La segunda semana

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” – Samuel Johnson

Hey guys!

So I have  realized that I gave you pretty basic information about my family and not very specific things as to what I'm doing and HOW I'm doing. So as far as my tica family goes, my papa tico works as a cheese factory salesman and is actually away on business for a couple of days and my mama tica is a housewife. I never thought being a housewife would be difficult until I saw first hand what she does on a day to day basis. The schooling and education system is a little different than back home so certain students attend class at different times. For example, Valentina goes to school from 7 to 12 and Maria Jose goes to school from 12 to 5. That means my mama tica is up at 6 making breakfast and getting Valentina ready for school and packing her lunch, WALKS her to school which is about ten minutes downhill, walks ten minutes uphill back home, does chores and cleans the house, walks downhill to pick up Valentina and drop off Maria Jose and then at 5, she goes BACK to pick up Maria Jose. Busy huh?! She does make amazing food though :) I've been eating extremely well and have even tried some new things such as mushrooms, avocado, coffee, and papayas. This is totally a new experience for me because I'm usually one of the first to wrinkle my nose and refuse new foods. As far as what the week had in store for me....

Wednesday: We went on a tour of El Traphice which is considered to be a traditional Costa Rican farm. Throughout the tour and walking through the farm, our guide George, explained the process for extracting juice from sugar cane and we visited the coffee plantation to see the four steps coffee goes through to become able to be shipped away or packaged; It was very interesting! We got to ride in an ox cart at the end and then even made our own fudge from scratch! I even saw my first VERY UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL snake! My first reaction was to grab Aly and I didn't realize it but it took me about five minutes to let go of her arm. OOPS! :) Also, I have a few friends that keep me up at night!! Any guesses?? Well, one is multiple roosters that start crowing around 4 am and the other is a rat that lives in the wall! It's just great! I'm hoping you can sense the sarcasm :) 

Making some fudge! 

The aftermath :)

Thursday: Just as we did on Tuesday, we attended Santa Elena primary school again and had the opportunity to observe a class and then teach another lesson on the rain forest to a group of sixth graders. Myself along with a few of the other girls observed a second grade English class. The teacher was still speaking quite a bit of Spanish but explained the main objective and what they were going to be doing in English. The topic of the day was "The House". Each student was provided with construction paper, scissors, and glue and were to make their own house with these materials and label each part of the house. For example: window, door, roof, etc. Most of the kids were using Spanish when conversing but they were at least saying "scissors" and "glue" in English. When we taught our lesson to the sixth graders, our goal was to have the students incorporate and practice how to say the animals in English. We did this by playing this really fun game with squish balls. Luckily for us, they had already been learning about animals so they were quite familiar and they enjoyed the game a lot. Oh, and we found the rat!! He escaped from the wall and is now gone from our household :)

 6th grade lesson on animals in the rain forest 

My "little sister" (pink bow)and her cousins

This is what a teacher drove and parked inside the school. Four-wheelers and dirtbikes are the main means of transportation. 

Friday: We went on a hike of the Santa Elena Reserve. It was about a two hour to two and a half hour hike that included seeing insects, monkeys, plants, and many many unique and rare birds. After the hike, we attended our regular three hours of Spanish and after Spanish, I got a very nice and special surprise. I sat down while we were talking about what time we needed to be ready and what to bring over the weekend when a box was placed on my lap that was sent from home. It was a care package that my parents had sent me!! It couldn't have come at a better time and I couldn't have asked for better parents :) This was also a very special day because it was my sweet yorkie puppy's very first birthday! 

I just happened to spot this leaf walking through the rainforest! 

 I have such great parents and pup! 

Happy birthday sweet princess!! 

Saturday/Sunday: And finally came the weekend! We departed for Arenal Volcano around 7:30 Saturday morning and arrived around lunchtime. On the way there, we stopped on the side of the road to see a sloth, howler monkeys (which sound like very big dogs!) and a toucan. It's mind-blowing to be driving down a road and be able to stop and see such wildlife. The car ride to Arenal was a little miserable because half of the trip was on a gravel road with huge and intense ditches. Not to mention, it was a pretty narrow road and we are in a fairly big van but the landscape and view along the way was incredible. Once we arrived in Arenal, we enjoyed a nice lunch and then the relaxation began! The resort we stayed at was beautiful. After a nice and calm afternoon, we had dinner at the resort and crashed afterwards! The best part of the weekend was having NO alarm set for Sunday morning. I've got in the habit of waking up around 5:30-6 so my sleeping in was only until 7:30 :( I'm hoping this isn't so routine that I wake up this early back home because that will not be okay! After spending Sunday morning in the springs and soaking up some sun, we packed all of our things, had lunch in the town of Arenal and then headed back to Monteverde in the four hour car ride! 

