Sports Day!!

Hi friends,

I know it's been a few days but there is a lot going on.  On Friday the school I was at had a sports Day.  The whole school was out for the day and the students got to participate in activities like soccer, bike races, and three legged soccer.  For three legged soccer they taped (yes they used tape) two legs from two students together (like a three legged race), then the children played soccer.  It was a lot of fun to see.  Also the English department sold snow cones to raise money.  The snow cones here are a lot different from snow cones in the US.  They start with shaved ice, then add powdered milk, syrup, and canned milk to the ice.  It is very delicious.
 


                                                          Making Snow Cones!

                                                       The teacher I worked with.  Her name is Susana.

                                                               Sack Race!

                                     The students had to kick a soccer ball through this little net from several feet away!

And finally the view from my Spanish Class.  And yes that is the Pacific Ocean!  My class was outside on a veranda.

Manuel Antonio/Quepos

Hi friends,

This week I'm Manuel Antonio/Quepos area.  The house I'm staying in is Quepos, but the school that I'm volunteering in and the Spanish Institute are in Manuel Antonio. The school is a public elementary school.  The weather here is supper hot and humid.  It is just before the rainy season here in Costa Rica and the humidity is almost unbearable.  However, it is also the flower and mango season here in Costa Rica!  I'm enjoying the mangos, which I eat for almost every breakfast.

Now to the fun part,. the pictures.


My room!  It's nice a spacious here.
                                   I live upstairs from my host family.  There are five rooms and this is the view from the stairs.  My room is the first door you come to.
 
 These are pictures of the classroom I'm volunteering in.  This classroom is the English class.  It's similar to our foreign language classes, except they don't have textbooks and have to copy everything from the board.

 
This is the view from the classroom.  You can see more of the school and the athletic fields.  The school is one story but there are several buildings spread out over a slight hill.

Coffee Plantation Tour

Hi friends,

Today was very busy.  We had a coffee plantation tour in the morning and hung out at a street market in downtown San Jose this afternoon.  There was a lot to see at the market, but I forgot to get pictures.  Fortunately for you I got a lot of them at the coffee plantation.  So here we go a look at the Cafe Britt Coffee Plantation!

  Map of Costa Rica coffee growing areas.  Coffee is usually grown in the central valley because it is cooler and there is more nutrients from the volcanic mineral deposits in the soil.  This helps the coffee grow and gives it a flavor that is unique to Costa Rica.
  This is the inside of a coffee seed.  This is what they roast to make coffee.


 After the seeds are planted and watered banana leaves are placed on top to help keep the moisture in so the seeds can grow.

 After the seeds sprout they are planted in plastic.  They take about a year to grow this way.

 As they get bigger they are planted with another seedling.


 When they get to this point they are planted in pot and they continue to grow for the rest of the year.


 Then when they get bigger they are planted in the field.  It still takes another 2 years for the plants to grow enough to make coffee beans, but the same plant can give you one harvest a year for 25 years!


 This is a cocoa tree.  Cocoa is where chocolate comes from.


 Alyssa trying out Coffee bean picker fashion.  The baskets hold several pounds of coffee beans but will only yield 3 pounds of coffee when processing has finished.

 These are what good coffee beans look like.  It's a little hard to tell but they are greenish in color.


 This is what not so good coffee beans look like.  They are brown in color.  The green coffee beans are used to make gourmet coffee and the brownish ones are used for instant coffee.

What I've been up to!

Hey friends,

So this week has been very busy so far and is flying by.  For the last few days I've been working at a daycare center in the morning from 9-12.  Then I have Spanish class from 2-4.  After my friends get done at 5 pm we usually go home because we are tired from our long day.  It's really fun but the kiddos are tiring.

As promised here are some pictures!

My Bedroom.  It's really small!

This tea is super delicious!

A part of a mural in my host mom's house.

The entrance to the daycare.  They are very picky about pictures so this is the best I could get.

A mango tree outside of my Spanish classroom.

Proof that there is a Scotiabank in Costa Rica!!

I'm here!!

So I don't have many pics yet and those will come tomorrow, but all of us got to Costa Rica safe and sound.  There are three of us which is a smaller than I thought but Emilee, Alyssa, and I are having fun so far.  We left MSP at 6:20 am and got to Costa Rica at 12:30 (and there are an hour behind us because they don't do daylight savings time).  Then we were picked up and meet some other people who are going through the same Spanish learning institute that we are.  There was a girl from Australia named Josie who came all by herself and a guy from Virginia named Nathan who also came by himself.  Then there were two girls from Norway (I can't remember or even pronounce their names) who had been down in Panama City doing some Spanish work and they took a bus up.

Then we meet our host mom.  She's really awesome!!  We did get to experience some culture already.  When they drive it's a little scary because they weave in and out and sometimes the car or bus in front of you stops in the middle of the road to pick people up or drop them off.  Also scooters just go in and out of traffic like crazy.  Pedestrians really have to watch where they are going or they will get hit by cars, because cars do not stop for them.

In all it's been a very long and interesting day.  It's also been very hot and I'm just stating to cool off at 5:45!