With a full night's sleep, another hearty breakfast, grateful goodbyes and small gifts, we set off for our boat trip down the river system to the canals to reach our next destination: Tortuguero National Park. Along the way we saw caimans, crocodiles, feeding vultures, flying fishing birds, monkeys--including a quick glimpse of capuchins--hanging bird nests, and camo-clad armed border patrols who checked our passports and purpose and received fresh bread in exchange. We made a bathroom stop just before Nicaragua and a lunch stop just after. I think they're on to something with the rice and beans. I'm going to miss it or will have to work it into our diet more. On tv at the riverside diner, we saw that La Sele had arrived at the arena in Recife and that Los Ticos were there in numbers to support in their conquest for the cup. The boat ride itself was a dream with intermittent pounding rain but mostly clears skies and a refreshing breeze off the water.

We had a fantastic show by a spider monkey on the last stretch of our river transit. Our little "monito" swung, climbed, jumped and seemed to pose at times while we took our shots. We were all extremely impressed with Carlos' keen eye for spotting fauna along the way. He then showed us some of his photo portfolio--professional quality and a skill we encouraged him to develop and build on.

After disembarking the water taxi and rushing through the raindrops to Miss Junnie's hotel, we were greeted with a refreshing ginger-lemonade and a resounding GOL! Costa Rica had struck first in their match vs. Greece. After numerous binary flips from ecstasy to the agony of athletic despair as can only be found in international soccer, Costa Rica prevailed in penalty kicks, or whatever they're called. For the very first time, Costa Rica advances to the quarter-final round (v. Netherlands). And then the town of Tortuguero made its way to the bar-disco. The celebration nearly drowned out the thunder and rain.

We ate dinner and collected ourselves for a nighttime hike along the beach with our magnificent guide, Cleoid. Cleoid marched us up and down the beach, weaving stories from the past with highlights of the now in search of the tell-tale "scar" that would indicate a turtle's intent to nest. Alas, through 3.5 hours of hiking, we saw no turtles. This is as expected since the season has not yet arrived. We have also learned that there is little chance of experiencing turtles in February, when we were thinking of bringing our 8th grade hatchlings with us. We hit the beds hard at midnight, and despite varying levels of fatigue, exterior noise, and sweat, all were guaranteed a good night's sleep.

P.S. Our coconut cooking class was excellent!

Ola Familias y Amigos!

On Saturday, everyone said adios to their home stay families with gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to be part of their families' routines, their conversations, and meals. Between the hospitality of the home stay families and the wonderful cooking at Chilamate, we can barely work up an appetite between meals. There are many great stories and laughs that have come from the many hours of language immersion, such as when Lisa evidently asked for a cookie without knowing it, or when I may have indicated that I was a bathroom. As we had a fabulous four year old in our home stay family, Lisa and I highly recommend Surfing Barbie and Angelina Ballerina in Spanish for acquiring some vocabulary.  All of our faux pas were met by everyone in our home stay family with patient amusement. These families were so incredibly warm and and welcoming.

My absolute favorite new juice is starfruit juice. When I asked my home stay family how they made it (by pointing and using semi-related, monosyllabic inquires) I was told, through very clear motions and sounds, that one chops up the starfruit, blends it in a blender with some water, and then it is optional to add sugar and/or strain it.

Yesterday, we spent the day in an Intercultural Communication workshop with HPA teachers and Costa Rican Maestras (teachers) facilitated by the United World College Costa Rica.  This organization has programs for 15-19 year olds in their last two years of high school. Here is the website for United World College www.uwccostarica.org The workshop shared the ways that people can become more aware of the sequence of describing, interpreting, and finally evaluating that often leads to stereotyping and conflict. We explored how to break down the sequence to understand the behaviors of others more thoughtfully and manage differences more effectively.  We learned about scales of communication styles and how they impact behavior and ways to support students with different styles. Having this day of learning with our Costa Rica colleagues and a very dynamic instructor and translator was a great experience. 

As soon as our workshop was complete, we headed over for an incredible zip line, with the exception of Lisa, who opted for the hammock experience!  The zip line took us between trees and crisscrossing the Sarapiqui river. The zip-line sections were so long that one could stretch out in midair and look all around at expensive views. Our guide was a hoot and never seemed to give the brake command that his co-leader had told about. Instead he would pretend to be terrified as we barreled into the platforms and then accuse us of having had too much tequila. After our last zip, we experienced a heavenly breeze and some very tasty galletas (cookies) called "Chiky's"- yum!

