirt roads are and how awesome our bus driver is!
Once we arrived in La Fortuna, we explored around town for a little bit, got lunch, then went on the coolest hike. Our tour guide, Javier explained that the park we were going to had opened a new trail that he hadn't been on and we are always up for an adventure, so we decided to check it out. It was the coolest hike I've ever been on in my life! It was a steep trail, but we had the most amazing view of Arenal and right as we got to the peak of the trail, the clouds cleared up

Arenal peeking out from behind the clouds

and we could see the top of the volcano. It was so awesome! I think volcanoes are pretty much the coolest thing ever, but they are something I never even really think about much in the states. It's so interesting to be able to take how different the terrain of Costa Rica is from North Carolina. I know we don't have anything like Arenal back home! After the hike, we arrived at our hotel for the night. It was raining when we first got here, but it's starting to clear up a bit now so we are going to go check out the pool and hot springs before dinner. You can see Arenal from our room, but it is still blocked by clouds. Hopefully it will be clear in the morning!

Los Llenos

The playground before

While we were teaching at Los Llenos the past two days, we noticed that the area they use as the playground is quite run down and unsafe. There are nails, pieces of metal, and wood just lying around and they kids just lean a board up against the fence, climb up, and use it as a slide. It is incredibly resourceful, but it makes us quite nervous since we are used to so many more rules and so much more supervision in the USA. We asked the principal if he would mind us cleaning the playground up a bit and he was thrilled that we were willing to take on the project!

Working on removing all kinds of dangerous things-- including a kitchen sink!

The new (safer) obstacles

Today we loaded up the van with shovels, work gloves, a hammer, screwdrivers, and some plants and were off to Los Llenos for some playground beautification. First we cleared out the large rocks and boards that would be tripping hazards, then a few girls got to work clearing out all the random metal and wood in the field. Jenny, Holly, and I worked on weeding the three flower beds at the school. It was a little tricky to distinguish between Costa Rican plants and weeds, but we did the best we could given the limited gardening knowledge and one glove each that we had. We learned to be resourceful like the students we had been working with, and since the girls clearing the field were using the shovels, we used some makeshift boards as our own gardening shovels. By the time the kids came out for recess, we had cleared out at least three cans of trash, recycling, and organic materials, stacked all the boards and dangerous metal pieces behind the school, cleaned up the gardens, planted some new plants, and created a little obstacle course for the kids. They all seemed super excited with the improvements and ran around the obstacle course as fast as they could!

Always check to make sure your alarm is set for AM, not PM

Today one of my biggest fears came true. If you read my blog from yesterday, you have a little bit of an idea of how much I cannot stand to be late. I am terrified by the thought of my alarm clock not going off and me oversleeping. Well this morning, I woke up bright and early to the sound of all the neighborhood roosters crowing as usual (yes, that's a thing here), but decided I would go back to sleep until my alarm went off. Bad decision. I woke up feeling strangely well-rested (something that just doesn't happen on this trip with how busy we stay and how early we meet in the mornings), so I knew something was wrong. I looked down at my watch to see that it was 6:30! I have to be dressed to teach, up the mountain, in the bus with lesson plans ready by 6:45!! Yesterday I discovered that the walk to our meeting place alone is 20 minutes, so I hit the ground running. I threw on the first teacher-appropriate outfit I could find and scurried into the living room to find some shoes. Instead I found my mama tica who was insisting that she make me breakfast. "No, no, I'm fine. I don't have time. It's okay. Lo siento, lo siento." (Wow, the language barrier is quite annoying in situations like this) I was really wishing I knew more phrases about having like 10 minutes to get to a destination 20 minutes away at this point. Eventually I convinced her that fruit would be just fine ,but as she got out a full pineapple to start slicing, I grabbed an apple for the road and sprinted out the door. At this point only 12 minutes and the hill of all hills stood between me and the bus stop. The only vision running through my head as (I tried) to jog up the mountain was me arriving at the meeting point one or two minutes after the van had already pulled away. And with no phone or wifi, I wasn't sure what I would do in that situation quite frankly, so I just kept booking it up the mountain. (Wow, I hope I don't miss any turns... I should have paid more attention yesterday!) I knew I would be cutting it close, so I tried to ignore how heavy my backpack was and how unadjusted my lungs were to the 5,000 ft elevation. Somehow I made it with about 2 minutes to spare! And I don't think I've ever felt that relieved in my whole life. (I wasn't going to have to wander aimlessly around Costa Rica all day looking for my group, or return home to a host family who I couldn't communicate with.) Once I sat down on the bus with my apple, I was quite proud of the fact that I got up, dressed, and up the mountain (all by myself with no directions) in 14 minutes flat. That was quite possibly the best apple I ever ate and my friend Holly gave me some crackers her mama tica sent her with for snack (she's such a doll.)

