Fortuna and Arenal

Arenal and Lake Arenal

Termite nest

This past weekend I went on an excursion with a few of my friends to the town of Fortuna and the Arenal volcano.  We had a beautiful time although we had scorching heat the entire time.  As a group we took the jeep-boat-jeep route to get to Fortuna, the small town near the volcano.  The ride was bumpy for the first hour, because the first hour out of Monteverde is not paved.  Once we were in Fortuna we took a guided hike around the volcano and the guide pointed out plants and animals that were edible and could help for medicine.  He showed us how this one type of ants was a good remedy for arthritis and how termites were a good source of protein and tasted like carrots. 

We got to watch the volcano spew smoke and we heard some rocks roll down the mountainside.  On our way back down we went to a look out to watch the volcano for a little bit more, where our friend Jesse proposed to our other friend Tera.  So this will surely be a weekend they never forget!

Tastes like carrots

After the volcano we went to Baldi, which is a hot water spring resort.  It was very beautiful and the water was very relaxing.  They had a few bars that you could order from while swimming and just pull up to a bar stool.  They also had a few water slides and several artificial waterfalls.  We had a good time, but it kept us up past our bed time because our bus left there at 9pm.

The ants go marching 5 by 5...

On Sunday morning we took a hike around Fortuna and we got to see a lot of plants, a snake and some birds that seemed to be posing for us.  We also saw a line of cutter ants that was quite impressive.  Then we caught a bus and all relaxed on our way home so we could prepare for another week at La Creativa.

The humans go marching 1 by 1

What I like about Monteverde

My new life in Monteverde (the Spanish speaking version of Vermont) is amazing.  I love it here.  Here are a few reasons why

My house and roommates are amazing.  The house feels like a cabin in the woods.  It´s a cute little place that feels like a good mix of modern comforts (oven, stove, hot water in the shower) and old fashioned life.

My new house

My school is amazingly beautiful.  The Cloud Forest School is an amazing place for me to have my first year as a full time teacher!  The school´s Spanish name is Centro de Educación Creativa or La Creativa (The Creative)  We are in the cloud forest (much like a rain forest but higher in elevation so we get more mist than rain, but it rains every afternoon).  Also I have a beautiful view of the Gulf of Nicoya which is part of the Pacific Ocean.  the students in my school take an active role in re-foresting the area.  I believe they said some 50,000 trees have been planted by the school and that each student plants one that is “their tree.”  My co-workers are also very nice, wonderful people who are full of resources and support for me.

My neighborhood

I love getting to walk in the woods everywhere.  Our commute to school is straight up hill.  Whenever we go to our friends´ houses we have to take flashlights, high boots, rain jackets and umbellas because we are walking through the woods and it could start raining at any moment. 

The road to school

Even though I´m not going out for tapas every night, and I spend most of my time either at work or at home, it´s been a great start to the year.  My co-workers and I get to gether very often for potlucks and such.  There´s a group of 6 of us who go on hikes on Sundays and we try to play frisbee and go to the farmer´s market on Saturdays.  This weekend we´re taking a trip to the Arenal volcano not too far from here.  Last weekend we tried to go to the nature reserve, but got distracted along the way by signs for a waterfall.

The waterfall

Costa Rican Bio-Diversity

Las plantas y animales aqui son imprecionante.  No puedo creer la diversidad aquí.  Ya hemos visto un montón de animales y plantas nuevas.  Casí cada día como algo nuevo o veo un animal que no conocí antes.  Aquí os voy a enseñar las fotos de algunas cosas que me llaman la attención.  La primera semana aquí yo ví unos monos, perezosos, aves, nasuas y mucho más.

I cannot believe the plants and animals here in Costa Rica.  The bio-diversity is amazing.  We have already seen a ton of animals and plants that I had never seen or even heard of before.  Almost every day I eat something new or discover a new animal.  Here I will share some pictures of the things that were most interesting for me.

coati

Strangler Fig

Aligator

White faced monkey

First week of school!

Settling into Monteverde

What an eventful week it has been for me!  On Sunday I went with some of my friends to hike through the river.  We found lots of butterflies and a handful of small waterfalls near our houses, which was fun but meant our riverwalk was shorter than anticipated.

Wednesday was our first day of school, and I was pooped at the end of the day.  I only have 12 students in my class.  11 of them have been in bilingual programmes before, and 1 child is starting her first week in a bilingual school so she has a very limited amount of English.  One of my challenges this year will be to teach her the material in a way that she isn´t loosing the math and literacy objectives but is still getting an immersion programme.  

