Saving the Scarlet MaCaw

I wanted to write real quick about my adventures on Thursday before I headed off for the weekend. This will be brief but hopefully I can add more detail later...

We got to play with the students again Volleyball although not my strong suit I think I was able to teach them something. I also taugt them nucomb, they would get demolished by the CRCG kids but they caught on. The teacher also loved it he played volleyball in college and didn´t want to give the kids a turn.


I also went to a sanctuary where they are rehabilitating foriegn and local animals. This was amazing it was like a zoo on steroids, most of the animals were rescued from homeswhere they were being mistreated.

They were also helping in rebuilding the Scarlet and Great Green Macaw population a.k.a. ther were like 30 some Macaws just swooping over our heads, one nibbled on my shoe. They were real strict about not interacting with the animals in order t not domesticate them but that just made it that much more amazing.

I have to run though to go catch the ferry to the Nicoya, for real how do I do school.

Tico Time

I missed my chance to go to visit the local private school again because my Cinema class ran long. But pura vida. I am really enjoying my cinema class, it is not very hard in the sense that my teacher doesn't really grade on Spanish grammar but it is a great refresher for remembering Spanish.

So I am enjoying it because I am learning a lot about movie style and cinematography as well as about the history and culture of Central America. My teacher is a riot too, he calls me Booov and when I told him the correct pronunciation he said booby and well it went down hill from there. We were laughing like middle schoolers. So far my recommendation is to watch City of God, good flick not for kids. The report writing is going well but I am procrastinating right now by blogging. 

We hung out with our Tico partners, local university students who want American exposure, and cleaned the beach. I used a lot of Spanish my partner Dunkan is very helpful. We then played a pretty horrific game of Volleyball but we all had fun. We finished with swimming in the ocean and FOOD!

So Tico Time= the flexibilty of people here to be late for whatever, or for class to run long, or for the bus not to come, or the food not to be ready. 

My own little Triathlon

Austin cracked after one day. He passed his hand over his face like a curtain and says I can't do it anymore my head hurts! We guilt-ed him a little it was his idea after all but we let him off the hook. In reality the whole group is just speaking more Spanish now it is fun, I am learning a lot more.

I am starting to catch on in my dancing class. Sophie and I have decided to be partners every week to improve are schools and I know lots of tricks now. The hardest part is I am the guy and she struggles being a "girl" she is always trying to lead our teacher just laughs and whenever he watches we mess up. He probably thinks we have two left feet. Dancing with him is really fun though! He is so good you don't even have to think he just twirls you all around.

After I went for a swim in the ocean... like a swim swim, lap swim. Probably not the best idea I have ever had but it felt good afterward. It was dark and I kept hitting things in the water. When I first started I was like woah I feel good, then I thought maybe it is cause this is saltwater and then 2 minutes later I switched to side stroke. I'll keep practicing, I read a book on how to swim in Wisconsin. :)

The USAC students also played Soccer the field was indoors and super small. I held my own most of the time, I had a few swings and a miss. I scored a goal! and ending up being on the winning team. Thats all that matters right? ;)

Afterwards I watched the NBA game with my hermano, that was good Spanish practice too we talked about sports and school. We did however come to a few bad conclusions= He doesn't like Futbol Americano and well I was breed to. He hates the Lakers, My favorite team is the Lakers! I hate the spurs, His favorite team is the Spurs! We agreed to disagree and it helped that we are both cheering for Miami now. I told him lots of people in American don't like Lebron James and he just said but he is really good at basketball.

Hablo solamente en Espanol

So a few weeks back Annemarie talked about the idea of only speaking Spanish second session like the last 5 weeks of us being in Costa Rica. We told Austin about it this weekend and he had the great idea to start NOW because he won't be here second session, and well so far so good... pretty much I just don't talk unless I have too, comedic comments no longer exist.

The hardest part time to speak only Spanish is when I am with other USAC students that haven't made the promise and are a lot newer to Spanish for example at Day Care yesterday Cristin had no translator. Regardless we had a great time again.

She keeps playing hard to get. And her Mom stopped by to breast feed...we didn't know what to do.

