“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for” – John A. Shedd

Wednesday:
As we prepare for our lessons tomorrow at the Primary School, our very literal Spanish translations begin to form and small basic sentences are being memorized. On the scale of learning a second language, I have proceeded to the Speech Emergence stage of the Second Language Acquisition scale. This means that I can form simple sentences, but makes several punctuation and grammar errors. On top of that, when listening to Spanish, jokes don't make much sense to me. It will come in time though.

Spanish class once again is getting better each and every day with an improvement in comprehension and more knowledge about verbs and vocabulary. Most conversations make sense to me, but the emergence of my own conversation is at the very basic stage. In the few days that I have been here, the Spanish I have learned and cultural reference points as well as linguistic norms is more than I could have ever imagined.

Thursday:
Our first visit to the school was fantastic! Even with our limited Spanish phrases, our colorful rainforest lesson plan was enough to keep everyone, including the teacher, excited! Amelia & I had a small group of students where we taught them using the book Costa Rica ABCs telling them our favorite letters in Spanish and English as well as a couple of sentences about it. What an amazing experience! Even such a small lesson gives me a brief preview on how I need to develop my lessons for ELL learners. Despite the fact that we had to speak in Spanish the whole lesson, the practicing of everything as well as developing illustrations was hard work. Needless to say, it was worth it.

I want to be the teacher that brings multiple cultures and multiple languages together to form a community of learners for the greater good. We all have our own ways of creating lessons in the classroom to give the students the best possible experience. I can only hope we did that in the schools today on our path to learning what it feels like to be a part of the linguistic minority- And that is exactly what I have come to discover.

Friday:
Today was an eye opening experience of volunteer time at La Carpio, a very poor shunned Nicaraguan community. It looks similar to our ideas of a shanty town but with more of a community, service based feel. The people seem happy with what they have and where they are going. However, they also seem appreciative of each and every thing they come across. When we showed up, we met the most remarkable woman who has served 35 years of her life to improving the community of La Carpio, building on their schools, their access to food, water and availability of jobs within the people. This woman has volunteers come to her almost every day of the week wanting to help out in some way. We did exactly that. With our expertise in schools and education, we ventured over to the community preschool where we got to not only sing songs with the children, but also read English books with them.

Because of the amount of volunteers that help out in the preschool and their donations, almost all of their games, toys and books were in English. To add onto this, students have developed a love for people who visit and a very basic knowledge of English phrases. The favorites were: "thank you" , "Will you play with me?", and "Where are you from?" We ended up making a hand tracing poster of all of us together, leaving them with some decoration for their very limited space. It always amazes me just how happy and innocent the children are despite their situation. Just goes to show that a roof over your head, a meal a day and a family to love can keep the frowns away. *Below are some pictures of the beautiful children*

To add to this, today was our last day of Spanish class in Heredia. Exciting and sad all at the same, our teacher has been a new level of patient but challenging at the same time. Five days ago I would not be able to tell you how to conjugate past tense verbs, let alone tell you what they mean. With that said, I can now speak, read and write all of that.

Also my last night with my familia tica en Heredia, it was a big church tradition day where all the families of the neighborhood picked a house to have church in then at the corner church held a fundraiser dance. The dancing is not what you would think either: it is traditional Latin American dancing of salsa, tango, merangue, etc. So amazing to watch! People of all ages (from 4 to 84) danced for almost four straight hours through the night. I wish I could move like they can. The little cousins of my familia tica who were about 7 years old were teaching me how to dance. Needless to say, it will take a lot of practice to move like they can.

Saturday:
An adventurous weekend to the Manuel Antonio beach (la playa), nicknamed the most beautiful beach in the world. Clean water, cheesy stores and a lot of tan tourists. A relaxing day on the beach was just what I needed to get some rest from the week of busy adventures and continuous Spanish. It makes me wonder how ELL students in our schools get a break from the constant pressure of learning English. What hobbies, activities, people give them the confidence and relief they need to continue. I am not sure if mine is the beach, but just a sentence or two in English helps once in awhile. Not even a week into it and I find myself translating English words into Spanish in my head. What an improvement from 7 days ago!

Sunday:
A rainforest adventure, that's for sure. Everything was so humid, yet so beautiful. It's amazing how much one little area of trails can have on the path to the beach. In the 1 mile trail, our Kodak moment oriented group saw over ten monkeys climbing the limbs above us, sloths sitting still in the branches, lizards slithering through the rocks and birds flying from bush to bush showing their colors in the path.

To add to the excitement, when we got to the beach, the sand shined white on our very white bodies while the water stood calm. The location was perfect- animals all around, perfect white sand and tranquil view to boost.

To top the day off, we met our second host families (familia tica) in Monteverde after a five hour drive. More about them and my accommodations later, but for now I hope my readers know just how beautiful Monteverde is- the mountains and cloud forest at every turn as well as landscaping that could win every competition. Pictures to come soon.