I've kept all my emails that I sent out while I studied abroad in Costa Rica so that'll take up this first little post. So here it goes: emails from June 12- July 31, about one per week.
Disclaimer: when I copied them from my email they combined like every 7th word into two. It bothers me too.
Hola Familia y Amigos!
I've safely arrived in Monteverde, Costa Rica for my seven week studyabroad program! I'm going to try to send out emails every once in awhile to keep y'all updated on Central American life. My internetconnection is beyond lousy though so bear with me.
The flight into Liberia was smooth and I was surprised to step out ofthe plane onto steps to the ground instead of into a tunnel. Theairport resembles a hut with fans made out of helicopter blades."Customs" was somewhere along the lines of "hola"…"hola." And then wewere off to Monteverde!!! We all got on a van and departed on thefirst leg of our trip up the mountains.
We stopped after about an hour at a tiny little restaurant on the sideof the road. A woman there fed us "arroz con pollo" and "caz" (ricewith chicken and some fruit juice that she later told us was made outof some trees she pointed out to us behind the restaurant). Our mealsalso came with a chunk of plantain, salad, a slice of beet, andsomething green and chunky.
Next we headed out for the longer leg of the trip, 2.5 hours. We knewwe were in trouble when our bellies were rumbling and the driverpointed to the road and said it was the last time we were gonna see itpaved. NEAT. The only thing better than driving through the mountainson a dirt road with a crazy Costa Rican driver is all that in a manual15 person van. Luckily he mostly shifted from neutral (downhill) tofirst. When he felt especially wild he hit it into second.
Finally we arrived at our campus in the exact middle of nowhere andthere are no words to describe how beautiful it is here. We arrived atabout 5pm Costa Rica time and it was humid enough to drink the air. Atnight it gets decently cold and VERY dark, no lights anywhere. Ourbungalows are 4-person rooms with a bathroom where they tell you notto flush the toilet paper. Sick nasty.
I really like the people I'm with and this weekend I think we'retaking our first hike. I'll keep yall updated and I hope you're alldoing well!
Love, Cindy
**First Costa Rican meal**Hey yall! Hope everyone is doing well back home. I just spent my first night at my homestay and I thought the experience was email-worthy. I have to walk about twenty minutes to my family's farm. My padre, Alviro, works on the UGA campus which the Costa Ricans either call "Ooo-guh" (UGA) or "el eco-lodge." My madre's name is Erisa and they have two daughters, a 14 year old named Adriana and a 3 year old named Laura. Laura mostly follows me around and stares at me. Both my madre and padre are very kind, patient, and willing to help me learn the language. I've been able to understand 95% of what they say when they speak to me but when they're in a conversation with one another it's like a completely different language. I showed them some pictures I brought of my friends and family and they think everyone is good looking and that Ashley, Lisa, and I look like "gemelos" (twins). Surprise! The food is different, but very good. At the campus our meals are huge and incredible. Breakfast is my favorite- scrambled eggs and the freshest fruit imaginable. Almost all the food they serve us here is grown on campus so the eggs and milk we have in the morning are straight from the barn, the coffee is freshly grown, and the fruit is straight from the trees. At my homestay the food is about the same, they don't use milk in their coffee though so that's a downer. I had cauliflower fried with egg in it with fried plantains for dinner last night. The families (along with all of Costa Rica it seems) sleep with the sun. Bed time at 8:30, wake up by 5:30. The house is small and humble, constructed of plywood, drywall, and a tin roof (what is with these Costa Ricans? Don't they know it rains here and a tin roof is probably not the best option?), but has an INCREDIBLE view of the mountains. The walls don't reach the ceiling so noise, light, and bugs travel freely. The house is split down the center; on the left is the living room and kitchen, on the right are the three bedrooms. I sleep in a room that fits...a bed. (Ash, it makes your room in Spain look like a chateau). I took a shower last night in the practically outdoor closet that has a hose that runs up the wall and hangs down from a 2x4. One stream of freezing water. At least once I turned on the water most of the cockroaches climbed up the walls so I could take my shoes off to shower. I made the mistake of staying up later than my host family (a scandalous 9pm), which attracted all the bugs from the