¡Pura Vida! – A Semester Abroad in Costa Rica

So, here’s the deal: I have experienced the very unfortunate mini-crisis that is having your laptop break in the middle of a foreign country. With that said, I haven’t been able to use this blog as much as I want to! The issue is not yet diagnosed and hopefully I will be able to recover my files. Until then, I will be trying to catch up here with whatever pictures I can salvage through a laptop ACM is letting me borrow.

Onto the happier subjects that are coffee and dogs, which both fit somewhere into… at least my top 20 favorite things of all time.

The other weekend was so packed with activities that I forget to recall the memory of that time span as just a weekend. On Friday morning, the 14 of us and a couple of our program coordinators from ACM took a bus to from San José to Monteverde. Our first stop was Life Monteverde, an association that specializes in educating people about sustainability and nature conservation. We took a tour of the enormous farm, played games that taught us about sustainability in our own day-to-day activities, and even planted our own trees!

While of course their dedication to the practice of sustainability is incredibly important and admirable, my favorite part of the tour started when we reached all of the coffee plants.

COFFEE!

The coffee tour included a beautiful walk through the acres and acres of coffee plants and learning about all of the different stages of coffee farming and processing, including its environmentally friendly agricultural practices. We by some luck reached the coffee lab and roastery building as soon as the daily rain started pouring. We were able to watch how the different types of coffee beans are processed and take part in a much-needed “coffee taste” of some of the absolute best coffee you could ever taste in the world. I was definitely a little overcaffeinated after the whole ordeal because I couldn’t help but keep refilling my mini mug with more.

Like wine tasting, but arguably better.

We spent the majority of the next day hiking through La Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde, one of the more popular cloud forest reserves in Monteverde, Costa Rica, and the whole world! The reserve, which is known for its extremely high biodiversity, was absolutely gorgeous. Also, walking through a cloud pretty much never gets old. Pretty magical stuff.

Later in the day, some of us decided to get reaaal tourist-y and tried out a canopy tour which consisted of several ziplines, free falls, and a “tarzan swing.” It was absolutely terrifying in the best way possible. Would definitely recommend it to any adrenaline junkies wanting to fly mile-long ziplines over 200 feet above the trees superman-style.

Attempting to hide pre-zipline nerves.

On one of the “warmup” lines

My month-long community practicum is actually in Monteverde as well, so I will be sure to make a post about that when I complete it!

We returned to San José that evening, but I already had plans to wake up bright and early the next morning on Sunday with two of my friends. We traveled a little under 2 hours to the mountains of Santa Bárbara to visit the place I had been dying to go to since well before even stepping foot in Costa Rica: Territorio de Zaguates, or “Land of the Strays.” What kind of strays, you might ask? OK, you probably aren’t asking because it’s straight up in the blog title, but DOGS. So. Many. Dogs.

My friends and I were first at the gate where already a couple dozen canine cuties came to greet us. Once it opened, we hiked through the hills for hours with swarms of pups following. Over 900 dogs inhabit the volunteer-run, free-range stray dog sanctuary. Believe it or not, every single dog has its own nickname. Also, all of them are available for adoption… and of course I wanted to adopt them all!

I was absolutely exhausted when I got home Sunday evening, but ready for class the next morning. Time here has been flying by, so I’ll never complain about a jam-packed weekend!

Word of the day: Tuanis

Basically Costa Rican slang for “cool” or “awesome.”

“Qué tuanis su carro!”

Fun fact of the day:

The roads in Monteverde are supposedly the most challenging in the country… and all the roads here seem to be PRETTY challenging. I may or may not prepare myself for the end every time I enter a vehicle here. No wonder it’s grounds for expulsion from the program if any of us are caught operating a motor vehicle!

September 29, 2016

¡Día de la Independencia!

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On September 15, Costa Rica celebrated 195 years of independence and the fourteen of us had the pleasure of engaging in the festivities surrounding it for our first year.

El Día de la Independencia commemorates Central America’s independence from Spain in 1821. Though only the 15th of the month is marked as an official holiday, the country generally celebrates the day before as well as the day of, and we at ACM got to celebrate all week!

During the beginning of the week, we learned about the history of Costa Rica’s independence and crafted our own faroles. Faroles are colorful lanterns that are made in remembrance of Dolores Bedoya, a woman who carried a lantern in the middle of the night rallying for independence.

The next day, much to our delight, our talented building attendant and cooking instructor, Iveth, cooked up an entire buffet of traditional, typical Costa Rican foods that are commonly served during the holiday.

Some of the traditional foods and beverages that we enjoyed included arroz con pollo, fried yuca, pan tres leches, chorreador–made coffee, fresco de piña, and horchata.

