Host family and a little more

Now that I have been here for a few days I finally am getting my feet under me. I have figured out a routine. I go to bed really early at like 9:30 and wake up between 6 and 7am.

Then I have Spanish class from 8 to 11. We have a small break and then a talk until lunch at 12:30. Then more talks about various topics from teaching English as a foreign language to dealing with culture shock. These have been really interesting. The tough part is how tired we end up by the end, but I have learned a lot.

My host family so far has been great. They are really welcoming and helpful but also are willing to give me my own space without complaint. At the house there are a mother, a father, three brothers, and a male cousin. The brothers range in age from 5 to 18, though the 18 year old is often off working so I have only talked to him a couple of times.

My Spanish has come back much faster than I expected, I understand 90% of what is said to me and even some of which is said really fast to between Ticos (Costa Ricans).

The ways in which this family handles having a host student is quite different than the way my family in my semester in Ecuador handled it. Both are and were great options and good families which helped a lot in every way, but the differences are interesting to me.

The main difference is how they handle my room. My family here views my room as my space which only I can go in and I have to specifically invite anyone else into, even my host mother and father. My host mother in Ecuador went into my room every day to make my bed, clean my room, and get my laundry.

I understand both ways of handling having a stranger in your house Both ways are fine with me, I just have to adjust to each family. I enjoy the differences among families, since as far as I know that is a difference in family approach, not a particular difference between Costa Rica and Ecuador.

This weekend I am going to La Fortuna to visit my site. I will be meeting my host family and getting to know the area where I will be teaching a little. We will stay over Saturday night and come back on Sunday. Then two more weeks in Orosi, before we finally head out to our sites to get ready for the school year.

First full day in Costa Rica

(The formatting on my blog posts, including this one, may be terrible.  It is hard for me to predict from this internet cafe how it will appear.  Especially this one, since I had to convert it three times to move it from where I wrote it to where I will be posting it)

I made it to Costa Rica safely. I took a round about way, but I am in Orosí for orientation. Orosí is about an hour and a half outside of San Jose in the mountains.


I am writing this blog post in my room in my host family's house, though I will not be able to upload it until I find an internet café. The meeting place we will be using in town has wi-fi, so hopefully I will be able to stay in contact.

I left for Costa Rica on January 7th. I flew from Logan to Washington, DC, then to Dallas/Ft. Worth. In Dallas a bunch of the volunteers met with a former volunteer. Then the 19 of us who met in Dallas boarded our plane to Costa Rica.

We were supposed to arrive in Costa Rica at 8:30 that night. The plane ride had a few hiccups which left us in Managua, Nicaragua for our first night in Costa Rica.

First problem was a malfunctioning smoke detector in the rear bathroom on the plane. This caused us to leave an hour late or so. The rest of the ride in the air went fine until the plane tried to land. We were literally right above the ground but the captain felt that the winds were too high to land, so we started climbing again.

Then we flew to Managua, Nicaragua with the idea of refueling and trying the landing again. Unfortunately, before we could try to return one of the pilots had to stop flying because of federal law. This meant that the entire 757 of people had to stay the night in Managua, Nicaragua until the next morning.

American Airlines put us up in the Best Western across the street from the airport. The next morning we woke up and flew back to San José, landing on Friday the 8th at 10:50 or so. This threw off our plans for the first day in San José.

The rest of that first day, we spent doing what we had on the schedule that we could still fit in. First, we went to a private hospital in San José for a talk on health in Costa Rica, which was quite interesting.

Then we went to the US Embassy and received a number of talks from staff there, all about various aspects of living in Costa Rica. From security to politics and economics, the talks were generally interesting. The tough part was how tired we were, but it was definitely worth it.

The security situation sounded very scary when the security officers were telling us what we should do, but I hope that I will be able to keep myself safe using my experience in Quito, Ecuador. Quito has a worse reputation than anywhere in Costa Rica. Bad luck can still happen, but if I take care I can reduce the chances of bad luck happening to me.

Then we drove to Orosí, where we went through yet more talks. This charla was led by the woman who is partnering with WorldTeach for our home stays and our education. We will be taking Spanish classes at her school, which should be interesting. We had to fill out a form saying how good our Spanish was. I have no idea if I filled it out correctly.