other rooms to my single light bulb in my room. As soon as I turned off the light I felt something drop on my arm. A quick flicker of the indiglo on my watch revealed a furry little spider friend that needed a place to sleep. At this point, however, bugs don't really faze me. Needlesstosay, the trip has turned out much more rustic and "natural" than I had expected. It's an experience, of course. This weekend the 11 kids in my group and our graduate advisor friend have planned at trip to San Jose to see the Costa Rican national soccer team play Granada. Most of us wanted to see a soccer game and this is pretty much our only chance so we're taking it. Everyone is leaving their homestays tomorrow morning and meeting at a certain street corner at about 5:30am (don't worry, it will be light) so that was can get a taxi into town to meet the public bus at 6:30am. The 6 hour bus ride will take us to San Jose where we'll check into our hostel and walk around the city until the game at 8pm. After the game we've all been advised by our homestay families to get a taxi straight from the stadium back to our hostel. Apparently San Jose can get a little sketchy at night. Our hostel has free internet, calls the the US, a pool/hot tub, and a bar that overlooks the city. Transportation and hostel fees together is going to be less than $30. Nice. We also started our classes on Monday but that's not interesting so I'll spare yall on all that education stuff. We've been on about 3 hikes, ranging from 3 to 5 hours each, and we went bird netting on Tuesday instead of having Ecology class. We've gone into the town (Santa Elena) a couple of times to eat dinner or see what the nightlife is like. One of the younger kitchen workers has taught about half my group how to dance the Gambia and the Merengue. Who knows if I spelled those right. It's pretty obvious I'm a dancing master. Especially since we decided to try out our dance skills at "Bar Amigos" one night and once we hit the dance floor my partner and I completely forgot everything except the basic step. Compared the the Ticos (natives) we looked like we were having seizures. Oh well. "When in Costa Rica" as I always say. I love hearing back from yall. Hope you're all enjoying your warm showers and bug-free sheets! I'll try to write again soon.
Love, Cindy
**One of our first hikes**
**In a cloud in Santa Elena** 
**My homestay with little Laura** 
**Alviro, my homestay dad**
**Some great tin roofs in San Jose**
**View from my backyard**Hello everyone! It's been a while since my last update, partially due to my absence from the ecolodge and partially due to the molasses we call "internet."Our first adventure to San Jose went pretty well. On the bus ride into San Jose one of the girls got her whole bag taken including passport, ID, money, clothes, and school books. She had to stay an extra day and visit the embassy. So that part wasn't as successful. The hostel we stayed in was actually really nice considering the rest of the city: bar, restaurant, internet, pool, warm water, the whole shebang. The soccer game was also a blast, the Latin American fans were wild, as expected. They ended up winning the game 3-0 and it was more exciting than any other soccer game I've ever been to (not to offend Ashley or Lisa on their mad skills). This past weekend we returned to San Jose on our way to Dominical, this time on a private bus so we didn't have to watch our luggage so carefully. Our second day in San Jose we got to go rafting and it was incredible. Halfway down the river, the guides docked us on a little beach, flipped over two rafts, and began to "cook" us lunch. They cut fruit and laid out sandwich makings and it was unlike any other lunch setting I've ever had. As fun as the rafting was, I started to feel really sick that night and a doctor visit the next morning informed me that I'd caught the flu. Good times, huh? Anyways, I got the medicine I needed and we all headed off to Dominical. Dominical is more of a beach town and this was our weekend to relax and enjoy the nice, sandy beaches. Turns out we stayed in cabins at a place called "Hacienda Baru" that were very bug-friendly. Within the 3 nights there we encountered: a 7" grasshopper (they're a lot scarier when they look like they could take off an arm), a few crabs, some centipedes, lots of spiders, a 4" cockroach (in my bed), and a nice swarm of sugar ants that took a liking to my laundry bag. The "beaches" were covered in rocks which were carried by the waves straight into your ankles if you chose to step into the ocean. Needlesstosay, not much here goes as expected. As always, it's an experience and I'm happy to be here taking part in it. Sorry the email isn't too detailed or long, it's lunch time and I live for the food. Hope all is well!
