School - Day 2 - Animal Diversity

(From left to right) Aurora,
Kara, me, & Jenny

Today at the school was soo much fun!  I was with these two girls named Dayana and Melony.  They are seriously the sweetest!  They each picked an animal and I taught them how to say it and they wrote “Fish” on their paper and then Dayana looks at me and goes okay you’re turn!  Write it in Spanish!! I just thought that was adorable and really cool that they caught onto the activities we were doing.  And the games we did they caught onto what they would have to do to cheat… even though that’s something we don’t want to encourage it was cool that they understood how the games were played.  To be honest I enjoyed it more today because the kids acted towards me better and communicated.


Melony (right) and Dayana (left)

 After lunch we had class and I found out about my homestay!!  I’m soooo excited!  I move in with them on Friday which means I will have to pack up everything in my bungalow and put it in a storage area on campus and then bring a travel bag with clothes in it for the homestays… not looking forward to packing up!  I just gotta hope it’ll all fit!  But aside from the packing…. I’m really looking forward to staying with a Costa Rican family.  I think it will really help with my Spanish and my look on the culture here.  The family I am staying with is also in Finca la Bella.. - which let me clarify.  Finca la Bella is a farm which is really really big and people “rent out” the land.  They call it renting but they don’t actually pay a rental fee every month.  They mainly just pay to buy the land and then keep up with their plants.  -  But anyways their names are Alvaro Vega (father) and Elizabeth Mata (mother) and their two daughters Adriana (18) and Laura (7).  I’m excited to help out with the farm and everything and I’m really interested in helping out to cook a Costa Rican dinner and everything.  I think it would be really fun and maybe it could be a recipe to bring back home.  They also don’t speak much English that I know of.  Apparently the parents do but they are very shy about it. 

On a side note… you might be confused about why they don’t have the same last name even though they’re married.  Well…. They do names differently here.  The boys are the same where their names are their father’s last name.  But with girls, they take their father’s last name and their mother’s maiden name.  Meaning my name is Alexis Hodges, but if I was Costa Rican I would be Alexis Hodges Gross.  Gross is… unfortunately… my mother’s maiden name.  But that’s how the naming system works here.  And whatever your name is sticks with you all your life – even once you’re married. 

After class we had dinner and then I got to skype with Emily which was really nice because I feel like I haven’t talked to her in forever and I’m getting best friend withdrawal!! 

After skyping I played cards with the middle schoolers that are somewhat in my group and that was pretty fun because they are all so different!!  And they act so differently outside of the classroom of course!  They each have such different personalities… and yes I do realize I just wrote the word different in four consecutive sentences but oh well.  It’s really interesting to see how much they each have to say.. especially in the classroom.  Although they may not have as many experiences as us, it just goes to show that there are different cultures just in school.  For example, there’s the artsy group, the jock group, the cheerleaders, and so on, but if I went and talked how I usually interact with my friends with each one of these groups I would get a different reaction from all of them because everyone has their own way of using language.

Today in class we talked about how the use of language has changed over the years, for example, men are more known for cussing on a regular basis, yet when women cuss it is almost shocking because women are known to be more polite.  But nowadays, women are starting to talk more like men by saying “shit,” and “damn it,” etc.  But girls especially are starting to use words that are meant to hurt people as words to talk to their friends.  For example, instead of a girl saying, “hey girl,” they will say, “hey bitch” or “hey slut.”  And the thing is if you’re calling each other that then why can’t the guys around you call you that as well?  This is just another way that gender plays a role in the language that people use. 

Anyways… we have our last day with the kids tomorrow!! I’ll miss them for sure.  They’re sooo cute!! Good night everyone!

Que duerma con los angelitos.

   Sleep with the {little} angels.

