Universal Language

Courtney, 17

My expectations of today were way higher than what I recieved. The volcano was beautiful, but there were way too many bugs for me and I was covered in them!!!! They were like little Costa Rican gnats that must have loved the body spray that I was wearing because they were covering my jacket!!!!

On a much happier note, I met a new amigo named Josue and we shared alot of music and I found that everyone has a way to communicate no matter where your from or what language you speak. Though my Spanish was broken, and his English was almost as terrible...we shared a lot of similarities and I love techno music much more than before.

This whole experience has taught me one very important thing, and that's that there is a huge world outside of America and if we don't experience what it has to offer we won't ever know exactly what the importance of life is. I can't believe I've been here and seen all that I have, yet no one in my family has ever done the same, beyond an average vacation.

In the morning we leave for Yorkin, and I must say I'm nervous; mainly because of the bugs, but I will have my arms wide open for everything else.

Volcanoes & Nature

Kiera, 16

Today we went with our Tico friends to visit Volcano Paos National Park. I didn´t think it would be such a long ride to get to the park, but it was great! On the way, I viewed many other spectacles of nature. In general, I´m not a nature person, but this trip has actually given me the knowledge of how beautiful nature can be.

This first image that I saw was just a farm on our way to the volcanoes, but it looked really cool to me. Because if you really think about it, this farm shows that it required a lot of time to get to the place that it is at right now. To me, this shows that people actually care about other things, rather than simple-everyday stuff, which inspires me to start looking for and thinking of other things, outside of the ordinary. This trip is also an out-of-the-ordinary experience.

This image of the house, shows to me that other people are doing what I am going to strive to do. Instead of giving up, and living on the street, the people of La Carpio, thought outside of the ordinary and built their own houses out of whatever they could find. I loved being in La Carpio, because the people there were so close. And I love when neighbors are close. They watch out for each other and they keep going, no matter what. La Carpio also inspires me to go out of the unordinary, and to keep going no matter what.

The volcano was the last straw for me. I am actually a person that LOVES nature because of this volcano. It just amazes me, the creation of such a thing, that makes me appreciate what is being made, and inspires me to take advantage and enjoy any type of nature possible. Overall, nature inspires me to be out of the ordinary, and enjoy what is there for me to view.

Poas volcano through the clouds...

Christina Arenth, Social Studies Teacher

Today we woke up early and picked up our pen pals from Liceo Vargas Calvo.  Together we ventured to the  Poas volcano outside of San Jose. Rodolfo Vanderlaat, a vulcanologist from the Costa Rican Volcano Observatory at the National Univeristy, spoke to all the students about the volcanic activity in Costa Rica. 

When we reached the crater, at first we couldn't see much... 

but slowly the clouds began to part... 

and the crater was unveiled!

Amazing!

Assembly interview with Chico

Cherie, 17

Here are some interesting things that we as a group got from our first interview at the Assembly.

One of the first things that "Chicho" said about the political process was pretty interesting. He mentioned that it really wasn't about party vs. party, but it was more about circumstance vs. circumstance. By that, I think he meant that it's really not about a difference of opinions between parties, because each person within the party is likely to have their own ideas, but its really dependent on the cirumstance. This leads into one of his biggest person delemias because sometimes he doesn't always agree with the idea is party is representing, but it's what they have to do, so he has so go along with it. That of course can lead into another personal delemia of his, which is political corruption. Another interesthing he said about the politcal process was in relation to the involvement of religion. He mentioned that it has a major role in the politics in Costa Rica, to the point that it's even mentioned that they're a an almost all Catholic region in their constitution. Despite that, he said that everyone thinks that it should remain absent from it, but everyone is leaves it, just to avoid controversy.
Another idea Chico had was on happiness. Like many people, he believes that wealth isn't the greatest factor when it comes to getting happiness. Instead, it should come from being healthy and having longevity. This is interesting, because Costa Rica has a lot of poor neighborhoods and they have a very high life long expectancy. However, I feel like it is kind of disproved in some parts of this country. When we visited La Carpio in the first few days of our trip, we noticed that even though these people had practically nothing, they seemed to be so happy. This would fit his definition, except that the people of La Crapio have a lower life expectancy and theyre health conditions are slightly poor. This was just interesting to see that his idea fit true in most of Costa Rica, but there are still places where you can achieve happiness without the things that he mentioned.
One of the last things that Chico discussed with us was his opinion on power. I asked, "What is your personal view of power? What makes a person or country powerful," and he gave us a really interesting answer. He said that power is something that is self determined and that a country is powerful when they are independent. However, he says that would only work well with smaller structures because the bigger the structure, the harder it will be for them to change into something that is going to work well. This was interesting because with his definiton, it seemed that he was directly saying that Costa Rica was a powerful country, despite the fact that they don't seem like it at times.