Love, Cindy
**"Beautiful" beaches of Dominical**
**One of our friendly bug friends"... about the size of that pen**Hola a todos!
So I left off the last email with a not-quite-positive attitude. It'stough looking at the bright side of things when you have the flu in aforeign country. Anyway, I'm cured of said flu and am sending this oneout with a more optimistic outlook on things.
I've spent the last 6 nights in my second homestay which is, quitenaturally, the farthest one away (bright side: I get quite a workoutwalking uphill for 50 minutes every morning!). Compared to my lasthome, this one is a chateau. By chateau I mean it has two floors. Thebottom floor is just a stove and sink area, a small table with twochairs, a sofa, and tv in one room and a small bedroom off the back.The top floor is like an attic, it has two beds, a crib, and adresser. There is also tile floor in the shower and the kitchen whichis a very big deal. Water...still cold (bright side: it's apparentlygood for your skin and hair and I don't waste any extra water standingin the shower for too long!). My madre, Flori, makes really greatfood, including good chicken. You know it's really good when rightbefore you eat it you hear the story of how your madre killed itearlier that day (bright side: you know it's fresh!). She also makesfantastic bread and jam. The jams here are my absolute favorite. Theyrange from guava to pineapple to mystery but they're all good. Thepadre, Carlos never really talks to us. One other girl, Alyssa, and Iwere put together in this house after another family dropped out whentheir son was coming in town. We have two "sisters" ages 7, Daniela,and 3, Fabi. Daniela is a doll but I find myself wanting to strangleFabi. Spoiled kids are not my thing.
While the family is pretty well off comparatively, they still don'thave amenities we would consider common in the U.S. I was translatingthings Daniela said into English such as body parts and days of theweek just to pass the time on Sunday before I got started on myhomework. After a while I got out my computer to do my psychologyreadings. Daniela stared intently at me as I simply scrolled up anddown and I wasn't quite sure what was so interesting. A couple minutesinto my reading she asked me, "What's this called?" Assuming she meantin English, I answered, "computer." She looked at me and then said,"No, in Spanish." Apparently she had never seen a computer before andwas transfixed by it. I stopped reading and taught her how to use the"paint" program so she could draw pictures. She couldn't get a handleon the concept of the mouse but the pictures are beautifulnonetheless. After spending the next afternoon playing soccer with alemon, Alyssa and I took a cab into Santa Elena to buy the girls somepresents. We spent a total of $1.50 on two notebooks, a pack ofmarkers, and a rubber ball, but you would have though we bought themthe Barbie dreamhouse complete with convertible. We still come home atthe end of the day to exciting little shouts of "PLAY!" and "DRAW!"
While I've grown accustomed to eating, studying, showering, and simplybeing with bugs, there are a few that still don't settle very wellwith me. For example, sitting in the house this weekend my madre wassewing some napkins. She lifted one up for me to see that there was ascorpion hanging onto it. No big deal, it was a mere 1.5" and didn'tlook too threatening. The tarantula in my bedroom, however, had mesquealing like a little girl. Luckily my padre managed to get it ontoa broom and take it outside. Our madre was nice enough to inform usthat it "probably wasn't dead," "probably had a family," and would"probably return".....neat. (Bright side: we kill about 15 bugs everynight and with the tarantula around they're all gone by themorning...no one has to clean up!)
As for academics, a quick update: we had our ecology midterm today andit was awful (bright side: it could always be worse!)