School - Day 1 - Plant Diversity

  

Inside school

Outside school

We had our first day of teaching the kids yesterday!! It was sooo freaking adorable! I had this kid named David who could barely speak any English, just the colors and animals.  But that was actually totally fine with me because I could practice my Spanish with him!! We played BINGO, leaf crayon rubbings, and some games to get the kids to run around and have fun.  I’m putting up some pictures of the school and of me and David!!  He’s the cutest! He is 8 by the way.  But it was pretty awesome how well a lot of them could speak English and how much they knew about plants at such a young age since they have grown up in a jungle all their lives where everywhere you look there’s a new tree branch!  But here’s a picture of their gym and the view off the side! It’s sooo beautiful.  I would totally play soccer there.. and that’s a stretch because I don’t play soccer.

Inside gym

View from gym

Me and David

We got back and had lunch which was soooo good!! There was arroz con pollo which means “rice with chicken.”  Then we had class which was really interesting.  It was our first introduction to our Language, Gender, and Culture class.  It was really cool.  We compared all of the stereotypes of women and men and decided which were natural or constructed.  We’ll end up getting a lot more deeper into the conversations once the 8^th graders are gone!  I’m actually looking forward to them because they will get REALLY interesting.   

After we had dinner, we watched this movie called Nell.  It’s about this woman who used to live with her mother in the middle of a bunch of mountains and her mom is paralyzed in half of her face which made her speech off.  Therefore, after her mother passed away and the police and doctor’s found out that she had a daughter living there that they never knew existed they thought she was speaking a different language when all along it was just English with a weird accent because she was so used to hearing her mom.  So the whole movie is about her and whether she’ll be sent to a mental hospital or be treated like any other human being.  So it mainly taught us that you don’t judge a person because you can’t communicate with them.  Therefore their intelligence doesn’t change. 

Sorry I didn’t write all that much! I know a lot of y’all might have expected more!!

Santa Elena

Sorry I didn’t get to post last night! I got back to the bungalow at like 10 and was too tired to get out of my room and go sit in the freezing cold to get wi-fi…. By the way we don’t get it in our bungalow.  Which sometimes does suck but it also kind of makes it so that I’m not attached to the computer.  But anywayssss….

We went to Santa Elena yesterday which is about a 30 minute drive from the campus and it was EXTREMELY bumpy.  But we got there and basically did tourist shopping.   There was a restaurant that had a tree literally built inside of the restaurant and it was sooo cool!!  And then I tried this fruit that looks reallyyy weird and nothing that we would ever see but you bite into it and the inside of it is like a clearish egg.  I can't remember what it's called though.  I also saw the high school which is really interesting because it’s mostly an outdoor time thing.  Meaning that there aren’t any halls.  It’s basically a line of classrooms on one side and a line of classrooms on the other sideAnd it’s like a career high school.  But there are only 2 pathways.  One is tourism (like guides) and Aurora (my professor’s daughter) and Paula (my professor) never told me what the other pathway was but the school has paths so that they can practice tourism.  The school is the picture right under this.

We also went to the grocery store and I bought Costa Rican Cheetos!! They remind me of Angie and Victoria!! Miss you guys!! J But the small bags are called Twis Ters and the bigger bag is called Chirulitos.  Those are more like pretzels because they are harder than cheetos but they aren’t as spicy as hot cheetos.  I haven’t tried the Twis Ters yet tho.  I also got to try mora which is blackberry juice! It’s REALLY good!!

I also forgot to write this the other day but Paula was telling me that a lot people come here to study and end up falling in love with a Costa Rican.  It’s usually a well grown, professional woman and a Costa Rican man.  There was actually a girl that I met named Alexa (24… I think) who came here as a naturalist and was here for I think 2 months and fell in love with a taxi driver named Alex.  And now she lives here and they’re building a house.  She came here as a naturalist a year ago and Alex has 2 kids from a previous marriage.  So I thought that was interesting and Paula actually did almost the same thing.  She came here to teach for a year and then met her husband a month before she was supposed to leave and she ended up staying for 10 years and had Aurora.

