Flora y Fauna

Flowers:

Caterpillars:

Butterflies:

Animals:

Ants:

Other Plants:

7.6

This morning there was an earthquake off the west coast of Costa Rica. It was a 7.6 in magnitude which is really big. My professors at ACM had never felt one this big before. I was waiting for my class to start when I felt some shaking...I thought somebody was coming down one of the rickety staircases but when I saw the ACM secretary walking out of her office towards me I knew it was an earthquake. Luckily, I didn't have far to walk to the "Zona Segura" (Safe Zone) which is in the ACM backyard. I watched as the ACM building rocked side to side along with several plants and I could hear things clanging together on the 2nd floor. Some of my friends and professors were on the second floor and felt it more than I did. The movement lasted for a minute or two. It was a bizarre feeling... a mix between being on a ride/dizziness. Even after the earthquake my body still felt as if the ground was moving. Shortly after, everything seemed very still; the trees hardly moved, not much noise from birds, etc. Then it rained. My professor Mario said that this is typical. He also said that aftershocks are possible up to a few days later. As of now (almost 14 hours later) I haven't felt one.
Within a half an hour of the earthquake, everything was back to normal and people went on with their daily routines. Evidently Costa Rica is situated on land that is very elastic and can easily move side to side during earthquakes which means that a large earthquake like this does not do too much damage whereas in other parts of the world an earthquake of a smaller magnitude could do lots of harm.
You'll have to look at CNN or another news station, but as far as I know 1 person died and only a few were injured. Everything is good at ACM. We are all safe and so are our families. As many Ticos would say, "Gracias a dios."

Palabras Nuevas
medias (calcetines) - socks
marco - frame
botiquín - first aid kit
fosforos - matches
mareado - dizzy
colibri - hummingbird

Chocolate and more chocolate

This weekend was a whirlwind. On Friday I had to get to ACM early so we could leave for Finmac, a cacao plantation. It took us about 2.5 hours to get there by bus. We drove northeast from San Jose over mountains and through the rainforest. The scenery was beautiful but it was hot and very humid.
Once we got to Finmac we walked though the cacao tree farm. We got to see 3 sloths. One was only 4 hours old. I even got to hold one. They were very cute (not soft unfortunately) and they were not happy that we were interfering with them. After watching the process of how the cacao gets collected, we went into the plant to see how the cacao bean gets turned into chocolate: separating the fruit from the bean/seed, fermenting and drying the beans, grinding the beans, adding sugar, etc. We had to wear a uniform over our clothes: white smock, white rain boots, white hair bonnet. At each step of the chocolate-making process we were able to have a taste. The dried beans of 100% cacao are not very good. Very bitter. Think dirt with a very small hint of chocolate flavor. At the very end we were able to have organic chocolate made with 65% cacao. Mmmmmm. So good. We were also able to drink coconut water directly from the coconuts trees there.
We stayed at Finmac for lunch and our cook was a woman who works with a co-op of women selling chocolate. She was a great cook and she sold some of her chocolate to us. I bought 5 bars, all of different flavors.
After seeing the chocolate plant, we went to a banana plantation about 10 minutes away. We walked through the banana tree farm and saw the whole process of bananas on tree to the bananas being boxed into Dole trucks. Very interesting.

2.5 hour bus ride to Tirimbina. Tirimbina is a rainforest conservation reserve. It is in the middle of the rainforest. We had dinner at the restaurant there and then saw a presentation about bats. During the presentation, the expert actually had bats for us to look at and touch. I learned so much. Afterwards, we were able to release the bats back into the wild. I wore a glove, the expert put the bat in my hand with its wing between my thumb and palm, and when I let go, it flew off into the darkness. We spent the night in the lodge there.
The next morning we went on a tour through the rainforest. We got to walk across 2 swaying suspension bridges (the longest one in Costa Rica). I was not as scared as I thought I would be although the bridges were pretty high up. I learned a lot about the forest, insects, and animals there. We heard howler monkeys and saw a snake, white bats sleeping under a leaf, bullet and army ants, blue-jean frogs, and lots of vines, trees, and flowers. The tour took 2 hours. After, we hiked a little more to watch another presentation on cacao and chocolate. The technology used at Tirimbina was much less sophisticated than what was used in Finmac, but I enjoyed the experience more because it was more interactive. Again, we were able to try cacao in every stage until it became chocolate. At the end of the presentation, we got to mix our own melted chocolate with vanilla, chile, and/or nutmeg. It was fantastic. The men giving the presentation kept giving us more and more chocolate. It was amazing, but I'll admit, I didn't even want to think about chocolate for a few days. I learned that there is such a thing as too much chocolate.
After lunch at the restaurant, we took a bus back to San Jose.

Sunday I slept in and didn't go to church with Marta. I did some homework and then hung out with a few of my ACM friends. They walked me home and got to meet my family. Dinner. On Sundays Marta watches La Voz Mexico so I watched that with her after dinner.

Three-toed sloth

Cacao pods right after being picked

3-Toed Sloth

2-Toed Sloth and Baby

Cacao fermenting and drying

Cacao liquid

Drinking from coconuts

Banana farm

Washing and packing bananas

Bat Presentation

Bats

Tirimbina Suspension Bridge

Salsa y Merengue

The past few days have been pretty similar to other days (breakfast, walking to class, lunch, walking back from class, homework, dinner, Combate). A few extra things: we found a soccer ball in ACM that we played with one day. Two days ago it did not rain...a first. Yesterday I had an assignment to talk to my family about the education system here. Some of the things are similar, but some are very different than in the US. Also, yesterday the class went to the national museum as a part of our Introduction to Costa Rica class. They had a lot of artifacts there: pottery, gold, furniture, etc. and also a butterfly room! I forgot my camera so I don't have photos of any of the things at the museum.