It had been raining all day and in the right corner here the roof was leaking like non other. The floor was very slippery and the kids kept falling, they were surprisingly tough.

The paintings on the walls were done by a former USAC student that also volunteered here.

We have to do a report on this volunteer project for our Ecotourism class we think we are going to contrast it with day care in the United States, it is a lot different than Jane's House. As well as talk about how the kids benefit from the experience. Another interesting fact it only costs $6 a day!! I think my parents used to pay us more than that to watch ourselves.

Last comment- I saw two jelly fish like swimming in the Ocean this morning and got like 6 feet away from a pelican!

There really is a first time for everything!

Today I learned that there really is a first time for everything. I ordered ice cream, didn’t like it and DIDN’T finish it! Now the background on the situation is that another student at USAC and her father told us that Churchill was like the official ice cream drink of Puntarenas and we needed to try one. So the weekend unfolds…

We leave Friday for Manuel Antonio a National Park in Costa Rica that is known for its beaches and animal spotting. One student Will had visited this area before and tells us that we should probably by our tickets before to ensure we get a seat. So after class Austin and I walk to the bus stop and by tickets we then attempt to ask how many seats are left and it turns into the very common gringo game of “si, si, si” to every sentence. We walk away with 2 tickets so all is well.

Side story- Austin is the only student that lives relatively close to my house so we walk home together often. He is also afraid of pretty much all wildlife. So far an iguana fell off a roof and almost hit him and a pit bull jumped through a fence to try to bite him so now we walk in the middle of the street. Friday a pigeon landed on his head. I laughed so hard and then told him to buy a lottery ticket.

We return to the bus station only to find out that of the 24 USAC students 21 decided to join and only 10 have tickets… bum bum bummmm. The driver says the other can wait and pay for standing room we decide this is good enough and we can take turns sitting so we board. There are however people in Austin and I seats…we are so confused and the Tico’s look annoyed. After much discussion and intervention from the ticket seller it turns out we bought tickets for the 12:30 bus instead of 2:30. Stupid Americans haha. So we fill up the aisle for the three hour tour (I wish that was a joke).

It ended up being a great ride we all practiced our Spanish and as the riders thinned out eventually got a seat. We also met the owner of a nice hostel right next to the national park with a POOL. He helped us all transfer busses and pointed out our stop. He then started to lead us down a dark dirt road… at this point we were all hungry and ready to sit down that any thought of should we really just follow a stranger never crossed our mind. And it indeed did turn out we all got a bed and walked to the nearest restaurant to eat. The only struggles were that we no longer had a teacher to tell us when and where to go, nobody wanted to be that student and when somebody was that student it was under much scrutiny but we were all fed and had a goodnights sleep for the low low price of $11.50.

I set my alarm for 6:30 a.m. so I could be at the park when it opened. About half the group made it up and only one girl wasn’t woken by anybody… she must have been a really hard sleeper. I was attacked at the gate by a nice gentlemen that was suggesting how great a tour was and you know how I am I couldn’t say no… so I turned to my friends to say no and well they said YES! But it was the best thing that happened the whole weekend.

This guy was amazing he had a giant telescope and just kept saying I want to show you something. He would then set it up and bam he would have a sloth, monkey, iguana, a bug, a frog’s nest or something else super amazing in focus. He brought us to the most beautiful beach ever where I swam to the breakers and looked at the huge open sea. By the end we couldn’t believe that we had accomplished all that by 10:30 and were singing Williams praises. We kept asking him how he knew where to look but he would only start on a story that detailed how he has worked in the park for 17 years, I think that is the only English explanation he knew. Haha.

I have a ton more pictures that I will load on Facebook!

We then went right for food a nice little shack on the beach with cheap breakfast all day. (but no Churchills).

We decided to spend the afternoon in Quepos and head to Jaco at night. The beach was nice and Austin and I rented boogie boards, turns out there is actually a right way to boogie board…who knew. Our beach time was cut short by the rain L so we headed to Jaco early, about 1.5 hours by bus. At the bus stop I ate a mango like an orange it was great.

