Costa Rica: Mi segunda familia

Hola mis amores!

I'll give you all an update of what's going on with me and what the present and future holds for me while here in Costa Rica. On Sunday, we left Herdia and traveled up in the mountains into Monteverde, which is a completely beautiful and breathtaking town. Once we got into the small and very rural area, we were dropped off with our second host families. I could not have asked for a better home stay! I was greeted with hugs and kisses by my mama tica (Xenia) and my two sisters (Valentina and Maria Jose). Valentina is in the first grade and is six years old, while Maria Jose is 12 and in 5th grade. Their house is up a HUGE and exhausting hill that I have had to walk up on numerous occasions already but their home is so warm, loving, and cozy. Atleast I'll be coming back with great legs from the hikes ;) I have a VERY comfortable bed, my own bathroom, and WI-FI so needless to say...i'm content for the next little over a week and half :) The first week went by really slow but this past weekend and last two days have flown by! I'm ready to be at home with my loved ones but I'm also sad to leave here because it has become my home away from home. So, I met my family Sunday night and got a full ten hours of sleep which was awesomeeee!! Monday morning I walked and met with the group to get a brief tour of Monteverde from our guide, Joe, and then we came to our school, CPI. After a tour of the campus and discussing what the rest of the week was to look like, we had Latin cooking classes which was interesting. We made chicken fajitas and I was in charge of cutting up lettuce for our salad, cilantro, and making the tortillas. The recipe was actually fairly simple and something I can hopefully just as easily whip up back home. Today (Tuesday) we went to Santa Elena which is a local primary school here in town. We observed one 40 minute session of class and taught one 40 minute session to the sweetest pre-schoolers. After teaching at Santa Elena, we debriefed on how the lesson went and what we are going to teach on Thursday when we go back to the same school. As of right now, we have been teaching the students about the importance of the rainforest and different animals of the rainforest. Next week, we hope to teach about water and the ocean, which will be perfect for us since we come from Wilmington and the beautiful beach there :) I've been surprised as to how different our North American Schools and the Costan Rican schools differ. The teaching strategies and instruction are much more different and the atmospheres are completely different. The Costa Rican culture is a very laid back culture and most parents feel they should let their children learn from their mistakes and most parents believe that children will suffer the consequences for their mistakes. Basically, it's an either sink or swim philosophy. In the classroom that I observed, there were NO hands on or engaging activities with the kids, there were no books around the classroom and it was a very dull place to be. From what I could tell, the students were learning about the scientific method and were to draw a picture about it, although I couldn't make out what most of the pictures were. The instruction was more of a lecture and answer format and finally, not only am I interested to see but the entire group is interested in seeing if these students have standards or goals that they have to meet by the end of the year like our students in North Carolina. I'm wanting to know if they do have standards, are they broad or more specific. Also, part of studying abroad of course comes the courses you take while abroad. I'm taking a literature class for the middle grades so my research for my final project will be on literacy. I've already completed some of my research by making guiding questions and questions that I wanted to find out. I'll talk later about this in another blog though! Finally, the rest of the week will be pretty busy for us. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we have a tour of the Trapiche coffee plantation with three hours of Spanish classes following and then our group is going to get dinner together, Thursday we are going to be in the schools during the morning, Spanish classes during the day and then LATIN DANCING CLASSES THAT NIGHT!!! Obviously I am quite excited about that and finally on Friday, we are going on a tour of the Monteverde CloudForest Reserve which will be super fun too! I'm going to attempt to post a little bit each day but we will see how that works out.

Hasta Luego!