My professor, Paula, actually reminds me of my Uncle Greg because she is so fascinated with all of these bugs and plants.  Literally every time we see a plant or bug anywhere she picks it up and explains the whole background.  She’s an amazing woman because she knows sooo many “factoids” or “side notes” as she calls them.  We actually went on a hike today because class ended early so we had free time and me, Lauren, Kara, and our professor all went.  It was sooo pretty!! We saw a female pack of coatis with juveniles which is apparently REALLY rare because the males are the travelers while the females are more of the family keepers and stay with the kids at the home.  Paula freaked out and was like “Oh my fucking God this is so rare! Sorry for the language but this is crazy.  I’ve only seen this twice in my life including this one.”  It was actually hilarious and really cool to see but it was only there for a short time because by the time we had our cameras out they had already left but Kara got a picture so whenever I get it I’ll put it up.  (And yes mom we have already decided we’re creating a snapfish account for all of our pictures!) We also saw an agouti which is like a huge guinea pig with longer legs in the front.  It’s known as “agouti with a booty” because obviously.. it has a large butt.  We also got some pretty pictures on the outlook areas on the trail where you could see off into the mountains and everything and it was truly beautiful.  Words and pictures and videos can’t even describe how beautiful this country is.

Later on in the night we had dance lessons with Giovoni and learned the Merengue, Colombian Country dance, and one other one but I can’t remember the word.  We had lessons because we’re going to a dance on Saturday! I’m sooo excited J But by the end of lessons Lauren and Aurora started doing karaoke and then everyone was up singing “Call me, maybe” and “Boyfriend.”  Which was hilarious because Isabel (one of the 8^th graders) could rap the whole song.

Well we have our first day of teaching today! So I’ll hopefully be posting later on tonight! Love you all.

Pura Vida

Finca de Bella

We went to Finca de Bella today which in English is the beautiful farm.  It was sooo pretty and everything there he made himself which, Dad, made me think of you and our old basement in Ohio.  I'll put up a picture of part of his outdoor patio but I also took a video but it's taking way too long to upload.  But it's definitely not all of it.  He said he's not done yet and adding on stone on the floor and everything.  He's had family parties and stuff there.  But anyways he's a 54 year old man who is AMAZINGLY in shape with tons and tons of medals from racing it's ridiculous.  And by amazingly I don't mean like dang that guys attractive but I mean like he's really in shape for a 54 year old.  He has 4 kids and one of them is in his 20's and lives in Boston with a wife, two kids and another on the way.  He gave us a tour of his portion of the farm which is HUGE! He said he keeps a mental note of everything there is growing and I can't imagine remembering all of that.  A lot of the things on his farm are coffee trees which are pretty cool.  He explained to us with all of the different stages the seed goes through with examples and everything.   

Here are some of the pictures of the coffee.  They both are actually coffee but the one on the right is a close up of the coffee bean before it looks like a coffee bean.

We also ended up walking there which was up this huge hill that was all gravel... I was dying by the time we got up there.  And when I say gravel I don't mean crumble like rocks... they're rocks that are like the size of your fist.  The guy from the farm, Hilber (if that's how you spell it), ran up to the highest point of Costa Rica and I can't imagine running on that gravel.

At lunch I had Starfruit juice! Which was really cool because I remember me and my sister begging my mom to buy us some from H-mart all the time.  It was actually really good too.  It's cool because every meal on campus has a different juice with it.  We've had orange juice, lime juice, passion fruit juice, and a lot more that I just can't remember right now.

It's crazy because everyday it's been raining but when you're out in the rain you can barely tell because the rain falls so lightly so you don't get drenched.  But it's sooo windy here that it almost sounds like there's a storm going on outside but in reality it's just the wind.  When we were in class today the ceiling is medal and started raining but it was actually a little harder than the past few days and we were literally screaming across the room having a discussion.

