Saturday, July 26

It has been an amazing experience staying with our host families so far.  Even though (for me at least), the Spanish is muy difícil, our families have been gracious, and there has been much laughter and fun. We have also enjoyed sharing our iPads with our families to use some of our teaching apps to help with English and skills, and have fun! The kids are amazingly well versed in using the technology, even after just a few days of time!

"Bigotes," the family dog

We have been fortunate to call the Chilamate Eco Lodge our home away from home, and learned the story of it's existence from Megan who, with her husband Davis and three children: Lluvia (meaning rain), Aidan and Kiara, own and operate the lodge while living on the property.  Megan is a Canadian native who came to Costa Rica to work for a coffee company in the Sarapiqui region and essentially fell in love with the country and her husband, a Costa Rican native.  When complications arose when they were trying to move to Canada, they found an opportunity to buy the property in Chilamate which had originally started as an Eco lodge, but had not been in operation for several years.  After buying the property, they went through the process of updating cabins and kitchen area to begin to accommodate guests.  

We also heard the trying story of getting electricity to the property while having a neighbor fight the process, even to the point of closing the road to their property! They also became certified by the Rainforest Alliance as one of the top rated eco lodges in Costa Rica. One of their main focuses in the community is supporting local education.  Megan is president of the board of the Chilmate Escuela where two of her children attend and is working very hard to help the school run efficiently while bringing art, music, English and other classes to the school. They are working on regular physical education classes in the future.  Her family's commitment to running a lodge that is Eco friendly and supporting the community through education and other projects is very inspirational.  They are beginning to build a shelter for stray dogs who are everywhere in Costa Rica and hope to eventually have an adoption center in the future.

We were also very fortunate to have an all day professional development in Intercultural Communication taught by a wonderful teacher named Leila from the United World College, Costa Rica. We dove in and learned about the importance of understanding and appreciating people of different cultures, and how communication can be improved because of this understanding.  This ties into work in our classroom where we can appreciate different learning styles, communication

styles, as well as culture differences in our students to help them have a more inclusive experience in the classroom.  Knowing yourself and your style of communication is the first place to start.

I can't believe we are already in day 6 of our adventure and am beginning to feel  sad to leave this beautiful country in a few days. Tomorrow we will celebrate with our Costa Rican families and friends at a grande fiesta in our honor.  This is also the last chance for the Chilamate community to say goodbye to Jennifer Klein who is without a doubt a daughter, mother, sister, and friend to all she meets. Jennifer has been in the community for about six weeks now and it is very clear that she will be missed beyond words.

That's all for now.  We are lucky to be here and are grateful for this experience to lean in, grow, and share with each other all of what we are learning here.

Pura Vida!

Rachel, Hilary, Meagan and Chris