The 1st- 3rd grade classroom

Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes!

After that adrenaline rush, I was more than ready to teach some kids English! We arrived for the first time at a one room school in Monteverde where we heard the students hadn't had any previous exposure to English yet, so we weren't quite sure what to expect. Thankfully, what we had heard wasn't quite true. Holly and I had a group of three little boys and they knew some very basic English, so we could work off of that. We worked on colors then transitioned into body parts by introducing the song Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. I had a really good experience teaching by just going with the flow. We went in with no specific expectations or detailed plans, but it all went really well! The students were used to having a lot of freedom without a lot of controlling supervision and rules, so we kind of let their knowledge and interests guide our lesson. 

We're in a cloud forest!

Just as a side note: Today is May 25th, but I'll have to post my blogs at a later time because I have safely arrived at my new host home, but I don't have wifi here. It's been a bit of an adjustment to not have internet access or be able to use good old Google translate to help me communicate with my family, but I'm surviving. 

The road to Monteverde

We arrived in Monteverde last night and my host family for the next two weeks picked me up. It wasn't quite as scary this time, because now I have a little more of an idea of what to expect living with a host family. I was still a little nervous though. After getting in the car with the mama, papa, and baby I realized that they don't speak any English. None. I really should have paid more attention in Spanish class last week. When we got home, I met the little boy and girl and got to enjoy watching Scooby Doo in Spanish with them. They asked me to play hide and seek with them like eight times before I finally understood what they were saying. (There's something new I can add to my Spanish vocabulary now!) Playing a game with them kind of broke the ice and got us all talking... too bad I only understood about half of what they said. After them trying to teach me some other games and me not really understanding, everyone went to bed. When I finally laid down in my (new) room, I kind of had a freak out moment. It hit me that I am living at the top of a mountain with complete strangers, they only speak Spanish, I speak English, and I don't have wifi, or a phone, or any means of communication or translation. Can I please just go back to my nice first host family where I am comfortable and they speak slowly so I can understand?

Walking up this hill is no joke!

This morning I was kind of stressed about my family walking me to our group's meeting spot because everyone went to bed pretty abruptly last night and we don't speak the same language so I had no idea what time we were supposed to leave (it seemed like the car ride home last night was eternal, so the walk must be really far). I woke up at 4:30 to get ready and by 5:30, there were still no signs of anyone else being awake. Were they going to walk me? Was I going to be late? Would the bus leave me? Should I wake somebody up?
Eventually everyone got up and showered (I think we're going to be late). Then they started cooking breakfast (the gallo pinto was delicious, but now I just KNOW we are going to be late). Oh, and the baby is sick (at this point, I assume we are driving, but I think we will still be late). Finally we got out the door and as I started to veer off towards the car, I realized that we are totally walking (I'm freaking out because we are going to be SO late... can you tell I hate being late?). After breaking into a sweat during a 20 minute trek up the side of a mountain, I realized that we were almost to the meeting point-- and what do you know-- we're right on time (thank goodness). All that panicking was for nothing... I learning to be a little more laid back on this trip, but it's taking time.
We went on a hike in the cloud forest this morning and saw a tarantula,

A tarantula!

 millipedes, centipedes, stick bugs, and a squeaky door bird. Then we took the van to Santa Elena (the town here) and ate fried chicken at Super Pollo-- I just really needed a little taste of home and fried chicken is my favorite! We got assigned a new Spanish teacher at the CPI in Monteverde and she won't let us speak any English at all. I really miss speaking English!

There's nothing quite like fried chicken

Somehow I found the way back to my house all by myself in the rain (I really have no idea how), so I was quite proud... but then I couldn't get the key to work. The locks are different here. After my mama tica let me in, my sister Daniella helped me with my Spanish homework and I helped her with her English homework. It was a nice tradeoff in my opinion. I'm starting to like this family now. Dinner was quiet, but afterwards Daniella and my mama tica proofread my Spanish homework, a 1 page essay about my favorite family vacation. They helped me fix a few errors with conjugation and I was able to ask them about some vocabulary that I didn't know, so I'm getting closer with them.