On the way to Arenal

Toucan

 Only one of the five hot springs at our resort 

 Arenal Volcano 

Our little friend we came across by the hot springs; he was enjoying his reflection :) This lizard is actually called a Jesus Christ lizard because of his ability to walk, or run on water. 

Monday: Yesterday afternoon and today were a little rough on me because I've been feeling a bit under the weather. We had a free morning this morning so it was nice to be able to relax for a bit and then head to CPI for class with Dr. Crawford and Mrs. Bramley. Today didn't hold much but tomorrow will be interesting; we are going to observe a private school here in Monteverde called the Cloud Forest school. I'm excited to see how this private school compares to the other primary schools that we have attended in Heredia and here in Monteverde. We've been told that this school is considered to be more a "prestigious" school because the amount parents pay for their kids to go there. I'm hoping to see just if social status plays a part in literacy development. 

Inquiry Project on Adolescent Literacy: I've talked in a previous blog about while I'm here, that I plan on researching adolescent literacy and using data and information collected from my home stays as some of my research. Part of this course requires us to proceed through the Kath Murdoch 5 phases of inquiry that serve as a "framework for developing understandings about the world". The main purpose of this process and cycle is for me to record and reflect upon the information and research that I find throughout my time here in Costa Rica. I've completed the first few steps of the process and will continue to work in completing the last four phases this last week in Monteverde and when I get back to the states. After identifying my topic (adolescent literacy), the first phase is titled Tuning In. The "tuning in" phase establishes the prior understandings, misconceptions, and experiences, determining goals for learning and revealing dispositions or feelings regarding the topic or issue. Since I've never been abroad or never been forced to be immersed into another culture, the literacy in this culture has never really crossed my mind and I have very few misconceptions or knowledge about the subject. I've seen English language learners in classrooms back in Wilmington and seen and even felt the struggles and tribulations they can go through on an every day basis. Since I didn't know a lot about adolescent literacy, I was excited to see just what information this project could bring me! I do have quite a few questions though that have driven my research. Some of these questions include: How does the community affect literacy and reading? How can the home environment affect language, literacy, and reading? How much English is taught inside the schools? Is English and reading/literacy being integrated within other subjects? How can poverty affect literacy? How will the schools in Heredia compare to Monteverde in terms of literacy and reading? Why do students take English? Having these questions took me directly into Phase 2, Finding Out. "Finding Out" is when you gather the information from a range of sources but continuing to raise questions and investigating. Some of the guiding questions under this phase include the type of resources that can help me to answer my questions, how do I know the information I find is trustworthy and my thoughts at this point in time during my research. As far as resources go, I plan on interviewing my mama tica and my little sister, Maria Jose who is 12. Maria Jose has told me that she takes English class and I have even had to help her and one her friends with a presentation they were doing for English. The presentation consisted of the two girls acting out the role of a doctor and the other one was sick with the chicken pox. Maria Jose, who played the doctor, had to explain what the chicken pox was and medications she could get to get rid of them. I think this was the first time it really opened my eyes to see the struggles that I've been facing with the language barrier for the past two and a half weeks. Maria Jose had a lot of difficulty in saying simple words and she could understand what her friend was saying to her but struggled in responding. It's the same with me...I can understand what I hear all day long but it's a matter of getting out what I have to say. In addition to talking to my mama tica and Maria Jose, I also plan on speaking with Jonle who works with CPI and a Professor at CPI who has three children. Finally, I hope to have the chance to interview a teacher at Monteverde Cloud Forest School which is a private school here locally. At this point in my research, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed because we don't spend much time in the schools and when we have observed, they haven't been English classes and they have been adolescent classes, they have been elementary classes. It's difficult enough trying to communicate with the language barrier but not being in the schools to collect my data makes it even harder. Since I can't use just the information I'm getting from people, I've been using Google Scholar to look up articles and journals about adolescent literacy. 

I will probably only post once or twice more this week and then it's back to United States I come!!!!