The group of local children we have been teaching this week at "English Camp."


Andres and all the girls. What a ladies man he is. :)

This is a mango tree! I had to retrieve our "snack" :) yummy!




Aurora and Vanessa :)

Bajos de San Luis (One of two schools in the San Luis Community)


Ashley teaching the children "food words" in English

Two little chickens sitting in a tree...


One of my FAVORITE meals. Plantains, café, and pinto.



The lasso rope that I won at a fundraiser for the local school. I placed a bet on a horse and it won :)

Homestay

My latest adventure in Costa Rica, has been living with a local family - and none of them speak English. I didn't think this would be much of a problem, until I arrived, and couldn't understand anything that was being said to me. I have a plethora of "Hispanic/Latin" friends, and I can usually understand them. But for some reason I am having a few difficulties communicating with my Costa Rican family. I'm learning A LOT. Including how to communicate with pointing and gestures when you don't know the word in Spanish.

Yesterday, (Sunday) I woke up to the smell of fried plantains in the kitchen. Delicioso! Or, muy rico (as my Mama Tica would say). My "Tico" (another word for Costa Rican) family grows coffee, corn, plantains, and lots of other things. They also make homemade soap, which is very popular among tourists. After breakfast, I made soap with Doña Margarita. It is a very precise process, the measurements have to be exact. When we began to heat the honey for the soap, we looked behind us and a SWARM of bees had entered the shed. Scary to say the least. Eventually they left and we finished the soap.

I've realized that you can be in a house full of people, but if you don't know what's being said, you still feel very isolated. I've worked with ESOL students at home, and loved every minute of it. Now I feel I can truly relate to what they go through. It's frustrating when you want to talk, but can't because of the language barrier. Usually when they talk to me, I just smile, nod, and say "Sí". This experience makes me extremely grateful for the incredible family that I have. Even though this is difficult, I'm glad to have the experience.

How to live well...

My main "academic" project for this program is to investigate one or more questions that I have about language and culture. I wanted to choose something I would be passionate about. One of my previous posts about "Finca La Bella" was about "living well" and what that means to different people. This will be part of my project. I want to find out why families choose to live in this rural community instead of moving to a larger city, where they could make more money. The following is my proposal for the project.

Inquiry Project Proposal:

In the San Luis community, most of the families are, in one way or another, involved in agriculture. San Luis is a rural community and an agrarian society. Many of the families grow some or most of their food. The agrarian lifestyle involves hard work, manual labor, and personal sacrifice. Given the right opportunity, a family could live in the city and have more money. Some would argue that having more money equates to a "better life". For the duration of my time in San Luis, I will be investigating the reason(s) why families choose to live in a rural community as opposed to a larger city which could have more economic opportunities. I will also be investigating how Costa Ricans, specificially the people in San Luis, define what it means to be successful.

Questions:
- Why do families choose to live in a rural community as opposed to a large city?
- To the people in San Luis, what does it mean to be successful?

Methods:
- Survey many people in the San Luis community, (men and women) ask them to answer and expand upon the following questions:
1. If you knew that you could make more money if you lived in the city, would you leave this area and move to the city? Why or why not?
2. In your opinion, what does it mean to be successful?

Note: I will need to translate these questions into Spanish. I will also need a Spanish-speaker to translate the answers. I want to fully understand the answers I am given.

Materials needed:
Time for interviews
Translator
Camera

Mi amiga Lorena

Part of the group in the FREEZING cold water

San Luis Waterfall

Hiking to the second largest waterfall in Costa Rica

Coffee beans in each stage- from the plant to the finished product

One of my favorite foods- arepas. A sweet bread that goes well with coffee.

This is a basket used to harvest coffee beans.

Another view from the farm. And that's sugar cane in my mouth...

Coffee plant at Finca La Bella