Luckily for everyone, we've all grown to have a sense of belonginghere and are starting to get over our homesickness. As new groups comethrough the ecolodge we all laugh at how amateur they are compared tous, experts of the jungle. We all know to shake our shoes out forscorpions in the morning, how to recognize what kind of bug bite camefrom what bug, where the army ants can be expected to be marching, toget in line early if lunch is being served buffet style, and that theonly dangers of walking in the dark by yourself are snakes, notpeople. My group of 11 kids has gotten really close and I hope I'llstay in touch with them when we all get back to our Athens lives.Speaking of Athens lives, I've realized how incredibly wasteful thelarge majority of America is. I'm sure if they knew we had 7 cars and rooms of our house we never use, the residents of San Luis would thinkmy family is ridiculous. Talk about carbon foot print.
There are 3 large coffee farms around the ecolodge in San Luis and I'mplanning on bringing back a bunch of coffee (it's incredible, and Idon't even drink coffee!). Yall should let me know if you'd like any cause they'd love to have the money and I promise it really is great.Anyway, I hope you are all doing very well. Know that I'm enjoyingmyself and may come back speaking only Spanish and carrying a machete everywhere I go. After all, I AM nature girl.
Love, Cindy
**Second homestay family**
**"Bicho hunting"... preparing fine cuisine for our other roommate"
**The tarantula!**Hey yall! Week five has concluded and with that I've dubbed it "best week so far." This past weekend we took our trip to the Arenal Volcano. This was actually the trip that everyone was dreading because of the amount of intense hiking we were promised. But alas, it turned out incredibly. We left Friday morning for Santa Elena where we ziplined. As expected, it was breathtakingly scary. After the first line you get the hang of it though and the rest is smooth sailing. Or zipling. We went across nine lines and it's incredible to be flying on a piece of cable hundreds of feet above the ground. The view was indescribable though. After ziplining we ate our sack lunches and took a little two hour hike to San Gerardo Ecostation in the Children's Eternal Rainforest. This place was pretty cool cause it's all self sustainable and we had walked from the closest road (if that gives you any idea of the level of civilization around this place). San Gerardo itself is just a bunk house and kitchen where hikers and students stay on their way through the rainforest. Great food, though. Saturday morning we got up early, stuffed ourselves with scrambled eggs, and headed out on our six hour hike to Rancho Margot at the bottom of the Arenal Volcano. This hike was not exactly a walk in the park. We got to slosh through knee-deep mud, walk across chest-deep rushing rivers, and walk six inches away from the edge of a cliff. At the end of it we walked across a huge cow pasture to get to the ranch and it felt pretty good to know we'd all gotten through it. Among many other things, one thing very different here is that Costa Ricans don't really sugar coat anything. When we asked if there were snakes in the mud we were walking through the guides responded, "Yea...some are poisonous.".......neat. After our beastly hike, we were all excited for Sunday which meant we got to go to the hot springs all day! We went to some resort where there were about eight pools of warm water heated by the lava from the volcano. That's pretty cool. There were waterfalls and jets and wet bars, etc. Monday we had a morning tour of the ranch where they told us about the plants and how it is also self sustainable. Costa Rica is all about sustainability and conservation. We got to pet the pigs (one of which I think we ate) and saw the mini-hydroelectric power "plant" they get their energy from to keep the place running. In the afternoon a few of us decide to pay a little extra and take a horseback tour around the volcano. This was probably the coolest thing I've ever done. While I've never gotten on a horse before in my life, I proved to everyone that I'm really a cowgirl at heart when my horse took off running and I wet myself. Always an experience. After riding the horses straight up a mountain to a lookout point, we again walked through some mud and across rushing rivers...this time on a horse. Halfway though the two hours it started to pour. We went straight through the jungle and once we hit a road the guide yelled, "YAAA" and all the horses took off running. No big deal, my bladder was already empty. Tuesday we came back to our home sweet ecolodge and have just been catching up with school work and sleep since. I hope you all have been having a great past five weeks. I'll keep you updated on week six and see some of you in two weeks! Love, Cindy
**One of my friends ziplining**
**Crossing the river in the middle of the hike**
**Whole group in the middle of our long hike**
**This horse loved me. **
**Arenal volcano**Hola! So week six is over and it was not quite as eventful as week five but still lots of fun. This past weekend we decided that our "beach trip" to Dominical during week three wasn't sufficient so we planned our own weekend in Montezuma. Friday afternoon we took six hours to travel by taxi, then ferry, then another taxi. Saturday it rained all day but the beach was still pretty and we had a fun day shopping in the little hippie stores and eating at the restaurants. I'm thinking that the large majority of the Montezuma population participates in recreational drugs which made for a very chill atmosphere. Sunday we had a beautiful day in which I got the only three hours of sun time I've had since the plane landed. I honestly expected to come back looking slightly more ethnic but the jungle is not known for it's bronzing powers. Since I got back Sunday night I've just been staying with my first homestay, Alviro and Eliza, who I left this morning. The sweet little three year old Laura tried to prevent me from leaving first by hanging onto my leg, then by tying me to the chair with her belt. When her mom told her enough and that I had to leave she burst into tears. That kinda thing will break your heart. We're spending our last week studying for finals and getting our stuff together at the ecolodge. I'll be home in 7 days!