We got to Jaco and part or our group found a hostel while the rest explored the beach it was still raining and no weather for Ice Cream. Myself, Annemarie and Amanda decided to return because there plan was to get up and leave early. Annemarie is the most frugal college student I have ever met and did not want to spend $10 for another night out and I didn’t want to spend the sunny afternoon on a bus so it was perfect. Later when Annemarie to tell me the cheapest pharmacy in Puntarenas to buy Neosporin I asked if she was Dutch, she is not but definitely could be.  

We all ate dinner at a Taco bar with swings! It was delicious and all you could eat. I could tell however that we were no longer in “Costa Rica” they didn’t have corn shells L. Jaco was a giant surf town with people of all nationalities, the building style was the same but you could tell there was more money in town. It is a tourist trap straight up. I was glad to catch the last bus back to Puntarenas.

Back in Puntarenas Sunday was full of adventure. It started with a triathlon! Puntarenas hosted a triathlon on the point and the point only! This meant that for the Olympic race you have to do the same circuit 14 times, that would be tough. I enjoyed watching it while I ran on the bike path but I got a lot of joking encouragement to run faster. They were kicking my butts. They even had an 11, 12 and 13 year old division this triathlon was legit.

I watched watermark! The camera work is getting better, which unfortunately means I don’t get to see your darling little heads any more. L. I studied some Spanish and went to the beach late morning.

You could tell it was the weekend we got approached by everyone and his neighbor to buy something. One man even serenaded us for tips and renamed me Shakira, unfortunately or maybe fortunately none of us had any money on us. After lunch with our families we decided to go shopping.

It was an extremely unsuccessful but fun afternoon. Amanda wanted to get her hair braided. She has about 3 feet of hair and he did braid it but started about two inches down her hair and braided to inches past and tied a clump of shell on the end. It was like he created a whip. We laughed it off. All the stores were closed in town because it was Sunday so no Neosporin, Amanda gave up on finding peanut butter and all the clothes were too expensive for Annemarie. Her clothes don’t dry fast enough to have clean things to wear.

We decided to focus solely on getting a Churchill we would accomplish something. We checked all the prices at every ice cream shop to find the best deal (Thanks Annemarie!)  And the three of us ordered two to split. We under the impression a Churchill is ice cream with fruit but when they arrive it is a scoop of ice cream a ban of red, white and then red again. I am thinking its ice cream it’s still good.

They give you a dish of sweet and condensed milk to pour on top and from what we can tell the ice cream is rum raisin. Weird but still tolerably interesting. The first red band is slushie. We are eating and having fun trying to figure out the whole sweet and condensed milk part when Annemarie says “I found the dry part.” I am very confused, dry?, like you sucked all the flavor out of the slushie? But no sure enough the second white ban is not ice cream but powdered milk… At this point we mostly just got lost it and started laughing. 

We try to figure out what to do next, but just laugh we don’t want to offend the owner so we take it to go with plans to drop it in the nearest trashcan. Annemarie keeps eating her frugal nature must enjoy it, and of course at this point it is pouring rain. And that was it I threw away my ice cream actually I guess technically I did eat all the ice cream but we run to the next closest ice cream shop order fruit with ice cream and study Spanish till dinner.

Something else I learned at Dinner, the Chalupas in Costa Rica don’t look like taco bells. J

Soccer and Squatters

So this morning my padre is cleaning the sewer type system under our house…this means no water, then the power went out my madre was laughing and laughing because we couldn’t do anything. I think my classmates might be upset with the no shower part haha.

So Yesterday after my morning class a group of us went to the local private school and played soccer with the 4^th graders. We played a game of world cup where you have a partner and the two of you need to score a goal. The boys were really good at soccer and the girls tried hard… but eventually it became time for eliminations and the girls were dropping like flies (which included me and my partner Carolina). I then attempted to start a game of monkey(mono) in the middle and was actually successful! It turns out jumping up and down and making monkey sounds is universal the kids loved it. They were all laughing and running and I felt like I was at camp again.

