Climate Change!

Hola. Today I am COLD! Last week in Heredia and this past weekend in Manuel Antonio I was complaining how HOT it was everywhere. I would rather have hot. Because cold weather = sick people. And a possibility of sick ME. :( Pero (But) so far so good. But still- COLD. I packed good clothes for Heredia, capris and long shorts with short sleeved shirts. I was hot but comfortable. Here.. I have one outifit which will work. My ONE pair of jeans and my ONE long sleeved shirt. Which I’m lucky to have brought, it was like an afterthought when I had like an inch extra in my suitcase. Thank goodness. My mama-tica here (who is actually just 3 years older than me) sells clothes, so I was able to buy a light but warm jacket from her. But I am still cold. I need a thick hoodie or something but around here they don’t sell that stuff. Usually it is not this cold. This year is full of weather/nature anomalies. Like the earthquakes and crazy weather. I mean, 8 inches of snow in North Carolina? And now all these earthquakes.. its crazy. But back to me being cold :) . I find myself wishing for my big hoodies and huge comforter or heater. No heaters (or AC units) in Costa Rica. So now that I’ve thoroughly complained about the cold. I hate cold. Ok No mas.
So, this morning our group went to the Primary school here. Just a note, I’m having trouble writing this correctly. I’ve talked about my day so much in espanol that to write it here, it is coming out of my brain in Spanish first and then I think twice and reword it in English. It’s really annoying. But good I guess. So esta manana en la escuela primeria (just had to get that out there so it would shut up) This morning in the primary school we read our bilingual books and did a jelly bean science lesson with the older grades. It was fun and these students don’t get as much English as the other school we were with in Heredia. So it was interesting to see how excited they were to show what they did know in English and try to use what I was giving them.
 Yesterday in my Spanish classes I was placed in a class by myself. Which honestly made me feel like I was going to cry. Not sure why exactly because it’s a great opportunity to be one on one with a teacher, but I guess I was so comfortable with others in the class. And since I had just changed to a new home, with new people, a new climate, and a new area I didn’t know, with new guides, it was just one more change and I wasn’t sure I liked that. But yesterday went well and I appreciated the one on one attention. Guadalupe (my profesora) was able to see exactly what I needed and what I knew. It was very nice. Today David was added to my class. I think this helped me because it added to the discussion in the class. In fact at the end of class we ended up discussing and comparing university education in Costa Rica and the United States and even discussed some politics. It was good to have an extra person in the conversation.
We covered a lot of vocabulary and I know that is something I will be continually working on. I cannot recall how many times I have just stared at Karla and repeated a word in her sentence because I have no idea what it could possibly mean. I want to have the words to talk about things but I don’t yet. And that’s my own fault. CPI has given me the vocabulary book I just need to use my time wisely to study these words. It’s overwhelming to think about how many words we really need to discuss or compare or just to tell about something. I am often frustrated when I don’t know how to say what I want to say, but I am even more frustrated when I can’t understand what others are saying to me. The other day I didn’t understand what Karla said and I did the sign for repeat. Which of course she didn’t know and she just looked at me. So in all my frustration now I’m throwing sign language into the mix. Crazy. After returning to my home-stay this afternoon, I had dinner with Karla and Erick and now I’m in my room attempting to stay warm. Luckily my room is where they store the extra blankets so I’ll be able to snuggle up for the night.



Wednesday- May 26, 2010


This morning about 7am I felt another tiny earthquake. Last week that meant there was a bigger quake further west (that one was in the ocean to the west of Costa Rica). I wonder if that is the case today. Today we will be visiting Trapiche, a ‘typical’ farm nearby. I’m not sure what they mean by typical but I suppose I shall see. It rained again all last night, so it’ll be a muddy walk to the meeting point. I find it funny that we were all wishing for cool weather last week but now we get the extreme. Cold and wet. :( An adventure though, that’s for sure.


I like the house I’m living in now. Karla tries to talk to me a lot and slows down everything so I can understand. I liked it in Heredia because Cecelia used many hand gestures and Jaqui spoke English. But it’s a challenge here because neither Erick nor Carla speaks ANY English. For example, I could ask Cecelia: Ayer is yesterday, correct? And she would let me know if I was right. If I would ask Karla that she wouldn’t have an answer because she doesn’t know any English. So it’s more of a challenge for me to be here and be truly totally immersed. Here I am pushed more to really remember my vocabulary.


12:20pm (Wednesday May 26, 2010)


Just returned from the Trapiche Tour. It was a great tour, although we’re all soaking wet now. :) The Trapiche Farm is a local farm which produces sugar cane and coffee. We were able to walk around the farm and saw how they harvest and produce the coffee beans. It was a nice tour and I preferred it to our Café Britt tour because it was more personal and we could ask more questions. For Café Britt there were 40+ people in our group, for the Trapiche Farm it was just our group and Sonia, so 8 people in all. We learned so much about the plants and were shown other plants on their farm like banana plants, plantain plants, and a macadamia nut tree. At the end of our tour a few of us were given a ride in the traditional Costa Rican cart with Oxen (I was one of the ones to ride, along with Emily & Terri). We were able to see how they cooked the sugarcane and helped make our own candy with the sugar product. It was so neat and, as I said before, personal. The entire farm is run by a family. The son gave us the tour, the father and other son was cooking the sugar down and helped us with our candy and the mother made us lunch. It was so nice. I got a few bags of coffee to bring home. Now we are back at CPI for our Spanish classrooms. That’s all for now, I have some vocabulary to study!