In terms of enthusiasm and energy levels, the students vastly enjoyed today's itinerary more than yesterday. We hit the road at about 7 am and drove to the Paraiso branch campus--about 1 hour away from Turrialba. Paraiso, located in the province of Cartaga (like Turrialba), is higher in the mountains, so it was a crisp 70 degrees outside. The campus is small--less than 500 students--so there are only a few buildings. A library, a cafeteria, classroom space, and administrative offices. The campus has only been open for about 12 years, so they have a lot of room to expand.
We started off the morning with a brief presentation about the Paraiso campus, and immediately followed that up with a 3 hour long Spanish class. When I looked at the itinerary and saw that we were going to be sitting in a 3 hour Spanish class--in a Spanish speaking country--I had an internal panic attack because I couldn't sit in an English speaking math class for two hours this semester without having to resort to "teacher bingo". (Basically, the idea is that you write down a bunch of actions that the teacher can possibly do during class i.e. call on a student, write on the board, tell a joke, ask us if we understand, etc., and first person to get 5 in a row wins. It does wonders for a faltering attention span!) The class was actually pretty awesome. We were paired up with an individual student studying to become a Spanish teacher (native speaker), and s/he took us around the classroom introducing us to phrases, foods, and feelings that were specific to Costa Rican culture. We got to try gallo pinto, picadillo, cas, papaya, pan, tortillas, cafe, and a bunch of other stuff. We then got paired into groups to create collages that mixed American cuisine with Costa Rican cuisine and presented our projects to the class. Certainly not what I expected for a university-level Spanish course, but I think the Costa Ricans did an excellent job of teaching to the level of comprehension of the students. In our group of 9, 4 are fluent native speakers, 4 speak no Spanish whatsoever, and then I'm somewhere in the middle.
After the class, we joined the UCR students that are studying to teach English and went on a tour of the city. We visited the ruins of Cartaga, the Basilica de Los Angeles, and the Jardines de Lankaster. The ruins and the Basilica were beautiful. Here's a picture from the gardens on the inside:
I'm feeling a little lazy so I'm going to let Wikipedia explain the story of the Basilica:
"The story goes that the little girl found the small statue on a rock and took it home. The next morning she found that the statue was not there but back at the rock, so she took it to the priest and he locked it in a small box. The next morning the statue was back at the rock. During the construction, the church was destroyed by earthquakes so many times, it was finally decided to move it to the location where the statue was found and they were able to finish construction. Many people think that the earthquakes were signs that the Lady of Los Ángeles wanted the basilica built there."
That description doesn't exactly do the basilica justice, but the visitation itself was pretty breathtaking. They just don't make basilicas like they used to. Check my facebook for pictures.
My favorite aspect of the day was definitely the botanical gardens. It started raining on us as we were leaving the Basilica but cleared up right before we arrived at the gardens, so all of the flora was really vibrant. Taking pictures of flowers is kind of my wheelhouse, so I had a great time exploring the garden grounds. There were several parts of the garden that were 'como un bosque' (like a forest)--perfect backdrop for Jurassic Park 4. Okay, I'm gonna go try and complete some sort of bootleg CrossFit workout in my hotel room. Hasta luego.
No comments:
Post a Comment