What a full first day! We are all doing well. By course standards we are right on schedule with all the spurts and starts and attention to multiple details that are demanded in orienting a group to a new place. We all made it through our first night with our homestays, getting our tongues wrapped around speaking Spanish and brains shifting into gear. Orange groves and a magnificent tree draped with epiphytes became the backdrop for our orientation to Atesa Spanish School. Believe it or not, we all arrived in perfect time to the school from our various homestays, some students met up in the center of town to take a taxi and others who live closer to the school walked along the main road in Sabana Larga. Mercedes, the director of the school, greeted us warmly and we gathered to share stories of our first night. We exchanged details of our new families and celebrated small victories of communication, like ¨having only one¨tu¨ mistake,¨as one student shared, that is, he only forgot once to use the¨usted¨ formal manner in Spanish of addressing his family instead of the informal expression¨tu¨- (He has a better record than me, I think I slipped ¨tu¨ in a couple times). Luckily our families seem very forgiving, generous and muy cariñoso (very loving).
(And since I am taking the liberty of writing about my impression of our experiences, you may notice I am not using names to protect the privacy of those who may not wish personal details posted for all to see!…I will wait for permission to fill them in…and on that note, forgive any misspellings since it is late)
As the day proceeded students had their mini ¨entrevistas¨so they could be placed with their Spanish groups while the teachers worked to align the schedule of the days to come and iron out all the little details that need to be communicated to all the families. From brief reports, sounds like the classes went really well for the first day, and I saw lots of smiles and observed the first coconut being dissected at break time. One student has fulfilled his goal of picking and eating a fruit from a tree…what next? Spearing fish was the answer..we shall see about that later.
And like clockwork, as seems to be expected on these trips, before noon we had our first case of ¨me siento un poco inferma¨(i feel a little sick)… as one student found herself a bit sick en el estomago. Luckily we were able to get her attention from the on call doctors and I am happy to report she is feeling much better, being pampered by her host mom with warm soothing broth and electrolytes from the local farmacia.
In the afternoon we met up in the center for a tour of Atenas. First stop, the bank, to change dollars to colones and next stop, a little cafe, to regroup and refresh. Here we ordered chocolate cake and tropical fruit smoothies or gaseosas (carbonated drinks) which helped calm the first day nerves, and gave us time to chat and figure out a plan to make sure everyone could find their homestay on their return walk or taxi ride. A couple students learned about how similar houses and streets around here can look with no street signs or house numbers. Which brought one of us to declare that our service project should be to paint street signs… while it may not help the Ticos, it sure would benefit the next group of Gringos!
Tomorrow we head to San Ramon, to visit a Biological Reserve that is part of the University of Costa Rica. There we have our first introduction to tropical forest ecology and we will stay overnight at the field station…we have been advised to wear rubber boots…we will report back how necessary this is, since some of us may tough it out with other foot gear.
The sounds outside my window, firecrackers and salsa music echoing off the hillside, from the fiesta de Sabana Larga are beginning to die down. This evening several of the students met up or went with their families to see the town festival. Strings of lights announcing the event hang across the main street to the entrance of the fairgrounds where there are horse shows, bull riding, dj dance halls, spinning rides (that may give some more group members a sick stomach) and plenty of comidas tipicas. The festival will go through Monday night, so we hope to return to take in more of this local favorite — full description of it may demand another novel…so I will spare you that now and get myself to bed. We have another full day planned for tomorrow…we should be back online by Sunday eve if any of us are awake enoguh to write…hasta luego.
2 Responses to A full day…or has it already been a week?