I am finally with my family! We arrived in
Santa Cruz Sunday afternoon after a morning of goodbyes and a long bus ride
across the country. Costa Rica is
beautiful, complete with jungles and grassy green hillsides. As we sped along highways I made my best
attempt to take pictures out the window, but to my disappointment they do not
even come close to justifying the spectacular views that I assumed only existed
in travel magazines.
Once we finally arrived in Santa Cruz, the
other two students and I, one German and one Italian, were dropped off at a
local volunteer's house, and as we waited for our families to pick us up the
guy talked nonstop in Spanish. Before we
left the US, they told us not to expect to understand anything for a while, a
warning that non of us truly acknowledged at the time. It was a a little
surprising and disconcerting when I didn't understand at all when we got here,
but I found that as I focused and listened I began to understand and as time
goes on I am learning to understand more and more, but I'm still hopeless at
replying in Spanish.
My home is actually around twenty minutes
outside of Santa Cruz near a village called Santa Ana. The house is down in a ravine thing in a kind
of village of its own with like six other houses all owned by one family. I have a mom, who is also my school
counselor, and two brothers but no dad and one brother is married so he doesn't
live at home, though he is always here.
They also have a cousin who doesn't sleep here but still basically lives
here. They have a tiny gray and white
kitten named Ruvi, which they feed rice to instead of cat food. Occasionally Ruvi also catches lizards and
will eat that whole if nobody stops him. My brother speaks almost perfect
English which, while it makes my life way easier, its still a little
frustrating because I think it might make learning Spanish a much slower
process. At home the television is
always on but it plays all American shows so its not teaching any language but
English (I could use some help with that too though.)
Although the house is super cute, it
doesn't have any Internet so I have to go to an Internet cafe. We also don't have any running water right
now, but I think thats temporary. We had
water the first two days but then it stopped working yesterday morning with
rather unfortunate timing. I got in the
shower and wet my hair down before turning the water back off to save water
while I used shampoo, but when I went to rinse, the shower wouldn't come back
on. My cousin was home so he went and
got me a bucket and we have been taking bucket showers sense.
The next morning I didn't have school ( I
have yet to go) so my brother took me to the beach. It was absolutely spectacular and only 15
minuted from my house. After driving for
sometime, my brother suddenly slowed down and turned onto a perfectly hidden
dirt “road”. It wasn't a tourist beach
like I've been to before. There was no
one else in sight and the water was a gorgeous crystal blue. It was so perfect I never wanted to leave.
Today was some kind of holiday, though for what I never really understood, (possibly Guanacaste's independence from Nicaragua?) there were no classes. I'm pretty sure the students still had to be at school today because I went to the school with my mom at seven and everyone was there. I watched as the teachers decorated a parade float, and the other students just hung out outside. Then everyone walked to the park like 10 minutes from the school (I got to ride on the back of the English teachers scooter) then the float came with some teachers and five students dressed in traditional clothes. Everyone in the town was at the park and then walked back to the school where there was a small rodeo arena and the school hosted bull riding as a fund raiser. I still need to buy some school shoes which proved hard to find yesterday, before I can go to school, but hopefully I'll be able to go on Friday. From what I understood from my moms conversation with the French teacher I will be taking French, in Spanish, oh boy... Wish me luck!
Mountains out of the bus window
meadow out of the bus window
Beach!!!
More Beach!
Me at the beach!
My house
My kitten
