This entry marks my third full day in the beautiful sueño hecho realidad (dream made reality) that is Costa Rica.
We left San Jose on Monday and drove past beautiful vistas such as these:
to get to Orosi, where I will be for the rest of January.
Orosi is a beautiful, mountain-and-volcano surrounded town of ~12,000 people. One of the views out of the hostel where we have our seminars and Spanish classes looks like this:
My days are full of 3-hour Spanish classes, seminars about teaching and culture, and family bonding with my host family.
My host mother, Ligia, is short, shy, and sweet, with ever-smiling eyes and tiny hands and feet. My strongest mental image of her so far is of her sitting in her rocking chair on the patio with one granddaughter on one side (Brittany, 5) and another on the other (Yesalyn, 10?), smiling as they brush and put cream in her hair (there was no shampoo in the house-- the girls put oil and cream in Ligia's hair.) The children are affectionate and open, and I've been bonding with them over headbands, photos, computer games, and painting our nails. Living with kids is a fantastic way to improve my Spanish, and it's been getting better every day.
I really feel like I lucked out with my host family!
Every day I eat rice and beans (gallo pinto-- "painted rooster") three times a day. It's generally accompanied with plantains, some kind of protein (eggs in the morning, chicken or fish at restaurants), and another kind of starch (bread, noodles, potatoes... or all of the above.) It's going to be a challenge to have a balanced diet here, but luckily, I love gallo pinto!
I'm in the second-highest level Spanish class, and it's basically up to me whether I want to switch to the highest (I'm between levels.) I might switch part-way through, but I really like the group of people in my class (Sara, Meggie, and Drew) and don't want to leave them :)... Sara has been the person from the group that I've felt most drawn to so far, which is AWESOME because not only is she open and friendly-- she's at one of the closest sites to mine!
The biggest downside of being here so far is that I seem to be allergic to Costa Rica :(. My sinuses and throat are rebelling in a very annoying, phlegmy way :(. However, the upside of that is that I've already successfully navigated my way through one Farmacia visit en español.
ANYWAY, going to leave y'all with one last picture: when I woke up this morning to go for a run, I turned left and saw this:
...the Turrialba volcano, a-steaming away!
Anyway, more later, amigos.
BESOS Y ABRAZOS de Orosi!
Raquel
ps: I think that I just got my first Costa Rican bug bite while writing this blog post. Thanks, folks ;)
pps: I will be uploading photos from my aventura to This Facebook Page!
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