Wednesday the 29th was a day full of classes, but our Spanish class at the end of the day was pretty fun because we took a field trip to the market, mercado, in Atenas. We walked around like the group of American students that we are learning the names of some of the fruits and vegetables they have here. It was nice to have my Spanish teacher show us around because she took us to some shops that I never would have found or know what they carried without her showing us. When we got back from town, I went over to the kitchen because I had told the cooks that I would go over then to make the muffins for breakfast the next morning. I love to bake, but I have never baked for around 50 people. I had to split the recipe for Banana Chocolate Chip muffins in half because the bowls weren’t big enough to hold 12 ½ cups of flour, let alone 10 more cups of banana or 10 eggs. After 2 ½ hours of slaving away in the kitchen I made, with the help of one of my friends, 60+ muffins for everyone at the Center. It was \ a successful night, especially when Gerardo, the Center director, came in and tried one of the muffins and after he gave his approval he asked what kind of technology this was because they apparently don’t have muffins often in Costa Rica.
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| Almost done! I worked on the toucan, clouds, waterfall and shading on the tree |
Thursday and Friday were both consumed with working on the second Field Exercise, this time it was for my Economic and Ethical Issues in Sustainable Development class. Luckily our deadline was pushed back from Thursday at midnight to Friday at midnight, which means I turned mine in on Friday night at 10.00. Thursday morning we had our 3rd outreach, and I was back at the Salon Comunal working on the mural. It's almost finished now! Also on Friday night we finally had our homestay prep and we found out who our homestay families were. I was excited after being able to read a little slip of paper with some information on my family, but it was also cause for a bit of nerves.
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| I did the flowers for the outside! |
Saturday (October 2nd already!) was the much anticipated morning of the homestay. We all were shuttled into the square in Atenas where we sat around waiting for our families to come pick us up. My family was one of the first to arrive and once Yendry checked me off the list, I hopped in the car with my new Tico family for the weekend. My Tico ‘parents’ were Luis and Yesenia Sanchez-Monge and they had two boys, Josue who was 13 years old, and Issac who was 10. On the way back to their house we stopped at Luis’ computer repair/supply store. My family had a very nice house, but when we arrived they prefaced the tour of the house by saying it was so small. I tried to tell them that it was a very nice house and size doesn’t matter. Luis had to go back to work, even on Saturday, and Josue left with some friends, so Yesenia, Issac and I stayed at the house. I helped Yesenia with the laundry because she was showing me the mountain of laundry that had piled up while it rained all week. Without a proper dryer, she doesn’t do laundry unless it’s sunny out so the clothes will actually dry. It was interesting to compare the differences of doing laundry here versus in the States. We did find some common ground when we hung the clothes out and after a little bit we had to sprint back outside to bring the clothes in when it started pouring. Of course it only rained really hard for a few minutes, and I tried to tell her that I do the mad dash to bring in the clothes a lot when I’m at home. After laundry, Yesenia and I started cooking the meat for lunch. I was excited to help cook, but Yesenia said that she doesn’t really like to cook that much. She had quite the chunk of meat and I was amazed at how small of a pan we were able to cook it in. It seems like everyone comes home for lunch, so it was Luis, Yesenia, Issac and I for lunch and we ate out on the patio (a covered one that is, since it was still raining). In the afternoon, Yesenia had an appointment in town, so Josue, Issac and I stayed at the house and I played Wii sports with Issac for over an hour. Both of the boys were pretty shy, so I wasn’t able to get more than a one or two word answer out of them. I did find out that they like Harry Potter, so I told them about visiting Platform 9 ¾ at Kings Cross Station this summer. Josue had the 6th book and in some of the down time we had, I read a bit and tried to work on my Spanish a bit more. For dinner we made some pasta, which tasted delicious (even with red sauce) after so much rice and beans. After dinner we watched a Costa Rican show called Bailando por un Sueño, which is pretty similar to Dancing with the Stars. It was fun to watch for a little bit, but after awhile I just ended up talking with Luis and Yesenia. I tried to tell them about Colorado, my college, tennis and my family. It took awhile, but finally my conversational Spanish started kicking in. Unfortunately it was also past 10.00, which is my bed time here. It appeared that it was also Yesenia’s bed time because we were both yawning a lot, so it was off to bed at 10.30.
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| Beach at Puntarenas |
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| Driftwood at the beach |
I slept in until the late hour of 7.30 on Sunday morning. I didn’t know exactly what the plans were for the day, so I didn’t want to sleep in too late, but this was still almost two hours later than I woke up all week. I had a nice breakfast of tea (chamomile, not the black tea with the caffeine that I needed), fresh pineapple, banana and a pancito, which was some type of hard, sweet bread. After everyone ate, we packed up and piled into the car to go to the beach at Puntarenas. Not even a half an hour out of Atenas we came to a dead stop. We were lucky and only sat around for a few minutes and then we were moving again. It turns out that with all the rain we got the day before, there were quite a few derrumbes, or landslides. We passed three pretty big ones and then a lot of smaller ones before we got out of the mountains. Most importantly it was still sunny and very warm when we got to the beach. I hadn’t brought my swimsuit for the weekend, but Yesenia and I took a nice walk down the beach. After the rains, the beach had collected quite a bit of driftwood and unfortunately also a lot of trash. It was still very nice to be at the beach and in the sun after a long week full of rain and work. I’m ashamed to say that even though I’ve been in Costa Rica for almost a full month, this trip was my first to the beach. After Yesenia and I got back from our walk the boys were burnt out on the beach and sun so we moved into one of the beachside restaurants for lunch. In the restaurant they had the La Liga soccer game on, which was one of the options that was on the table for today. I think that got nixed when I mentioned that I had been to a Saprissa game the week before. La Liga and Saprissa are the two local teams and there is quite the rivalry between the two. I had a delicious lunch of arroz con camarones (rice with shrimp) and we all watched the game. Unfortunately, La Liga lost, but then I heard that Saprissa lost as well. After lunch we got back in the car and prepared for a longer drive back than normal. Little did we know exactly how long it was going to be. We got so close to the top where all the landslides had been earlier, and then we came to a complete stop for almost an hour. Some people in one of the towns we passed through told us about a back road we could take through the mountains, so after flipping a coin, we turned around and went back down the mountain and turned off onto a very bumpy, steep road. I was amazed at how steep this road was, and I was equally amazed at how well the car did. There were a couple of times that were a bit sketchy when the tires spun out a bit on all the mud. But we made it to a paved road and only had to make sure we were on the correct road about 10 times. In the end, we took a 3 ½ trip home instead of an hour and a half. But we made it all in one piece. When we were back at the house I gave them the Colorado calendar I brought and the Celestial Seasonings tea. The calendar was perfect because it had a map of Colorado on the inside so I was able to show them where Fort Collins is and told them to come visit if they ever want to go to the U.S. In return, Josue gave me the copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, so I can keep practicing my Spanish, which was very sweet. They all drove me back to the Center before they went off to church. It was a wonderful weekend and I didn’t really realize that I’d been speaking Spanish the whole time until I got back realized how weird it sounded to be speaking in English. It will be nice to see my Tico family again for the dinner that we host for all the families of Friday.
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| My Tico family and I eating at lunch at Puntarenas |
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