We arrived home with no snake incidences even though we had all forgotten our flashlights for the walk back to Chilamate. Everyone had an incredible night's sleep with fans creating some air movement, the amazing sound of rain on tin roofing and occasional territory announcements from the howler monkeys.

Tomorrow we are headed to Tortugero on a five hour river boat ride, so stay tuned for more excitement| Or something like that....

P.S.

Please feel free to comment on our blog!

Mark began his day with a run--sin reloj--as recommended by our host mom, Clara. The run went without incident. Today's Dog Report: Dana had a bit of a scuffle with her home stay dog, whom she has now named Suarez (the reader would have to be following the World Cup to get the reference), but seems no worse for the experience.

On the more happy end of the canine spectrum, the Ecolodge's mascot, Goldie, finally gave birth to 4 pups last night. We've been monitoring this situation closely since our arrival and the entire team is breathing sighs of relief and joy. She chose a very safe location under a construction pile, so we may not get any clear views before we leave. At the morning round table, we shared stories of personal growth in language acquisition and connections with our host families. Mark and I (Jerry) received a surprise visitor at Clara and Walter's house: Manfred who had spent 2.5 months on the Big Island in...Pahoa! He must have felt at home, at least flora-wise. When we think of our language issues, we would be wise to consider the plight of poor Manfred, struggling to make his way through the anthurium business with no English. We discussed the differences in home stay experiences. There appears to be a range of comfort, etc. even among our three families.

We tossed around some great ideas this morning regarding middle school and upper school possibilities. I have written detailed accounts of these discussions, but my editors have insisted that I purge these reports. These reports will be furnished upon request.

Therefore, we move on to the rafting trip. The rafting company is a short walk from the lodge. Davis, another Davis, was our river guide.  Daena made note that Davis and other Costa Ricans have nice teeth, and I translated this for him. Our most "trepid" rafter, Kristin, began the voyage in the most "stable" seat, the back. By the end of the trip, she was up in front, taking on the rapids face first. How did she get there? Part of the fun was jumping off the raft and swimming freely during calm sections. Happily for Daena, this was a cayman-free activity. However, we spotted our first howler monkeys, which was very satisfying. After seeing spider monkeys yesterday, we have only capuchins left to complete the Costa Rica monkey card. Speaking of wildlife, there is a hummingbird (hamburger) nest behind Jennifer's room. This wildlife fact is reported by Kristin, who has certainly earned several outdoor badges for her work today.

Post script: The Dog Report redux. Dana and Daena held back one important event--not wanting to leave Daena out, el perro de la casa left a gift on her bed. One nip and one gift later, they still plan on returning tonight. Some people just can't take a hint.

Thursday 6-26

Happy Thursday. The river is full, and you can smell it. It's just a bit earthy. It's impressive to watch.

We started the day by regrouping at the Chilamate Eco-retreat and sharing stories about our first nights of home-stays.

We all had fun experiences, and it was fun listening to similarities and differences. Dana talked about how welcome she felt in he home and how engaged they all wanted to be. The youngest daughter made Daena a rubber-band ring just like those currently popular on the big island. Dana did a great job at translating. Lisa and Kristen both felt their experience was very "joyous." Lisa had some mild food issues but was able to work around them. It seemed just like a regular family to them. They played with the kids while the mom cooked and sat around talking after the meal. Jerry and I had lots of fun with our host family. We had a wonderful dinner and shared lots of stories. Jerry did a great job with his Spanish and his few lapses added to the fun for all. He claimed he was surprised how funny he was in spanish. After individually sharing, we talked about a lot of different things. Here's just one. It turns out that kids often get phones here at quite a young age too.

After sharing stories, we began working again on issues related to the academic program and what would make sense for a student trip. We began by summarizing some lengthy discussions, identified a number of questions and then began trying to develop answers. I won't go into details here.

After a productive morning, we went to la selva biological station. We started with lunch and then proceeded to go on a three hour walking tour of the forest. Our guide seemed quite knowledgeable and he pointed out a number of interesting things concerning the flora and the fauna. We saw animals ranging from precarious to agouti (a large rodent -not an r.o.u.s.) and a couple of spider monkeys. It's hard to remember all that we heard about plans and trees given how copious it was.

Following a quick stop at the gift shop we headed back to the Eco retreat to grab on bags and then on to our home stays for the second night.