I will write another post tomorrow about my host family, I feel like this post is plenty long enough as is.

One week

I have one week and a few hours until I leave for Costa Rica.  The puzzle which is packing has been stressing me out some, but I will eventually manage to throw something together.

I will be spending the first month in Orosi, a town outside the capital, San José.  Orosi is south of San José.   The orientation will serve to give me the tools I will need to teach English in Costa Rica.

I will also be using the month to practice my Spanish.  I have hardly had any reason to speak it since last April.  It should come back to me though I will have to work on understanding a new country's words and various quirks with Spanish.

A few days ago I saw the blog, OMG I'm the adult.  While I had a few moments over the summer as supervisor at the YMCA where that thought went through my head, it was still essentially the same job I  have done since I was 16 years old.  I am equal parts nervous and excited about having that feeling many more times over the next year.  I  will definitely be the adult.

La Fortuna

I found out last night that I will be teaching in the school, Zeta-13.  I will be living in La Fortuna, which is a town about 5 hours by bus from the capital San Jose.

La Fortuna is in the northwest of the country relatively close to the Nicaraguan border.  La Fortuna has roughly 6,000 people in it.  The town is mainly a tourist town.  It is a starting location for taking trips to the hot springs and waterfalls all around the town. 

Also of note is the active volcano, Volcano Arenal, which is the picture at the top of my blog.  While sometimes obscured in clouds, I certainly hope to be able to see the Volcano in all its glory in my time in Costa Rica.

Zeta-13 is the name of the town which I will be teaching at.  This is a school for mainly the children of the workers in the tourist industry.  The school has roughly 450 students.  I will be teaching science and English to kindergarden-5th graders at least, and maybe 6th graders. 

I m excited to know where I am going to be teaching.  The placement seems good. Also, I will be able to have people visit me if they have the time.  In such a touristy town, there are a plethora of hostels and hotels to accommodate friends and family.

new netbook

Yesterday my new netbook came in the mail.  This is exciting for a couple of reasons.  First, it means a new computer for me to play around with which is always fun.

Second, now I have the computer I will be bringing with me to Costa Rica which is really good.  I bought  an ASUS netbook , which comes with a 6 cell battery, which should last a fair amount of time.  It also comes with windows 7. So far, Windows 7 has been good.  I can't say its much better than xp, but it certainly has done what I need it to.


My next project with it is to figure out open office.  I should have some sort of word processor, since I bought this with the idea of trying to do some writing while in Costa Rica.  Since I need to break out of my post-Nanowrimo lack of motivation, I figure trying out writing on my netbook could be what I need.

Just about a month

I'm leaving for Costa Rica in just about a month. There is so much I have to finish before I can leave. Just figuring out what to bring alone is enough to stress me out. I should be able to finish up the paperwork this week, or at least mos of it.

The trickiest part of the paperwork is definitely the visa application. I had to wait for December 1 to start the process, which compresses the time considerably. I have a birth certificate which I received on December 1. I will be receiving a CORI saying that I have no record in the next couple of days.

The next step is to have the birth certificate and the personal CORI certified by the secretary of the state's office. This can be done in person. Then I have to find a way to have pictures taken of me in the correct size, which has proven to be somewhat tricky.


In other news I won Nanowrimo, with 50,328 words. While not one sentence is anywhere close to publishable, I still wrote over 50,000 words on one story. I am hoping to continue writing in Costa Rica in any free time I have.

Approaching departure date

I am now less than two months from my departure date. I will be flying to Costa Rica via Dallas/Ft. Worth on January 7th.

I am nervous about the entire experience, but at the same time I am ready to move on. While living at home has been fine, it is time for me to do something else. I have been working at a local YMCA lifeguarding, which is fine but not what I want to do long term.

In a couple of weeks I have to start the steps to securing a visa, which is my next big challenge. While some steps will be straightforward such as requesting a new birth certificate, I will be working to make sure the steps involving the Costa Rican consulate go as smoothly as possible.

In mid-December I will be finding out where specifically in Costa Rica I will be teaching. I'm excited for this part of it, since I want to know where in the country I will be.

That's all for now. Back to Nanowrimo for me.