AAVE Trip BLOG » Costa Rica Intensive = Pura Vida!
July 6, 2007
Costa Rica Intensive = Pura Vida!
Posted by nicoleg in : Costa Rica Spanish Intensive, General AAVE Trip BLOG , trackback
Hola!
This is Nicole writing, trip leader for CSI1. I have to begin this blog by writing about how amazing this trip has been so far. Because of the mature, layed-back, postitive, friendly, and respectful attitude of all the group members, our trip has been extremely fun and smooth. Even though we had one camper without a bag for a day because it got stuck in Atlanta and some students were stuck in Dallas for 8 plus hours on their way out, we all made it and are enjoying the experience of the journey! Our teens rock and our Spanish class first week rolls! Ronald is our guide and he is unbelievably fun, knowledgable and great! We already don´t want to have to say goodbye to him on the 21st!
Dia 1: Pura Vida!
Experiencing Costa Rica for the first time is like an icecream cone or watermelon slice on a hot day! We are here, we are engulfing ourselves in the culture, we are nervous about our placement exams (which were really painless and easy) and about meeting our tico host family! In the morning we wake from a much needed sleep depending on how ontime or delayed our flights were, have some breakfast of cereal, bread, bananas, and jugo, and play some name games before our meeting about AAVE expectations and ways to have a successful trip! Students got to spend class time with their first professor(a) and our confidence in our Spanish speaking skills began to rise. We later met to reveiw the following day because our families picked us all up after class. We said adios to our group before we headed to our host families for dinner.Â
Dia 2: Pirates on a scavenger hunt in Heredia!
Heredia is a town outside of San Jose where we spend our first week. As a group we took public transportation into town to first visit the market and taste some of the locally grown fruits and vegetables of Costa Rica and then to the plaza to split into 3 groups and conquer our scavenger hunts. We finished our Heredia experience at a cafe for lunch where a famous futbol (soccer) player of Costa Rica agreed to take a picture with our group! Classes were longer this day and we are continuing to learn more. The experiences we get with our host families teaches us a lot about conversational Spanish! Leda was our first LOD, Leader of the Day, and she rocked! I got to visit Sam´s family and his tico mama reminds me of my grandmother-friendly, smiley and sweet! He was doing his homework with his tico sisters as she watched him in awe, que preciosias! Everyone says they are eating fantastic meals and we are getting use to using the word for full (lleno(a)) because our families want to make sure we are very well fed!
Dia 3: Cocodrilos, Monos y Aves oh my!
Our group rode a bus for 2 hours through the second largest national forest in CR and made bracelets and played Uno until we got through the twisty rainforest roads to Sarapiqui! We rode a boat and were quiet and lucky enough to see howler monkeys, many birds, a crocodile, 2 sloths, and poisonous red dart frogs! It´s amazing that the rivers are the main form of transportation for many families here! Class was longer today because we got up around 5:30, but we had our 4th of July celebration to look forward to! Our pinata got demolished by Leda, Ariel, Margot, Natalie, Kaitlyn (who was our fearless LOD this day), and many other students! The school we attend is called CPI and it is gorgeous! We watch gorgeous sunsets from the lawn as we leave for our host families each night! Our host families continue to learn more about us vica versa! I got to visit Carolina´s family, who has an amazing cabin sort of house very close to mine and Natalie’s, who is also my sister for this week because we share host families. Both families are very layed back. We have a 6 month old child in our family and Carolina´s tico mother is from CPI.
 Dia 4: La Promesa (the promise)
Our bus left at 7:35ish this morning for a community of women and children called La Promesa where we spent the morning doing a service project. Kaitlyn said this is her favorite day so far, she is sitting next to me because I am visiting her host family tonight. We were first introduced to the community with a very very special presentation portraying what these families went through. They were all kicked out of their homes within the last 9 years and Gale, a lady from the US has helped build homes and create a community of love and growth for these outstanding and postitive women. We all laughed hard at the presentation because some ladies dressed up as policia and did a great skit for us. We were honored by this and by the typical Costa Rican dances they also performed for us. We had a little dance party and food after this and took many precious pictures. We got to teach English to students from 2 to 70 years old! It was an amazing experience! Classes were a blast today for most students. Dancing and singing and conversing about life and the experiences of La Promesa were topics for class today. I got to also visit Leda and laugh with her family who are more than welcoming and fantastic and had chocolate. When I was with Autumn and her family we got to laugh again about funny toungue twisters and mystery meat! Erin led a great meeting where we attempted the human knot.
It has been such a blast and I can´t wait to get some sleep to have energy for another day with this group! We are taking so many pictures it is a bit ridiculoco and awesome and everyone can´t wait to show them off! We are headed to Volcano Paos tomorrow morning.Â
Enjoy yourselves while we enjoy our experiences here in Pura Vida! We´ll write more soon, but if you don´t hear from us remember that is a good thing! Thanks to all the families! Hasta mas tarde!
Nicole, Ronald and the most amazing CSI trip ever!
Comments»
hola!!! were having so much fun here in costa rica!! our families have been great and really welcoming. all of our days have been filled with tons of activities that are super fun and long classes. all the days are really exhausting. yesterday we went white water rafting and then went to the movies and saw shrek 3 in espanol! erin fell out of the raft in the first set of rapids which was a little scary but hilarious. later today we are going to the HOT SPRINGS we´re soo excited!
love leda and kaitlyn!