The river is back down considerably and hopefully rafting will go as planned. During the night at the Eco-retreat the puppies were born.

The food continues to be plentiful and delicious. Although we feel like we are eating a lot, it is without the customary snacking that several of us are used to so maybe we're not eating more but just differently. Maybe better.

We spent the morning in our group of six debriefing, questioning and planning together. After expressing concern about continuing shadowing at the school for two or three additional days, Jenn and Meghan agreed to adjust the itinerary. We made the change both because we felt it wasn't the best use of our time and because the teachers have already lost a month of school to a recent strike, have two weeks of vacation next week and have futbol fever along with their students. As it turned out, the teachers seemed relieved about the change of plans, too.

We had lunch in Linda Vista at the home of a family who hosts cooking classes and was going to host Jenn before we changed communities. With rain pounding all around, we ate, visited their horse, and communicated as well as possible with our emergent Spanish. Lovely family. We saw the horse again later when the father delivered fresh eggs on horseback to the Eco-lodge.

Back at the lodge, we worked with Jenn on understanding global competencies and played a game about leadership and dominant traits. We also looked at a couple of example itineraries to further our work on designing HPA trips.

The moment had arrived for us to divide and join our homestay families for the next three nights. Daena and I were warmly welcomed by Wendy and her three bright, lovely and very polite children (Yosey-15, Daniel-9, Melanie-6). We are communicating and translating as well as possible. Pretty

ugly Spanish at times but we're managing, and they are very patient and helpful. The three kids are studying Inglés so we might switch languages for them to practice tomorrow, which could prove more successful for everyone.

In addition to food, there is abundant coffee drinking. Hard to resist because it's delicious and also to be polite. It might be messing with our sleep tonight. Or something like that.

Once again, we were well-fed all day long. It really does bear repeating because the food is so good. Our first stop today took us to another local elementary school. 

We were each given the opportunity to observe a class in session and could empathize with teachers working against the days leading up to winter vacation and futbol fever (Ole, ole, ole, ole, Los Ticos, Los Ticos!). We joined the teachers to watch the game between two shifts of students. It was an uneventful game but props to La Sele's goalie.

Davis then drove us to our next visit at El Paraiso Organic Farm. Daniel welcomed us to his family farm and a wonderful lunch (of course!). 

Through stories and stops on a walking tour, we learned why he has engaged in organic sustainable farming. His generous spirit and enthusiastic commitment to do right by the planet and help people in his community here and across the world inspired us all. His honesty in sharing the horrendous practices and personal suffering that motivated him were at times difficult to listen to but we were all glad to hear his story (enabled by Jenn's steady careful translation). It was informative to hear about their family's home stay experience, too, from both the parents and the children. 

Our "dinner of one's own" gave us the opportunity to talk separately about women's and men's roles and issues in Costa Rica. We were impressed again by the honesty and openness with which experiences were shared with us.

It was a full day, and we look forward to all of the learning and adventure that still awaits.

Three words to describe to our first day: inspiring, diverse, full

We were treated to a fabulous typical Costa Rican breakfast of  Gallo Pinto, plantains, fresh mango and papaya. The first activity of the day was a hike in the rain forest. Our wonderful guide, William, described for us the ecology as he pointed out toucans, sloths, and frogs.

After another delicious meal at the Chilamate Eco Lodge, we headed to the Chilamate School for a tour. The students were very welcoming and even practiced their English speaking skills with us.

Next stop, the Snake Garden. We saw a variety of venomous and non-venomous snakes along with crocodiles, alligators and snapping turtles. Pompillo, who runs the family business, is also a biology teacher at the University and a local “Crocodile Dundee” of sorts.

After our educational tour of the reptiles, Davis took us on a t-shirt run so we could buy jerseys to support the “Ticos” in their Futbol World Cup (soccer) game! The last shop actually printed the shirts for us. Talk about Costa Rican hospitality! The plan is to wear them to the school tomorrow where we will be watching the game with students. Pura Vida!

The group has arrived safe and sound, if a bit exhausted from travel.  We are at the Chilamate Eco-Lodge, and right now the group is enjoying the Sarapiquí river after having their first empanadas costaricenses.  Everyone is practicing their Spanish already, as they met their homestay moms this afternoon.  We'll try to post with more depth tomorrow; I'd like to be sure that everyone gets to bed early tonight, so we probably won't blog today.  --Jennifer