Hasta Luego!

Hi everyone! I can't believe how fast time is flying. I am leaving tomorrow morning for my concentration for 24 days! Like I explained before, I will be teaching English and living with another family. I will more than likely not be able to use the internet so I will not be updating for awhile. However, I will leave you with a few pictures of me and my host family here in San Jose. We took a lot of pictures today! Tonight I cooked dinner for my family: Millie's chicken and mashed potatoes! For dessert, a vanilla cake with chocolate icing and caramel ice cream! They seemed to really enjoy it. I did too because it was a little taste of HOME.

I hope you all are doing well. Thanks to those who are reading my blog. It really means a lot that you would take time out of your busy day to read about me.

I'll miss you, Mom, Dad, and Beau!

Talk to you in 24 days :)

The Next Step!

Today we had our orientation about the next step in our program. This step is called our concentrations. My concentration is called Latin American Studies Concentration and there are about twenty of us who are all spread out over Costa Rica doing some kind of work in a community and living with a different family. I leave on Monday, March 23 and I return to San Jose on Wednesday, April 15!

I will be living in a small town called Esquipulas which is about an hour bus ride from San Jose. I am living with a 53 year-old woman and her 43 year-old sister. My “mom” is apparently a very quiet woman who is really nice but hardly talks at all. My teachers told me that this is going to be an additional challenge in my trip. I will also be working at a school called, Escuela Julia Fernandez Rodriguez. At this school, I will work as an assistant to the English Professors. The children I will work with will be between ages 6 and 12. Apparently, the two teachers that I work with are wonderful women and will actually let me help (which is great I won’t just have to sit there for three weeks!). My house is right across the street from the school which works out great-no commute!

I am a little nervous as this part of the trip comes closer because I will most likely have no contact with any people from my group or my family at home! But, I also think that I am ready for a challenge such as this. I feel comfortable enough in my Spanish that I can navigate a new place. I also feel comfortable living with a new family, especially because I will be living with two women who I can’t wait to get to know!

I will update before I leave but please keep my entire group in your prayers as we all venture out into the unknown for 24 days!

A Much-Needed Rest: Spring Break!

After Nicaragua, we were given a short four day spring break: a time of relaxation and rest! For my spring break I decided to go to the beach with my friends.

I went with four other girls to a beach called Jaco. Everything worked out so well with the bus and our hostel. The bus ride was about two hours and after a little bit of wandering we found our hotel, Centro Vacacional Bancosta Playa Jaco. It was made up of little cabins with three pools! The best part was it was RIGHT on the beach. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday morning we went for walks on the beach, swam in the ocean and the pool, explored the town, and ate at some cool restaurants. The beach was absolutely beautiful. It is cool being at the beach and seeing the mountains at the same time. On Monday night, we found a huge log and sat on it and watched the sunset. It was beautiful!

The town itself was very touristy and it was weird to hear so much English. Almost all of the workers knew English but we were very proud of the Spanish we could speak so we wanted to speak in Spanish. Since the area was so full of tourists, we did a lot of shopping and I got some cool souvenirs for my family back in the U.S.

This trip was great and exactly what I needed before I begin the next part of the trip! However, it was weird for me to get back into what seemed like the American culture so fast after leaving Nicaragua. I spent the week in Nicaragua learning about a different way of life and I so easily go back into the culture that I feel most comfortable in. I hope and pray that I will be able take what I have learned and make actual changes in my life!

My Family in Nicaragua

Here is a video with my family members from Nicaragua! Sorry if you can't understand it but basically they are just explaining their names and how old they are!

Nicaragua

From March 2nd to March 13, I was in the beautiful country of Nicaragua. My trip was broken up into three parts so that is how I will explain it! So many things happened that I am having difficulty summarizing everything. Feel free to ask me questions for more information!

Managua:
On Monday March 2, 2009, I woke up at 4:45 am and made my way to the bus station. Our whole group took a tour bus, TransNica, together. We spent the entire day on the bus and we arrived 10 hours later around 5:00 p.m. in Managua, Nicaragua. Managua is the nation’s capital. The whole feel of Nicaragua is different than Costa Rica. Life seems more easy going and not as busy. The people are friendly and have a different accent (which was hard to understand at times). We spent Tuesday and Wednesday as what I call academic tourists. We heard from many speakers (three who went to Messiah, which was pretty cool!). We visited many of the important locations in Managua. Since I wrote my paper about the Revolution in Nicaragua, it was especially cool to see the places in real life! Overall, I really enjoyed Managua!

