Jenifer in Costa Rica

It is hard to say if my trip turned out as I expected.  I did not know much about Costa Rica before this trip.  I still feel like I do not know much.  However I want to know more.  I am hoping to be able to chaperone a student exchange to Costa Rica next summer.  A desire to learn Spanish was kindled in me and a possible return to Costa Rica is an additional motivator to continue practicing Spanish.  I did not struggle as much with living with host families as I thought I would.  It was good to get to experience things I would not have if we had stayed in hotels.  It was a bit uncomfortable to not be in my own space but it made me learn to communicate in Spanish a bit more.  I did love being cooked for because I was exposed to foods I would not have been otherwise. I greatly enjoyed being able to see new ecosystems.  I have a big interest in science and learned of things I did not even know existed.  This was especially impactf...

The visit to Life Monteverde was one of the highlights of the trip for me.  This was because they lived their ideals of sustainability in a realistic way.  I think the statement that "their composting practices can only fertilize about two hundred trees, which is not a lot  compared to the thousands for tree they have but that is two hundred trees they do not have to use chemical fertilizer on" sums up their approach of every little bit helps very nicely.  They also are not satisfied with the fact that they are making an effort.  They are continuously looking for ways to be a little bit more sustainable every day. Perhaps my biggest take away was the fact that they do not just think about sustainability in terms of the land but also their social and economical practices.  I am glad we went to reception and spoke to one of the employees to obtain a different view from the other two group.  If we had not we would not have learned how they choose to ...

One of the things I did for myself during this trip was purchase some books in Spanish.  Some of theses book were in both Spanish and English.  I am finding this very useful because I can look at the sentence structure in both languages.  One of the things I struggle with the most is when and how to use the little words such as is, was, of, the, etc in translation from English to Spanish.  By having the same sentence side by side in both languages it is easier to see how this works. I felt like this was missing in our Spanish classes.  Most of what we went over in class was the conjugating of verbs.  In the activities at the end of each day we went over nouns.  While I do know words in Spanish now I do not feel like I am much better at putting them together into sentences.  This is an example of where it would have been helpful if our teachers had used more of our native language in explaining concepts.  I felt like I received more o...

I find it interesting how involved the Costa Rican government is in their schools.  Not only are policies made but curriculum is provided by the government.  I think this is easier to do because they are such a small country.  It was also interesting to know that religion is an official subject in the public school system.  I wonder if this difference is because there is an official religion in Costa Rica.  I also noticed that the schools in Costa Rica seem to be less rigid in their student management.  Students were running between classes as well as pushing and pulling on each other.  I even saw on student kick open a classroom door.  I do not know if this is a difference in rules or that the students are able to move about the structure without being monitored.   I wonder if this is a cultural view of child monitoring or just in the schools. The two public schools we observed, San Francisco and San Luis, seemed very similar outside of...

I learned a lot on this trip about what it is like to try to learn a language in an environment where you have very little context and do not speak the same language as your teacher.  The picture I put with this post is a great example.  I am fairly certain that the idea is to pair the statements and responses but I doubt I could make one correct pair on my own.  I do not know what most of the statements or responses are.  We also did not go over this slide in class.  It was just put on the screen and never acknowledged. I did not find the activities we did at the end of each day helpful because they were not genuine interactions.  I learned very little from these activities because I spent the whole time just trying to figure out the basic idea of what was going on.  In contrast to this struggling through interactions out in the community really made things click.  Even through the language barrier I had a much better idea of what was going ...

I am glad the La Carpio visit was on our agenda.  This is a side of a community that you usually do not get to see when visiting a new place.  This was my first interaction with a refugee community.  I had no idea what to expect going in.  It was nice to see that most of their basic needs were covered.  From our quick visit it was hard to tell if the basics that I did not see were missing or just out of sight.  I know we were not the first group to visit but the people we interacted with seemed genuinely glad to have us. The people we interacted with were willing to open up to us.  I felt they were very real with us.  The daycare classroom we visited appeared as though what we saw is its usual state.  The children  seemed as though they we very familiar with the environment.  While we ate by ourselves the meal felt very comfortable, as though it was the regular routine they said it was.  I think this was because they were ...

We were warned that the homes in Costa Rica are smaller than we are used to.   I doubted this was the case.   I was correct.   My Tico homes were bigger than my home in Missouri.   To me they seemed to be just another house.   I could walk into those houses in the US and not think anything of it. I would say my homes in Costa Rica were very similar to my home in Missouri.  There are differences but nothing that has really stuck out in an uncomfortable way. I think their work around for adding hot water in showers is interesting I think my host families are amazing and would not change anything.  They were warm and welcoming.  They checked in with me without being clingy.  They even helped me with my homework when I got stuck.  Both families were retired parents with children and grand children that regular visited.  Even the extended families were open. It would be nice if we spoke the same language but we have f...