Time to Catch Up on the Fun!

Alyssa, 17

I haven't blogged since Day 2, and today is Day 5! We've been so busy, hustling from place to place, and trying to get caught up on sleep. Here's a recap of Days 3, 4, and 5.

Day 3 - We started off the day by going to the Legislative Assembly for an interview, and also got a tour of the building. After lunch, we went back to La Carpio for the last time. It was one of the best experiences I've had. We (both our group and people from La Carpio) worked together to create a road. The hardest part was mixing cement by hand! Well, with shovels. But it's a lot harder than using a cemement mixer! Once our work was done, we had a small gathering to present our group's donation to the La Carpio community. Nate, Patrick, Shalyce, and I presented a community leader with the donation and each reflected on our experiences working in La Carpio. Then, we had cake and Coke! I don't drink pop, but the cake was really good. It had caramel and fruit in it. A few of us also bought purses made by a few of the women in La Carpio.

After we (FINALLY!) got back to the hotel after a long ride in traffic, we had dinner, which really surprised me. First off, there were no rice and beans! Instead, there was mashed potatoes. And the meat was fish! Which usually, I HATE fish, but I tried it, and it was really good. I even had seconds! I was happy I ended up trying it, despite the fact I thought it would be really gross. Traveling to another country has really surprised me in the sense that I am being a lot more open minded about things like food, which I would have never tried before.

Day 4 - Today started with probably the best breakfast we're going to have. We had cantaloupe, pinapple, and a ham and cheese croissant. I love cantaloupe and pineapple, so I was psyched. The first thing on our itinerary was a trip to Dos Pinos, a local dairy cooperative. We got to see how things like milk and ice cream are made, and get a lot of information about CAFTA and how the tariffs on trade between the US and Costa Rica and going to change over the next 10 years. The end of the tour was spectacular, complete with ice cream and stuffed animal cows!

We had our second interview after lunch, at the U.S. Embassy. I was really looking forward to going there because I heard so much about it and I wanted to see what it was that they did for Americans. We learned a lot about what people do there, how they help Americans, and the process of becoming an officer in international embassies. One of the officers also gave us a few travel tips! This was really helpful to me because I plan to travel more in the future.

Last night, we went to a Jazz Cafe. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it wasn't too different than just a restaurant with a live band. I had never really listened to Latin Jazz before, but it was better than I expected it to be. I really liked how the piano was played, it sounded so cool and different. The only downside was that we didn't get back to the hotel until 11:30! Which would have been fine if we didn't have to get up so early for Poas today!

Day 5 - Got to wake up around 6 to leave by 7:30! First we went to the high school to pick up the students. We had about half of us and half of them in each of the two buses. I really liked that we got to talk to them on the (long) ride to the Poas volcano. I talked to Paula the entire ride there. She is very good at English and we found so much to talk about. It wasn't constricted to just, how old are you, and what type of music do you like. It was about everything from our school classes, who are friends are, where we like to go to hang out, and just everything we could think to talk about. The volcano was really clear of fog, so we got lots of great pictures. On the way back, I talked to Larry and Pepe a lot, they were so funny. It is really interesting trying to break a language barrier, even if we know a bit of Spanish and they know a bit of English.

The high school students came to our hotel for a small get together. It was so fun. We listened to music, attempted to dance, and ended up playing hand games. Who knew that other countries played Slide and their own version of Stella Ella Olla! I miss them already and they only left a few minutes ago. I can't wait to get back home and e-mail my new Tico friends.

We are leaving for Yorkin in the morning and we won't be able to blog again for about a week! I'm worried about the food we will have to eat, but I'm doing much better with eating rice and beans and today I even had squash soup. Weird, right?

I miss everyone back home and I can't wait to see you guys when I get home.

Jazz Cafe

Cows to the States...

Larry, 16

Arturo, 17

Today we made the trek to from Dos Pinos, a dairy cooperative to the US Embassy, and it was truly interesting. A lot of the information provided to us in both places couldn't have been looked up, or photographed.

