Photo credits are as noted. Uncredited photos were taken by me.
Spending the last nine days in Costa Rica has been yet another incredible experience. I am unspeakably grateful for the people I shared this journey with, the natural beauty that was ever present, and the opportunities to try so many new things in such a short period of time. Most of all, I owe a huge thanks to Steph Ronan, my travel buddy for the trip and the person who invited me to go on this grand adventure in the first place! In recounting the journey, I'll break it into three sections based on travel companions and our geographical location within the country.
Next we made our way to Playa Hermosa, where we were supposed to have seen a surf competition. That didn't seem to be happening, but we had a fun time letting the waves batter the crap out of us. I ended up having an hour-long conversation with Colombian-born,Sweden-raised, London resident Jonathan. We listened to the waves, decried the idea of sedating dolphins just to keep them in captivity, and shared the ways travel has enriched our own lives.
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| Photo by Courtney Slade |
Our group ended up having dinner before rolling on to Villas Mymosa, our hotel in Manuel Antonio. Forgot to take room pictures, but this was the view from out balcony hammock. We all shared a quick drink at restaurant Mimos next door before retiring for an early wake up call. As a fun note to anyone considering travel here, you can drink tap water all over the country! Having to buy bottled water would never deter me from going somewhere, but it's awesome not to always have to consider when and where you will buy it next so you don't run out. TP still needs to go in the trash can.
Our first full day started with a trip to Manuel Antonio National Park. You begin by walking down a gravel road, where you can see all manner of flora, as well as fauna (from sloths to hummingbirds and more). The gravel path eventually gives way to a wooden pathway through the forest, finally leading you to restrooms near the beach within the park. There were two optional hikes that our group opted to do. I followed the Punta Catedral path with a few others, which allowed us to see different views of the park and the ocean from higher lookout points. My favorite part was definitely when we had to get off the path to allow some raccoons to have the right-of-way. After climbing some rock piles and earning Steph her first war wound of the trip, we relaxed for several hours on the small, secluded Playa Espadilla Sur.
By the end of beach time, it was still only 1 PM and we were ready for lunch, so we headed to Cafe Milagro. Delicious fish tacos (among other fresh choices) fortified me for the afternoon adventure, parasailing. I am terribly scared of heights, and there were definitely some points where I couldn't look down at the boat, but the views and the new experience were well worth the fear. This was the first (but far from the last) that I noted how cool of a group I was traveling with: though barely knowing each other for 24 hours, everyone was cheering each other on and adding to the positive feel of the afternoon. Up in the air, quasi-silence, broken only by an occasionally flapping of the parasail, the sun, and the birds were your companions in flight.
After parasailing, we caught the local bus (only costs 315 colones, or 60-70 cents) back home for showers and dinner at Mymosa. From there, it was on to Byblos, a club/bar that boasted a giant jenga set. It got intense! There's also a hilarious Costa Rican guy named ... Who will hit on all the girls in your group and not be rebuffed even when you blow him off by telling him that you SAW him flirt with two others first.
Later in the night, we added our fantastic dance moves to the club scene. During a salsa song, I was focusing on my steps in our group circle when some interpretive jazz dance hands appeared around me. I spent the song laughing while salsa-ing with the only other barefoot person in the room...laughing partly because I was enjoying dancing and partly because he kept cooing at me. Yes. Like a dove. Turns out he was a Wisconsinite who really likes Latin American music festivals and making bird noises.
After parasailing, we caught the local bus (only costs 315 colones, or 60-70 cents) back home for showers and dinner at Mymosa. From there, it was on to Byblos, a club/bar that boasted a giant jenga set. It got intense! There's also a hilarious Costa Rican guy named ... Who will hit on all the girls in your group and not be rebuffed even when you blow him off by telling him that you SAW him flirt with two others first.
Later in the night, we added our fantastic dance moves to the club scene. During a salsa song, I was focusing on my steps in our group circle when some interpretive jazz dance hands appeared around me. I spent the song laughing while salsa-ing with the only other barefoot person in the room...laughing partly because I was enjoying dancing and partly because he kept cooing at me. Yes. Like a dove. Turns out he was a Wisconsinite who really likes Latin American music festivals and making bird noises.
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| Photo by Stephanie Ronan |
We started with a tour of the classrooms. From what we could see, there were 4 academic classrooms (we saw Kindergarten plus grades 4-6) and a computer lab. The gym/recess area was the outdoor soccer/basketball field/court and a covered area near the bleachers that was utilized for jump rope and other non-ball games.
