Hawaii Preparatory Academy: Costa Rica 2014

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.

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