Home Stay:
Thursday morning marked my first day of the home stay. Most of the group traveled to communities way out in the country of Nicaragua, but I chose to go to a small town, called Masaya, with 7 others from my group. We had about a 45 minute bus ride to Masaya. We all met at a place called Alternativa, which is a micro-credit loan place that assists people in starting their own business because work is so incredibly hard to find in Nicaragua.
We met our families and off we went! My family was rather large, with a Dad (Flavio) and a Mom (Jacqueline). I had three brothers, Flavio (13), Marvin (10), and Henry (8) and a little sister, Jacqueline (3). What a crew! They were so great and I especially fell in love with Jacqueline. We must have colored every page of her coloring books together. She kept forgetting my name and so she would called me Gringa!
Anyway, my family owns their own shoe business. They hand make shoes for women and children. They make flats and high heels that are absolutely beautiful! There are about seven employees, all male! I worked Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, in the workshop. I did lots of different small jobs but mostly I used a lot of glue! It was really interesting and really difficult to work with someone in another language but it was especially difficult to work with all men. In Central America, the woman is sometimes looked down upon and only her physical characteristics are noticed. This was an interesting thing to look at and experience. I am not going to lie, I felt uncomfortable a lot of the time, but I think that I definitely learned a lot!
On Sunday, we went to this beautiful lookout point, called Catarina, where I saw a volcano and one of the lakes in Masaya. On Monday, we went and saw the other lake and the other volcano. Definitely breathtaking. I also learned how to cook los rosqillas, which are little tortilla type things. I rolled the dough and everything. I also got to go to preschool with Jacqueline. Wow, it was nuts! Twenty some three-year-olds with one teacher.
This experience was the most difficult yet most rewarding weeks of my life. I was out of my comfort zone the majority of the time but I learned so much about Nicaragua, the people and culture and even myself. I still have a lot of thoughts going on in my head and I am not quite sure what to do with all of this. I was really blessed with a fun family who loved to talk and ask me questions about life in the United States.

Granada:
On Wednesday morning, we said goodbye to our families and took a bus to Granada. I absolutely LOVED this city. It was really old with beautiful buildings and nice people. We stayed in a super nice hostel with a pool! We basically had two free days to do whatever we wanted. I explored the city and went shopping and ate at some cool restaurants. On Friday, we were on the bus to go back to Costa Rica by 7:00 a.m. and I arrived back at my Costa Rican house around 6:30 p.m! It was a long day and I was definitely really excited to see my Tican family!

Overall, this trip was wonderful. I learned so much that my mind is exhausted. I wish I was able to put into writing everything that happened but that is definitely impossible. It was weird being out of contact for almost two weeks so I am looking forward to getting back in touch!
I have Saturday to Tuesday as my Spring Break. I am planning on going to the beach with my friends on Sunday and I will return on Tuesday! Talk to you then!

Nicaragua

Well, Hello Again! This time I am writing to inform everyone about my trip to Nicaragua!

Here's the deal:
Who? The entire LASP group (yes all 47 of us will be traveling together!)
What? An awesome difficult, fun, cool, important learning experience in Nicaragua
Where? Managua, Masaya, and Granada, Nicaragua
When? Monday, March 2 through Friday, March 13, 2009
Why? To gain a new perspective of the Nicaraguan culture (there are lots more reasons!)

Here is an overview of my trip (at least what I think it going to happen)
The first three days we will be staying in Managua, which is the capital of Nicaragua. There we will be what I call, "academic tourists". We will be interviewing people, hearing from guest speakers, and visiting many important places. The next six days we will be living with Host Families. LASP is all spread out in the rural areas of Nicaragua. I think I will be living in a small town. I don't know much about this part! After the home stay we will be staying in Granada for two days. After that we will be heading home!

So, I don't really know much about this trip but I do know that it will be a challenge that I am excited and ready for. I am little bit nervous with the uncertainty but I think that I need to be shaken up a little bit and I think this trip will do just that!

I know that I will not be able to use a computer at all therefore I will not be able to update until I get home! I hope you all have a great couple of weeks and don't worry, I will update when I get home!