Today we had our first dance class. In one hour we learned the Salsa and the Merengue. Our teacher, Roy, is a professional dancer who happens to be one of the mentors of dancers on Bailando por un Sueño which is the Latin American version of Dancing with the Stars. He was a great teacher and dancing with him was much easier than dancing with any other partner. Obviously he knew what he was doing. I still need a lot of practice but I look forward to our next dance class.

As we were leaving ACM for the day it was pouring. Since I have been here, I have not gotten my feet so wet as I did today. The rain wasn't coming down too hard but the puddles on the sidewalks and in the streets was incredible. My shoes were spewing water and sloshing the whole way home.

Breakfast: Egg, pineapple, toast with cream cheese and jelly, coffee
Lunch: Mini pizza, banana, mixed fruit refresco, banana bread
Dinner: Rice, beans, Ham/cheese/spinach bake, peach refresco

Palabras Nuevas:
beca - scholarship
maicero - hillbilly
zorra - fox
tornillo - screw
esfera - sphere
paño - towel (in CR)
reflejo - reflection

Nicknames:
Toño - Antonio
Chepe - Jose
Pancho - Francisco

Yoga

I went to mass with Marta this morning. Then 4 of us ACM students went to downtown San Jose to participate in the activities for the National Yoga Festival. We didn't actually do any yoga. We didn't have mats. We walked through all the stands that were set up and watched some performances. We also walked through some souvenir shops. On our way back to San Pedro a man on our bus sang songs and played his guitar. I wonder how often that kind of thing happens here.

I had a lot of homework to finish today so I spent most of the evening doing that.

Breakfast: Peach refresco, egg with ham, toast with cream cheese and guava jelly, coffee
Lunch: Pepperoni pizza, pineapple juice
Dinner: Casserole, salad, peach refresco

Palabras Nuevas
pasa - raisin
factura - receipt/bill
jugo de jamaica - hibiscus flower juice


Yoga Festival

Familias y futbol

This morning there was a get-together with all the ACM students, their families, and ACM teachers at the sports center of UCR. We got a tour of the area (basketball courts, soccer fields, pool, track). The whole campus is really pretty and I think I will work out there when I have some time. Then we played some games: 3-legged races, races where we had to balance lemons on spoons in our mouths as we ran to the finish line, dancing with a partner while holding a lemon in between our cheeks, musical chairs, tying 2 balloons to our ankles and trying to pop the balloons of the other players. That was the game I won. The activities were really fun and I am glad we got to do them with our families. We had lunch there too and that was really good.

This afternoon I did some homework and Skyped my parents at home.

Around 5:30 I went out with my ACM friends to have dinner and watch the rivalry soccer game on TV  with other Ticos (La Liga vs. Saprissa). It was really crazy seeing the Ticos react when their team scored a goal. It reminded me a little bit of what it might be like to watch the Super Bowl in a restaurant. Nuts. I asked Marta which team the family liked best. She said "Saprissa" so that was the team I rooted for. The game ended in a tie. 2-2.

Breakfast: Coffee, egg with ham, toast with cream cheese and guava jelly
Lunch: Mango juice, chicken lasagna, vegetables, bread, flan
Dinner: Nachos

San Jose Tour

Luckily, I was not woken up by a gecko during the night.
Same morning routine. After grammar/conversation class we went on a class field trip to San Jose. When I first got here, I thought I was in San Jose but really ACM and my house are in San Pedro. We saw many historic sites, parks, and the market. We took the bus to San Jose but we took taxis back to ACM. That was an interesting experience. Like I stated in one of my first few posts, drivers are crazy here. Although, I give them some credit for knowing the exact dimensions of their cars. They get so close to other cars when they stop or change lanes but they never touch.

Graffiti (very common)

Park in San Jose

All-metal school in San Jose

Temple of Music in San Jose

Avenida Central (Central Avenue)

Good luck statue in San Jose

Central Market

Inside Mercado Central

Spices in Mercado Central

Inside Mercado Central

Cat Mural in San Jose

We returned to ACM around 1:00 which meant we had lots of time to hang out. Five of us decided to play Picture Telephone and do magic tricks with cards. We had a good time trying to do the activities in Spanish. After lots of laughs, we decided to explore San Pedro a little bit. We went to the mall. It is a lot like a mall in the United States. We all went home. Nap. Dinner.

Combate. Two new games today: 1) Each team was divided into pairs (1 guy, 1 girl). They had to go through a short obstacle course while balancing an apple in between their two heads. Which ever team had all three pairs finish first won - Costa Rica. 2) One person sits on a swing while another pushes them. Once they get as high as they can go, another teammate passes them a basketball and they need to shoot it into a hoop while an opponent tries to block it. The team that got the most baskets in 2 minutes won - Costa Rica.

Breakfast - Coffee, ham/cheese/tomato/lettuce sandwich, apple slices
Lunch: Pineapple drink (similar to pina colada), beef/rice/vegetable soup, arroz con leche (rice pudding)
Dinner: Chicken, rice, bean dish (not really sure how to explain it...it looked like quiche but it was made out of beans and cornmeal with a little cheese on top), peach refresco

Palabras Nuevas
resortera - slingshot (Carly bought one)
grueso - thick (the more politically correct way of calling a person 'fat')