On the Plane to the USA: Some Final Thoughts

What an experience! I met some wonderful and insightful educators from Massachusetts whom I travelled with for ten days.  Every trip I take to another culture makes me realize how important this is: to understand people in our country and around the world and how they live and think, to be exposed to so many ways of life, ideas, and ways of life in general. We are all people; mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, friends, co-workers, and/or neighbors. We need to be life long learners and to be open to other cultures and beliefs than our own. The Costa Rican people we came across were lovely, especially our tour guide, Jimmy Alvarado Garcia. He is a spiritual, calm, charming, and knowledgeable human being who is passionate about his country, it's leaders, people, animals and traditions.

Together, our group of 20 educators learned so much from him. I will never forget this meaningful and enriching adventure in my life and I can't wait to bring it into the lives of others, both students and adults when I get home. As we said all throughout our trip in Costa Rica, "Pura Vida!", or in English, "Life is Good!" Let's celebrate that! I know these six Marshfield educators will be doing just that.

A Visit to Another School

We had a great time when we visited a school of 95 students, grades kindergarten - sixth grade school. The name of the school is La Trinidad. Most students who go to this school are within a close radius of the school, so they walk to and from school. When we arrived the students were moving about the outside part of the campus, many just arriving, others having breakfast. They were all smiles and very curious to see the Americans!

The principal explained to us that:

There are many Nicaraguan students in this school as well as Costa Ricans.

Whether students are in Costa Rica legally or illegally, they get educated no matter what, it's in the Costa Rican constitution.

Costa Rica has a 96% literacy rate, the best of all Central America, and close to the rate of the USA.

La Trinidad School was founded 17 years ago.

There are all the basic courses such as math, science, social studies, Spanish and English.

The arts are promoted, as well.

The principal feels strongly that every child needs to be happy and to come to school to enjoy themselves in the learning process. (I loved this!)

Every Friday they swim; they also have dance groups and chorus.

The school is fenced in to keep the poisonous snakes (Ferdilands) out.

Get a small budget from the government; lunch is free.

There are12 teachers and 95 students.

Most parents are farmers and very hard workers and are Not necessarily supportive of education.

These Kindergarten students ran to see me and stood and smiled.

We visited some classrooms first, then were assigned a classroom to visit to teach a lesson to a small group of students.

The students were in uniform with white shirts, navy pants or skirts, and black shoes.

The Kindergarten Classroom below.

This is what is directly out the back door of the Kindergarten classroom... Someone's home.

This is the 5the grade classroom that I was assigned to teach a lesson. These two girls, Bridgette and Emilie, were with me. I showed them lots of photos on my iPad of family members, my home, snow, boats, my school, etc., and I taught them the English words and they taught me he Spanish words. They were wonderful and actually taught me just as much - if not more - as I taught them. They were dressed in these traditional dresses because they and other students did some traditional dances for us when our lessons were done.

Katy White, Grade 3 at DWS, was right at the next table teaching a hands on math lesson with a fourth grade teacher from Weymouth.

The traditional dance! A sample of dances from each of the provinces. They were so proud!

A typical desk and chair in this school.

They need computers desperately. They're working on building the infrastructure and are hoping to be able to get some computers and turn this into a computer lab. (?)

This was a wonderful day. I'd love to have DWS get involved with this school, whether it be pen pals, artwork exchange, fundraising, etc.

We had loads of waves and smiles as they went home for lunch, to return in the afternoon once we were gone.

This is Bridgette, one of my "students."

By Day and By Night on the Rivers of Tortuguero

Boating by Night, from 8PM until Midnight:

We saw several Spectacle Caimans. A Caiman is a reptile in the crocodile and alligator family.  They are more slender than crocs and alligators, but just as ferocious. The only predators of the caiman are humans and jaguars.

It was so interesting to shine our flashlights into the trees above our heads to look for sleeping or sleepy birds! This is a Chestnut Bellied Heron or Agami Heron. It is now called the latter.

A Great Egret

This is a long nosed bat. It was hanging on a tree about one foot from my head! We were so surprised that it wasn't flying around gobbling up insects!

This is a male Ringed Kingfisher.

I loved this picture when I saw it later.  This is the kingfisher in the above picture, flying away.

American Pygmy Kingfisher, is the size of A hummingbird.

Agami heron

And by boat by day:

We saw several caimans throughout the rivers.

These are wild orchids, growing out of a mossy log.

There were few boats on the Suerte and Tortuguero Rivers, but the ones we did see and ride in were similar to this one. Some had rooves and some did not.

A nest of the Tiger Heron.

Here is the young Tiger Heron in the same nest.

A close up of the caiman's eye. This caiman was right next to our boat!

Long nosed bats spending their sleepy day on the side of a tree that overhangs the water. We were within inches of these bats!

Some of the parts of the rivers were so narrow that our boat would just about touch the greens of each side of the river.

Roadside Pictures To and From Tortuguera

As we were traveling down a country road, our driver stopped, as he saw something in the low branches of a tree. We all got off the bus and were able to get within 3 feet of this sleepy juvenile two toed sloth! Notice the greenish tint of the fur on it's head. This is an algae that gets into the fur fibers.

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On the left of this picture below you can see the two toes of this sloth. Two Toed Sloths have two toes on each front foot, and three toes on each back foot, unlike their cousin, the three toed sloth who has three toes on all feet.The two toed sloth is more active during the day than the three toed sloth, however they both spend all their time up in trees eating leaves and insects. They really only come down out of the trees to "go to the bathroom". When they do this they dig a hole and bury it.

I love to see the fruits in the roadside fruit stands. Some fruit is familiar, some I've never before laid eyes upon.

This is one of the many Kapok Trees. They are enormous trees in the rainforest areas. I read the "Great Kapok Tree", by Lynne Cherry, to my second graders every year when we studied the rainforest. I read it to the whole school at DWS before leaving for this trip.

We passed banana plantations, both for Dole and Chicquita Bananas. Costa Rica is the biggest exporter of bananas to the United States.

So much fun seeing these white faced monkeys in the trees!

And these spider monkeys, as well.

Beaches of Tortuguero

Tortuguero "Land of the Turtles" National Park was created to protect the MOST important nesting site of the green turtle in the Western Hamisphere. It's a 73 square mile tract of land that extends along 14 miles of shoreline and extends 19 miles out to sea. The park must be approached through intertwining rivers and lagoons and canals, or can be accessed by small plane. Christopher Columbus noted in the 1503 that "turtles cluttered the seaway like little rocks. Sadly, throughout the last century these turtles have become endangered by hunting of the turtles for meat and the eggs being dug out of the sand and eaten as a delicacy. The turtles are very protected by ways such as beach walking at night during nesting season is illegal. We saw no green sea turtles. It is just about time now for nesting season to begin. This pole marks a nesting site on the beach. The turtles typically come back to the same site where they hatch - within 60 feet - to lay their eggs. Out of 1000 hatches, only one green turtle makes it to adulthood.

One side of our camp was the river, the other side was the Caribbean Sea.  Although this part of the Caribbean looked totally different to me with no white sand or aqua water, I found the beaches on this Caribbean side of Costa Rica to be beautiful with their dark lava sand. The waves are always large and the riptide is so strong, that swimming is prohibited in this area.

We saw nobody sitting on the beach and this was the only lifeguard I found!

It is amazing how different waterfront property is in this region of Costa Rica compared to waterfront property at home.