The girls in the picture are from my class.  The one on the left is Lauren and she's going to be a junior next year at UGA and the one on the right is in grad school and she's 24.  She's a pre-school teacher and her name is Kara.  She graduated from West Georgia but does grad school at UGA.

And I know my mom is probably disappointed to here this but I didn't end up milking the cows this morning at 6 AM... I woke up with a huge migraine so I slept a little longer but they go every week so I still have some more opportunities!! But I finally uploaded the pictures from yesterday so the one of the caterpillar and me holding the snake are up!

Night Hike

We had our first day of class today! It was actually really nice and we pretty much just carried on a conversation about culture and langauge for like 3 hours twice in one day... honestly I loved it because I love culture so much. We started planning our English camp plan and turns out there are only about 15 kids in the school, one classroom, and one teacher who is also the principal.  The kids are ranged from 4 to 15 and it goes from kindergarten up to 6th grade.  And a lot of kids don't go onto the other grades because the school is so far and they've grown up in this city.  Also everyone here is pretty much related.  Not by blood but mostly by marriage.  So they are living with their families all their lives and then they have to move that is at least an hour away to finish school and the school only has about 500 kids in it.  The elementary school already is about a 30 min walk and they have two of them that are located not far from each other but just so that people don't have to walk as far.  The other one has two classrooms, about 30 kids, and two teachers.  So basically double the other one. 

We also went on a night hike tonight and it actually pretty cool.  We saw some pretty nasty insects tho... not gonna lie.  We did see an eyelash pit viper which is a venimous snake and you would have to go to the hospital if you got bit.  Here's a picture of one.  I couldn't really get a great pic with my camera so I pulled one from the internet.  I also found this weird looking caterpillar.  I'll put up a picture once I upload all the pictures from my camera. 

ALSOOO... Mom you will be incredibly surprised about this one... I held a snake!!! AHHHH ... thankfully it was dead and it took me about 20 minutes to get up the courage to actually hold it but I finally did!! The picture is taking forever to load but trust me I have proof!!

I also posted a picture on Instagram earlier today of the view from the comedor (cafeteria) and it is gorgeous!!! And of course I can't post that picture right now either but I will eventually! 

Night!

First Day

I landed!!! I can't believe I'm finally here! So turns out I could have brought a bag on wheels... everyone else does and I am stuck carrying a 40 pound duffle bag.  But we had a 4 hour drive from the airport to the campus and it was sooo gorgeous! It's literally a country made on top of a bunch of mountains.  As tired as I was it was way too hard to fall asleep when all of that is around you.  But you are literally driving on a dirt road for about 40 miles at one point and if you look out the window it is extremely steep.

TREES TREES TREES!!! There are sooo many! And soo many different kinds it's crazy!! The whole drive here you're not driving up a mountain but literally between them.  When you look out the windows on both ways you can see soo many trees and mountains and it's all so gorgeous!!

We stopped for lunch at this place called el jardin and it was really good! The place was gorgeous too! They had a bunch of stuff written in the grass with all of the flowers and everything!  I had this vegetable called yuca and they apparently fry it or something and then mash it up.  It looked kind of like this but more circular.  I also had cow tongue... I didn't eat it for long because I just kept picturing a cow mooing at me and I felt bad but it tasted like meat just a little softer.  And then I also had this drink called guaranabana which is from some sort of fruit.  But so far it's awesome!! We have our first day of class tomorrow which should be fun.  There are 4 middle schoolers that also came down and they're doing the english camp with us and I think they're taking the classes with us too but they're only here for 2 weeks.  Okay well now I'm getting paranoid that bugs are on me.. so night everyone!

Packing

AHHH so I leave tomorrow and it's sooo stressful at my house right now with all of this packing! I have to bring one duffel bag with a weeks worth of clothes for the whole month i'm gone.  We do laundry every 7-8 days... I set up Skype on my phone so if anyone has Skype my name is Lexi.Hodges!! I can't believe I'll be there this time tomorrow!!