The Dos Pinos plant really gave us an in-depth view of not only of how milk is processed, but WHAT a cooperative is, and HOW it's beneficial in many ways. We really enjoyed it. The way that a cooperative is run, as well as how it's run, is completely different from how a traditional company in America is run. The business is based on all around inclusiveness as oppose to the traditional exclusiveness that we've grown accustomed to in American businesses, especially large corporations.

The cooperative has many different farmers contributing their milk, but the interesting part is that the people contributing into this cooperative can be the little guy that has 20 cows all the way to the big guy with 200 or 2,000 cows. They make it so that everyone is involved and everyone has a say in how the dairy cooperative is run regardless of how many cows you have. To ensure that this process is carried out effectively they set up a system kind of like a field campaign. Each area has field organizers who are farmers themselves. Those farmers report to their regional field director who is the elected leader of that specific area. Then that person reports to the state director which is part of the cooperative council.

As we were walking around with the group and the Dos Pinos PR representative, We were interested to learn how much money business marketers make in Costa Rica. Apparently from $17,000 to to $20,000 a year is typical for what people in this position make, though it depends on how long they have been with the cooperative. Even the highest paid person in the company makes no more than $150,000-$200,000 a year, a big difference from US corporations where CEOs can make $8-$10 Million a year in some of the biggest companies. The representative we spoke with said this was partly due to the cooperative model where members have greater control over leadership actions, and partly a result of Costa Rican values which focus more on egalitarianism. [This was also echoed by "Chico," advisor to the ruling PLN, during our interview at the Legislative Assembly. He stated that Costa Ricans have always been opposed to titles and any other conspicuous signs of putting one's self above others. Jokes meant to bring someone back down to earth are the norm when people, historically and in the present.]

We also learned that people in La Carpio make an estimated $100 a month which is below poverty line in Costa Rica. Another question I asked was, "Can people who graduate from college with an undergraduate degree and earn an MBA work in Costa Rica?" The answer was that it can be possible through different programs that company's have or on different working visas.

Aqui

Danielle, 18

While I was on my water break a little Tica girl, probably about 6-years-old, came up to me and said, "Aqui" and handed me a flower. I thought it was the cutest thing because I wasn't expecting the little girl to give me a flower and she was just adorable. I didn't know what the little girl said to me since I speak very little Spanish and it made me a little sad, but Nate heard what the little girl said and he saw that she gave me a flower. 

Later in the day, I asked Nate what did the little girl said to me and Nate told me that she said, "Here." Everytime when I think about the flower that the little girl gave me, I think of, "Aqui."Yesterday we all were working really hard in La Carpio. Every once in a while someone would take a water break to get a drink of water and to relax for a little bit.

The best day so far

Nathan, 18

The most exciting part of today was in La Carpio.

I really got involved. I'm really proud of myself and the whole group. We made concrete to make a road so that cars can travel the streets of La Carpio. After we finished mixing concrete and placing it, we went back and had a meeting with everyone from the organization that we were working with in La Carpio.

There were a few of us that got in front of the group to say a few things about the experience that we have had over the past few days working with them and I was one of these people.

Basically all I said was that I loved helping them better their condition, and loved working beside the people of La Carpio to get the job done. After the four of us said a few words, I got to present the President of the organization a donation that will go towards the community and help them get things that will help improve their conditions even more.

I'm really sad that today was the last day in La Carpio. I wish we could go back for a few more days because it was fun being there and assisting people in need alongside the people themselves.

Overall, it was a really busy day and tiring, but in the end we succeeded in what we came to do, and I believe we can continue to do so for the remainder of the trip.

Arturo, 17

Our second full day in Costa Rica was spent getting more familar with the community. While in San Jose, some students are tired of eating rice and beans for breakfast lunch, and dinner. However, others are actually feeling good about the pattern.

In the morning we interviewed ¨Chico¨ who is an advisor to many powerful diputados (congresspeople) of the PLN political party in Costa Rica. Hearing him speak and answer our questions, he seemed to feel very comfortable with us being around him and taking photos. In other words, he sounded very truthful when answering our questions. Afterwards, he gave us a brief tour of the congress building with a lot of historical information.

After our long intervew with Chico, our day wasn't over yet. It was just the beginning. We went to La Carpio to finish what we started the day before. However, this time with more intense work. We finished building the road by mixing rocks, sand, and water to make cement. It was a very challenging task with all the students shoveling and carrying heavy equipment, but at the end feeling proud. At the end I felt that everyone worked as a big group and felt proud of what we had done to help the community of La Carpio.