This was the teacher's lounge:
The school kitchen:
And the cafeteria (one grade eats at a time):
1. Kids are in school for three trimesters (like CJR!). They just started the new school year recently, in early February. They'll have a week off for Semana Santa (week leading up to Easter) then be in school again until June 30. They'll come back two weeks later in mid-July, going more or less through the beginning of December (might have been another short break in there). Then they have off until the start of the next school year in February again. It works out well because those are some of the hottest months in CR.
2. I mentioned that we only saw a few grades. Kids attend school for 4.5 hours each day, so we saw the morning group of students, but later in the afternoon we saw the 1-3 graders arriving for afternoon classes. Group 1 is in school 7-11:30, teachers have lunch and planning from then until 12:10 (definitely saw a parent-teacher meeting occurring at this time), and Group 2 is in session from then until 4:40. Except for the kindergarten teacher, all of the teachers have 2 grade levels to teach.
3. When kids aren't in school, they are generally at home helping with the house work, playing, and watching TV. Moms in the are generally have a hard time finding work- the principal emphasized several times how difficult it is to conseguir trabajo (find work) around Portalon right now. The biggest market, for the men, seems to be related to the palm oil industry: whether collecting the palm fruits or working in a factory where they are processed and jarred, this type of work might pay around $2-3/hour. Banana plantations (some United Fruit Company holdovers) used to be a source of jobs, but the fields were used to the point of infertility and right now they're in a fallow state.
4.This school is a K-6 school. It's the equivalent of a Baltimore City neighborhood school; anyone living in the vicinity has the right to attend. Most kids attending the K-6 program live in the nearby area, and many of them bike to school
Kids can stop attending after 6th grade, but education and transportation (public bus passes) are provided to anyone who has graduated and wants to continue on to middle and high school. There are both day and night versions of high school available, in the event that kids this age have gotten a job to support their families.5.Family leave: *what I write here applies specifically to teachers, not sure what the laws are for non-education professionals* Moms are given 4 months maternity leave, and male teachers are also given 1 month of paternity leave after the birth. Even cooler, moms are allowed to take 1 hour a day to breastfeed for the first 18 months. There's a lot of emphasis places on family and on the child within Costa Rican society from what I can tell.
6. Jenny, from what I can tell, is the Costa Rican funding genius equivalent of my old principal, Marc Martin. More on this later, but for starters, she worked with a local foundation to get the computer lab for their school, which was a big deal: they had to do extra work on the school to have a room that met the requirements of the foundation before they could get the computers (waterproof, temp control, etc). The kids get 4 tech classes per week.
This is in addition to the other 6 classes: Spanish (reading and grammar), math, science, social studies, character education (they have monthly values, sort of like Commodore's 5 Promises: this month was the value of friendship and love), physical ed, and English (starting 2nd grade).
After Jenny was finished speaking, we met two grandparents of students who had also assisted in providing the school lunch we'd had: the grandfather had picked and cut green papayas, and his wife had cooked them into a delicious filling for tortillas. They both spoke about how much they cared about the school and contributing what they could to the center of the community, and it was a live illustration of a point that Jenny had made earlier: the kids, their families, and school personnel all really come together to create this shared success. It was beautiful to see.
We got to spend a lot of time playing with the kids: everyone found an activity to suit them, from soccer to jump rope (yay!) to wheelbarrow races.
Kevin literally balled so hard that his shoes starting falling apart.
I started with jump rope, and while these kids were hard to leave, I also wanted to take advantage of the recess break to talk with Nathalia, the English teacher who had given us the preliminary tour. Some more of what I learned:
7. There's a national curriculum, but teachers have some latitude to adapt the lessons in the way that makes most sense for the community in which they work. There are no national exams, at least not until the end of high school.
8. She said that while drugs, crime, and violence are not a problem at her school, poverty affects the students in terms of a) how much time parents can spend with them reinforcing school concepts, and b) the resources kids have at home for studying.
9. Teachers are still hellishly busy, like anywhere else, with planning lessons, meetings with parents, grading, and everything else...just like anywhere.
10. More of why Jenny rocks: during her time as the principal, she has worked really hard to bring lots of different clubs and organizations to the school to augment student learning in after-school programs. In particular, she's brought several arts programs as well as the crown plum, the ecological program (see 11).
