Hi everyone! It has been awhile since I have written! I am doing very well. I have been in my new house for over two weeks and I have less than a week! Wow, time sure flies. Three weeks and I am home!
Well, my new house is located just about an hour away from San Jose in a place called Esquipulas, Palmares. Palmares is a small city with grocery stores, a market, and a nice park with a beautiful Catholic Church. I live in Esquipulas which is a small town surrounding Palmares. There are small stores all around but for the most part Esquipulas is quieter than Palmares and MUCH quieter than San Jose but it isn’t rural either!
ANYWAY, my house is located right across the street from where I work. I work everyday in a primary school called, Escuela Julia Fernandez Rodriguez. There are lots of kids from kindergarten to sixth grade. There are a group of thirty-some teachers and I work with three of them. Mainly, I work with three women, Julia, Cindy, and Andrea. My day normally starts out with Julia at 8:30. She works with first through third graders. I am with her for three or four lessons. I don’t really do as much with the younger kids because they don’t know as much English so our communication is very limited. Then, everyday from 10:00-11:00, I am with Andrea in the kindergarten classrooms. There are two classes: one class is a delight the other is horrible. Andrea and I both leave there shaking our heads because the kids are wild! We sing fun songs together and the kids are so cute! Funny story: One day we were learning the words, “boys” and “girls” and one little boy said he knew the word girl from the song, “I’m a Barbie Girl” and he started singing it. Don’t ask me how a little boy who speaks hardly any English knows that song! It was hilarious! Anyway, from 11:00-12:25, I have a lunch break. I come back to the house and eat lunch and relax. I go back to school to work with Cindy for the afternoon, usually at about 12:25. She teaches fourth through sixth graders. These classes are more fun because I can actually participate. There are some interesting students but overall, the students are eager to learn and are excited that I am there. Although lots of students don’t understand why I don’t have blonde hair and blue eyes if I am from the United States? It’s really funny!
At night, I don’t really do much. I normally am here with my family just relaxing. I live with three women. I basically have two “moms”. Elisa is technically my host mom. She is super quiet but, really nice. Betty is her sister. She is really nice and although she is still quiet, she talks a little bit more! Magally is Betty’s daughter and she is 22. She takes me out and I have met some of her friends!
Life here is really chill. This whole week, I was off of school because it is Semana Santa, or Holy Week. The majority of the people in Costa Rica are Catholic so this week is really important. There are celebrations everyday. My family is Catholic and I even went to mass last Sunday. I was pretty lost but it was still cool to see a different way to worship God. I have also gone to “prayers” with my family which are AWESOME. Last Saturday night, I went to one with Magally just for young people and I understood the majority of it.
Four Cool Things I have gotten to do:
1) Two weekends ago, I went to a volcano! Volcan Arenal! It was beautiful and everyone said that I was so lucky because I got to actually see the volcano because usually it is really cloudy around it. I have so many beautiful pictures of it! While I was there, I got to swim in a hot spring! It is so weird that the water was warm and in some parts hot! I felt like I was taking a bath.
2) Last Sunday, I went with some family to Naranjo, a neighboring city/town. It was completely overwhelming with lots of family members but, we got to do something really cool! We went for a “hike” basically up this mountain to a tomato farm. We picked tomatoes and I was basically covered in dirt from head to toe! It felt great to do some exercise and it was fun to climb a mountain only to find lots of tomatoes at the top! I told my family all about how we have places like this only for apples. They thought that was really cool!
3) One night last week, I went to Cindy’s (the teacher who I work with) house In San Ramon. She lives with her husband, Gustavo in this brand new house! It is beautiful. Cindy took me to Puntarenas, which is a beach with some of her teacher friends. This beach was a little bit different than the beach I went to with my friends for Spring Break. It was more developed and definitely not as pretty. We were only there for a short time and we didn’t sit on the beach BUT, we got to see the soccer team of Puntarenas (I think) work out on the beach. They are basically like a professional soccer team and it was really cool. It was super hot too; I don’t know how they were surviving!
4) I have gotten to cook a lot too! My host “moms” are very good cooks and they make empanadas and tamales to sell to people. Making each of them is an all day process that I have loved learning about. Don’t worry I have lots of pictures!
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