COSTA RICA – Spanish Service Adventure – July 11

Wednesday July 12, 2017

Today is the second day of our GLA Spanish Service Adventure 14-day! Everyone arrived safely on Tuesday to San Jose, picked up by GLA staff and driven to our hotel about 15 minutes from the airport. We ate a traditional Costa Rican lunch (rice, beans, meat, salad) near the hotel, played some get-to-know-you games, had some time to relax from the long flights, and went to a delicious buffet dinner before heading to bed.

This morning, we did a quick city tour of San Jose with our local director, passing by the main landmarks and learning a little about the history of Costa Rica. We then headed down to Santa Maria, the main town near our home base, and went on a coffee tour. Our guide walked us through the whole process of making coffee:picking the beans, weighing them, processing them in machines, and tasting the finished product. The Los Santos region (which includes the town of Santa Maria) makes up around 40% of all coffee distributed from Costa Rica, as well as being considered very high quality. After the tour we got to our beautiful home base (Cedrela Ecolodge) tucked in the trees. We ate lunch, had orientation with our local and GLA staff, and then unpacked our bags and got settled in before dinner and a fun group activity.

The group is very dynamic and adjusting really well to the new environment. We’re excited to start our volunteer work and Spanish classes with Green Communities tomorrow!.

July 15, 2017

The last three days have been great. We’ve been working with Green Communities in the town of San Pedro, making a cement road for kids to get to a basketball gym and helping to fertilize the organic coffee farms in the town. We’ve also had a discussion on sustainable development and how we contribute.

We eat lunch every day cooked by the moms in San Pedro- it’s really delicious! On Thursday the moms greeted us with a traditional Costa Rican dance. On Friday, we split up into seven different groups and each went to one of the mother’s houses for an hour and a half. We all got coffee/tea, ate some snacks, and had a great opportunity to practice speaking with the locals, learning about Costa Rican culture. After lunch, we always drive back to our home base and have Spanish class. We are split up into three groups: beginner, intermediate, advanced.

We have Spanish class for about three hours and then eat dinner and do an activity. We’ve played a fun dancing game, done a leadership activity, and gotten to

know each other really well. Tomorrow we are going to work on the farm and then go into the main town, Santa Maria, for an activity with the locals.

Written by the Mentor Rebecca Ottinger

Recent days!

The last few days have been a fun adventure. On Sunday, we had a day of working on an ecological farm all together. We formed an assembly line to pass the buckets of fertilizer onto the hundreds of coffee plants. After another home cooked meal by the moms in San Pedro, we went into Santa Maria and had a race/scavenger hunt asking questions to locals about Costa Rica, and asking them to participate in tasks with us like making a pyramid or singing a song.

The next two days we were off to the beach. On the way to the beach, we rode in in the back of trucks as we passed through beautiful mountains and foliage. We stayed at a really peaceful resort in the beach town called Dominical, had a group surf lesson, ate lunch by the beach, went to local shops, and did a tour through the famous national park and beach Manuel Antonio. With a tour guide we saw sloths, monkeys, crickets, crabs, and many more little creatures. The beach was surrounded by forrest and lots of animals- monkeys and lizards to name a few.

We’re back at our home base now. We did a lot of work this morning as we fertilized two coffee groves. After lunch, we got to do another home stay visit for an hour with different moms from the San Pedro community. We got homemade snacks and local coffee, and practiced our Spanish.

Two more days of volunteering and Spanish class and then a fun day at the adventure park!

Written by Mentor Rebecca Ottinger

Final Blog

Our students are all home, and we can’t believe it’s been two weeks already! The last few days we worked hard in the coffee fields, finished creating a cement pathway around a local gym, gave Spanish presentations, and conquered our fears at the Extreme Forest Park in Providencia. We even topped off the end of the program with a dance class taught by our very own International Director!

We fertilized six ecological coffee fields in our time here, doing in two weeks what would normally take a month or more for the ecological farmers. The cement road will help the local community hold events and sports games. Our Spanish presentations were done by class level to the rest of the students on the program: reading stories related to the environment, writing songs, and doing a look back at our time here. The Extreme Forest Park is completely run by certified members of the local community in Providencia, a sustainable and very fun adventure. Green Communities continuously pushed our students to think of their global footprint and how their actions affect their local and greater communities. We also had discussions on sustainable development, water usage, and the value of ecological farming.

Overall, we had an exciting and challenging two weeks. We hope everyone continues with their adventures!

COSTA RICA – Spanish Service Adventure – July 11 – July 24, 2017

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