11. Care for the environment is a HUGE priority here. CR has developed a way to recognize contributions to this effort, through the awarding of Ecological Flags. Schools and other public institutions receive a Blue Ecological Flag. On the flag is a number of stars (from 1, the lowest level, to 5, the highest level), denoting their commitment to protecting the environment. Escuela Portalon's flag has 4 stars, probably in recognition of the fact that they are the recycling hub for the entire village of Portalon (everyone drops their recycling at the school, student Environmental Leaders (like CJR's Recycling Club) help sort it, and the government collects it once a month). Businesses have between 1-3 leaves on their green flags in recognition of the environment.
Because apparently the kids were having such a blast (or because it was hot enough that no one wanted to take us to work in the garden), our previously scheduled bout of gardening was dismissed for more play time. We did get to visit the garden, which serves to provide food for the school lunch, and is cared for by parents.
All good things must come to an end, and we eventually left to head to a waterfall in the mountains behind the school. Given the shaky state of some bridges leading to the cascade, we decided to walk what we were told was "1 kilometer". 4 of them later, we finally arrived. While the hike had been a bit grueling at points, it was absolutely worth it: the isolated spot featured a deep (we never touched bottom) swimming hole and rock "seats" behind the waterfall where we took many selfies. It was here that I again realized what an awesome group we had: it was actually kind of tough to swim through the current to the waterfall, and EVERYONE cheered for (and reached out helping hands to) EVERYONE who tried the swim. Leave no one behind ❤️. Matt and Courtney had introduced us to a group "talking point" activity called Rose, Bud, Thorn: each person shares one thing they loved about the day (rose), one they didn't like (thorb), and one thing about tomorrow they're excited about (bud). My rose for the day- and the trip overall- was definitely that out of 15 people total, everyone was genuinely a great person to be with, talk to, and have as a new travel mate.
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| Photo by ...whoever was holding Steph's camera |
We got back from the waterfall tired but not done: we quickly changed and went to a bar called El Avion. Someone had pulled an old airplane up and down the hilly roads of Manuel Antonio and parked it on a mountain overlook. They built a bar around it, and now you can watch the colorful sunsets painting themselves across the horizon with a great cocktail in hand.
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| Photo by Tiffany Yu on Steph's camera |
After a few drinks and one of my favorite bus rides in history (we met one of Sean's, the lone Canadian's, fellow countrymen on the bus to a first date with a Costa Rican girl, and gave him a raucous cheer to send him on his way- I told you this was a supportive group!) we ended back at Mymosas for a low-key night of dinner and drinks in Maddie and Lisa's room.
Our last full day with the group started with two excursions, surfing and ziplining. Because Steph and I were already planning the latter for our next phase of travel, we opted for surfing lessons with Jhonny and company. It was a fun experience, with a 10 minute bootcamp in the sand before getting on our boards and hoping for the best. It was not easy! At the same time, I did eventually manage to get up and stay standing for about 2 seconds...given that I didn't think I'd be able to stand up, I exceeded my own expectations. That said, it wasn't really my cup of tea, so I spent the second hour hanging on the beach and getting to have more in-depth conversations about life, work, and travel with Tiffany and Courtney.
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| Both surfing photos taken by Tiffany Yu |
From surf lessons, six of us scurried to catch the bus into Quepos: we wanted to see the town, some people needed souvenirs, and I was a gal on a mission to visit a bookstore Matt had told me about. I'd shared some of my social enterprise 5-year plan with him, and he recommended that I check out Jaime Peligro Books, a co-op bookstore. I was actually able to meet and speak to the owner, and we exchanged email addresses to be able to continue the conversation for later, which was great.
For our last night, we kicked off the celebration with a sunset boat ride. Besides the melting sky and lovely companions in conversations, we were able to see some brown-spotted dolphins swimming with the boat, and it took me back to my beachside conversation with Jonathan the first day. It was a profound moment for me; it felt like a sign of reassurance and a light beckoning me to continue on the path I choose for myself, meandering as it seems, and I'm feeling another surge of extreme gratitude just thinking about it again.
After the boat ride, we had dinner together at Mimos, complete with a last round of Rose, Bud, or Thorn. I know he wasn't looking for recognition and will possibly be embarrassed, but Matt showed what a great guy he is (not that we had any doubt)- the restaurant was understaffed, and since he's made friends with the owners and staff by eating there for working lunches during his residence, Matt pitched in and started waiting tables too. No words for how cool that was.
I met some more new friends, Jaymin and Zach, who joined the conversation and the flashtat movement (pictures are worth 1000 words right?). The rest of the night was spent hanging out and enjoying the company of our group.
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