Mi Casa es Tu Casa

We were all looking forward to meeting our families, but were also nervous about communication since no one in our group speaks Spanish, and no one in our host families speak English. 

For the past few days we have been really trying to soak up as much Spanish language as possible. Trying to listen, comprehend, speak, connect to similar concepts, etc. has been physically and emotionally exhausting, yet in such a purposeful, exciting way. It has been a great reminder of how exhausting real, new learning can be, putting us into the shoes of our students and helping us to reflect.  

As we said good-bye to Jennifer and our fellow teachers on Wednesday, we were full of anticipation about our first evening. Upon our arrival, our host mom, Dunia, shared the sentiment, Mi Casa es Tu Casa upon our arrival, and throughout the evening Miguel (our host father), Dunia (our host mother), and Michael (the youngest hijo of Dunia) helped us "lean in" to this new experience. 

I am humbled by the love and patience Dunia and Miguel showed us tonight as we attempted to hablar Espanol. We used a translator app on our iPhones to help with vocabulary, which was a fun and helpful way to fill in the many gaps in our language skills and our family enjoyed this technology. Miguel spent so much time explaining and giving us examples when we would look up words on the iPhone and realize there were 10 different words in Spanish for our 1 English word. He was an amazing, patient, kind teacher this evening. We are so touched. 

Through a combination of technology, acting, facial expressions, and lots and lots, and lots of patience and good guessing on our host family's part, they helped us have a wonderful evening. 

Dinner continued to be such a treat. We are all definitely eating very, very well on this trip! Dunia was a great cook and she let us help prepare the fried plantains. She also had arroz y con leche waiting for us when we arrived. It was delicious! Probably the next thing we need to learn in Spanish are other synonyms for "delicious" because we have definitely used "delicioso" many times while enjoying the comida in Costa Rica! 

We also enjoyed an acoustic guitar concert from Rachel. She has a beautiful voice and it was the perfect way to relax into the evening after dinner together. 

We are looking forward to our time with our homestay families and learning from them in the upcoming days. We are grateful for our placements!  --Meagan