Then we played a little scrimmage it was Gringo girls and Tico (Costa Rican) boys versus Gringo Boys and Tico girls. We made cheers and attacked the kids with joy when they scored. I soon got distracted though and was just talking to the girls about their siblings and school. Ya know telling them things like Science is the best.

After the clinic we went on a boat tour. Visual aid my teacher and very knowledgeable Tico set this up with two local fisherman so it is the 20 of us in two little dingy boats. We talked a lot about an upcoming resort development that poses quite a threat to the environment and infrastructure of Puntarenas but will also bring in a ton of capital. Unfortuately it may be creating local jobs but most likely all the capital will leak back to developed countries like America because the project is funded internationally. Coldwell Banker is a huge backer.

Also we learned about the fishing ban they have in Costa Rica for June, July, and October. This is spawning season so they say no fishing. This puts thousands of Ticos out of jobs, including those that gave us the boat tour. The Government attempts to compensate them but only gives them roughly $100 dollars a month, now food is cheaper here but for a family of probably 5 or 6 that is only enough money to maybe eat beans twice a day. The government is attempting to go green and protect the environment but is prioritizing against peoples way of life. These men have fished all their life they don’t know how to do anything else… The system makes sense but the execution doesn’t work.

The last part of our boat tour we went to a squatter community. A group of people who just went to live on a coastal island because they had no land or money to buy part of the main land. These people are then termed squatters and after living on a piece of unowned property for an extended period of time it becomes yours. I learned about squatters when I read the Grapes of Wrath in 10th grade. At that time Mr. Christian said that in America you have to squat for 8 years. Not sure if that is a verb...haha.

Here they life in shacks constructed from sheet metal and whatever washes up from the ocean. Their floors are dirt and they are a 20 minute boat ride from civilization.And currently they are all out of work for the next two months. It was like being in a tribal community in Africa so far away from the structure right across the ocean it was wild.  I guess most Costa Ricans don’t even know they are there. Another student Erica took pictures of both activities and will share them soon.

And now my house! From visiting other students’ houses mine is older and smaller but from walking by other houses mine looks great!

My room. My madre cleans it and washes the bed three times a week. I told her last semester I washed my bed once and she thought I was crazy.

This is like the front porch/garage they pull the car in every night. My family is more relaxed and there is this gate and front door that they only lock at night. Some families lock three things all day long.

This is like a shot from the front door the living room, dining room and my madre in the kitchen at the back. Our rooms are off to the left. My brother is using the computer on the right.

The porch in the back. This is actually outside under a lean too type thing. You can see the start of the clothes lines that fill the backyard.

And my madre with an avocado you eat them green here. She made sure I took a picture of that.

And last but not least the bathroom. So the first week I was here I had no clue you weren't supposed to flush the toilet paper. When I found out I tried real hard to stop but it is just habit, I am getting better but oh man was I nervous when they said they had to clean it this morning I thought maybe I broke it! My house is further from school than most but still only a 10-15 minute walk. I love my familia and I am pretty sure I eat the best food :)

Starting Week 2

This week is a busy one! Monday I volunteered at a daycare, today I am going to a school, we are meeting our conversation partners at a local university, Thursday we are holding a soccer clinic for a private school gym class and going on a boat tour of the endangered mangroves, and Friday the weekend starts! And probably holds another adventure to a new place. We are also starting activities at night like soccer, volleyball, and a local aerobics class. I don’t know how they expect me to do school…

I had a great time at the daycare, there was only 3 little girls and they were very shy at first but by the end we were dancing and playing hide and go seek (Escondidas). The oldest little girl was 6 and she was quite impressive with all the English she knew. Body parts, colors, numbers. After everything I said though she would say Que? I think it is harder for her to interpret my bad pronunciation, but we got through it.

Visiting with the lady who runs this daycare at her home was fun to. She doesn’t have as much interactions with Americans so was very interested in discussing the differences of food and costumes. I also found out that all the public schools are off of school this week for the census! I was kinda bummed that USAC didn’t apply for that.

I was going to take pictures of my house today but my mom said it was too dirty and I have to wait to later…haha.