As a whole the students seem ready for the year.  Half the students are very talkative and the other half have started out the year by showing me their shy side.  One of the students translates most of what I say, which is great that he´s learning English so well, but this could prove a huge obstacle for me because all of the other students need to learn English as well, and not to just rely on their classmate.

So far we´ve had 2 full days of classes and our half-day on Friday.  Every Friday is a half-day for the kids, but we stay til 4 o´clock for staff meetings and professional development.  Friday mornings I think will go by extra quickly because we start off the day with a “school sing” which is basically a big sing along to get the kids from pre-K to 6th grade together to sing and enjoy the school.  This is a lot of fun and the kids love it.  My mentor, Jesse (the 6th grade teacher) lead the School Sing this week and sang a song about things you appreciate and how hard it would be to imagine life without it.  When he opened it up to the students the first suggestion was “I can´t imagine life without Fishy,” which obviously made me blush because it was my 3rd day there, but I take it as a sign that I´m building a good reputation among the students already.

Another interesting thing about the school is that for PE Jesse and I are able to merge our classes and give them 2 options.  So Friday morning I took about half of the 5th and 6th graders on a hike to the top of campus.

(View of Monteverde from the Upper Kiosk on campus)

On Friday we also started our “Community Partners” project where my 5th graders will spend time mentoring the kinder kids (which are confusingly the pre-K students).  We also found a scorpion in class on Friday!

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Even though I have been exhausted from school every day and usually want to go to bed by 8pm I have been able to get out and explore Monteverde, Santa Elena and Cerro Plano (the 3 neighborhoods here) a little bit.  On Saturday I got to play Ultimate with Amy, Jesse and a few others.  Later on Saturday some of my friends hosted a party for a bunch of the teachers at the hotel they live in, and for the first time in a week we all stayed awake past 10PM!  Well, all of us except for 6 year old Logan.  

I am off to get ready for tomorrow.  PEACE and KEEP DREAMING!

PS, OH YEAH, I made brownies today, I do believe it´s the first thing I´ve ever baked.

PPS, We also went out for Pizza at this great place downtown on Friday night

First week in Monteverde

So I´ve been in Monteverde for about a week now and I am exhausted.  I am thoroughly enjoying my time here, but I´m beat.  Every morning we hike up the steep incline to school before 8, and on Wednesday we´ll have to start getting there by 730.  But luckily waking up isn´t an issue as sunrise seems to be some time around 6am, so we wake up then without alarms.  We´ve been staying at school until about 4pm everyday and then we walk home in the rain.  We come home make and eat dinner and I hang out with my roommates (Paulina teaches 1st grade and Amy teaches Environmental Ed) and then we work a little bit more and fall asleep.  

On our first night here we were visited by a sloth, so in my first week in Costa Rica I saw a sloth and some monkeys, the two animals I most wanted to see here in Costa Rica!  Wednesday morning we woke up bright and early and went to school.  We took a self-guided tour of the campus in pairs.  The campus is beautiful.  I constantly feel as though I am at summer camp here.  At the school´s kiosk I saw this beautiful butterfly.Wednesday afternoon we took a tour of the town, and yes it does make Cobleskill and Winooski look like major metropolises.  On Friday night many of our co-workers came here after dinner.  Saturday mornings from 6 - noon there is a farmers market that has the best produce in town, or at least that´s what I´m told.  We didn´t get out of the house in time so we went the the grocery store in the early afternoon and then went to Beverly´s (the 2nd grade teacher) house for dinner before seeing the community production of Oliver at an outdoor theatre.  

Sunday early afternoon our friends Tera (the kinder or pre-school teacher), Jesse (Tera´s partner), Logan (their monkey child) and Sarah (the 3rd grade teacher) came to visit and ask if we wanted to go hiking in the river, so Paulina and I threw on our outside clothes and went on a little adventure.  In the evening I got to go to dinner with some people who are here for a couple of weeks with their class from a college in NYC.  Today was rather uneventful, we just went to work at 8, came home at 4 and ate dinner and I´m about to fall asleep at 730pm.  School starts Wednesday and I´m feeling excited and overwhelmed.

                                        Paulina, Sarah, Tera, Logan and Jesse

Sorry there is not any Spanish or ASL in this post,  I´ve been so exhausted.  Espero que os vaya bien!