Love you all,
Cindy
**Beautiful beaches!**
**Sunset on the ferry ride home**
**Laura and me playing in the backyard**
Hola a todos for the last time! The past week hasn't been too exciting, mostly a mixture of studying for and taking exams. That's right, there was an academic aspect to my program. But alas, I'm home safe in my Alpharetta house! There was one night of fun last Saturday when the whole town gathered at a pavilion to have a dance in Bajo San Luis (the lower part of the town). If yall remember my one year of hip-hop dance lessons, you can only imagine how utterly fantastic I am at Latin dance. Luckily, some of us have been taking dance lessons from Giovanni (who works in the kitchen) so that took a bit of the edge off. All the current ecolodge residents, homestay families, naturalists, receptionists, and members of the town were there… about 225 of us. Even some little kids showed up at the beginning of it but I was sad that little Laura didn't make it. I did see both her parents though and got a chance to dance the Cumbia with Alviro. One really great part about San Luis is that everyone dances with everyone as if it's a way to say hello, regardless of age or even how well you know each other. I met one guy's homestay dad and right after we shook hands and kissed on the cheek he dragged me onto the dance floor for a few minutes of meringue. I'd say in total the dance lasted 5 hours before we headed back to the ecolodge. Quite the night in San Luis considering it's not exactly a happenin' place. Other than that we've all just been visiting our families for the last time before we reunite with our American families and buying lots of coffee from Oldemar's farm. Alviro also owns a coffee farm and he sends the beans to Oldemar for processing so the coffee I'm bringing back may as well have come from my very own homestay backyard! On a deeper note, I've come to realize all the things I take for granted. I always knew that I had a good family and secure home to fall back on, but this is much different. There is a big difference between things you truly take for granted and things you know you take for granted. For instance, I knew before going to Costa Rica that I took for granted my family's health, my cell phone, my ability to instantly access anyone I needed, and my opportunity towards higher education. After being immersed in a completely different lifestyle for seven weeks, I've noticed that I take for granted much smaller things such as mattresses and pasteurized milk. Never would I have thought that'd I'd live without those things for 7 weeks, but once you scrape the layer of fat off the surface or your coffee or sleep a few nights in a blanket on a piece of plywood, you realize that it isn't so bad. After all, these people have lived their whole lives like this so you know you'll survive the summer. I expected to have my outlook on life revamped by going abroad but I never expected it would happen in a little hut on a coffee farm, sitting on a horse at the base of a volcano, or wading through the river in the middle of a 6 hour hike. Quite frankly, I'm not sure what I expected. All I know is that I got it and more. I hope yall have enjoyed getting my emails and for those of you who have emailed me back I've loved staying updated on your lives. I hope yall have had a really great summer and are excited for fall. Make sure to keep in touch! Love, Cindy
**Whole group at the dance in Bajo San Luis**
**Oldemar picking coffee beans on his coffee farm**
**Just another day at school**
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