To continue the celebration, we had an instructor come to the ACM center to teach us traditional dances. We knew that this class was going to be 2 hours long, but none of us knew exactly what we were in for… it was a very intense couple hours! Even through tripping on our own feet, we were able to pick up some Costa Rican folk moves.

Libby and I posing with the true superstar, our professor Mario in his spectacularly yellow get-up.

Libby and I posing with the true superstar of the day, our professor Mario in his spectacularly…yellow get-up.

The next evening after classes, my host mamá, Zelmira, took me to one of the local schools in our neighborhood to experience the tradition of los desfiles de faroles, or lantern parades. A symbolic torch of independence is carried by runners throughout the different schools and plazas where people gather together for the event. While the main torch comes to light up a specific location, everyone cheerfully sings the national anthem. School bands played triumphantly and kids walked around proudly showing off the faroles they worked so hard on. We watched judges give out prizes to children competing for the best faroles, followed by a loud and lively parade of school children performing down the darkened streets.

During the actual day marked as el Día de la Independencía de Costa Rica, everyone in the country generally gets a day off of work and school! Festivities from the evening before were carried into the morning and afternoon with parades in various neighborhoods in San José. The streets were filled with the colors of Costa Rica’s flag (blue, white and red), dancers in traditional dress, school bands, and color guards. Experiencing the independence day of another country was a wonderful experience and seeing how proud ticos are of Costa Rica was nothing short of heartwarming.

Word of the day: Mae

The Costa Rican equivalent of “dude”

“¡Pura vida, mae!”

Fun fact of the day:

Costa Rican Spanish is very polite and generally pretty formal. For anyone who knows a little Spanish, one thing I find pretty funny is that my family even speaks to their chihuahua using “usted” as the go-to second person pronoun.

September 13, 2016

Primeras Impresiones

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After a few weeks in Costa Rica, I feel like I am finally somewhat getting into the swing of things. The combination of a new country, new surroundings, new school, new professors, new family, new friends, new foods, and around the clock Spanish speaking has been simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting. After a short weekend of getting to know one another and playing fútbol in the enormous and lively Parque La Sabana, each of us fourteen students were placed in varying neighborhoods in the capital of Costa Rica, San José, with our familias anfitrionas, or host families. I live in a neighborhood named Guadalupe with an extremely welcoming host mother, father, brother, and sister-in-law.

All of the students with their host mothers

Zelmira, mi mamá tica* and me

The place I get to call home this semester is charming and cozy, yet unlike any other house I have seen. It almost does not appear to be a house from the outside and has features typically not found in many homes in the United States. My favorite of these features are the indoor plants that adorn the walls of the dining room.

“El patio” and my bedroom

…and of course I can’t forget to include all my new, silly tico pets!

One other thing I have had to begin getting used to is waking up early and commuting a long way to school. Throughout my entire career at Monmouth College, I have purposefully tried to select my class schedules so that they begin at or after 11 a.m. Also, classes are never more than a five minute walk on our tiny campus and most of the time, I have chosen sleeping more over waking up for breakfast. Here, my classes begin at 8 a.m., my commute is about an hour long by both bus and walking, and my host mother insists on making me a large breakfast every day. This means I need to be up by 6 a.m. The first few days, Zelmira walked me through how to get from the house to school. I take a bus, walk the city streets, then go through the beautiful University of Costa Rica campus before arriving at the ACM (Associated Colleges of the Midwest) building. There are practically no street signs here and jaywalking is the norm (and most often the easier way to cross the street), so I thought that I would never learn how to navigate the route by myself. I am admittedly horrible with directions, so the first time I got to school and back home by myself successfully, I was SUPER proud of myself.

You know when people say, “back in my day, we walked to school uphill both ways?” That is actually my reality this semester.

A couple small pieces of the University of Costa Rica campus I get to walk through ~~and pretend I’m a student in~~.

Not to mention, I am in love with the ACM building where the fourteen of us have our classes every weekday. It is our quiet, little sanctuary in the middle of the bustling San José province. Even when I’ve had a rough walk some mornings, I feel a wave of relief upon entering the building and out to its amazing backyard.

Not a bad view from right outside a classroom!

The main classroom itself.

Even through all the adjustments, the long walks, long days, language barriers, and cultural hiccups, es totalmente vale la pena (it’s totally worth it!) I feel so lucky and thrilled to be able to live through this experience and I cannot wait to see what this semester brings me both personally and educationally.

*Word of the day: Tico/a:

of, relating to, or characteristic of Costa Rica or its inhabitants [x]

Phrase of the day: “Panza llena, corazón contento.”

“Full belly, content heart.” My host father (¡mi papá tico!) has had me repeat this phrase just about every other meal we have eaten together! I am always full, thanks to my host family’s amazing cooking, and being in Costa Rica these last few weeks has made my heart not only content, but just as full as my belly.

¡Qué rico!