We had a chance to catch up briefly with Andrew and Kaycie this morning in Costa Rica. The group is settled into their new homes in the community of La Guaria de San Pedro. The community us located on the outskirts of the Valle de El General, near the Pacific Coast. It is a community of about less than 50 families. The closest major city is San Isidro de El General. San Isidro is a few hours south of San José on the Inter-Americana Highway. This is a beautiful area of rolling hills, coffee and corn farms and tropical scenery.
The students are working with the community to construct an additional classroom in the rural school so the community will be able to accommodate more students. The school currently has about 60 students from grades 1-6. So far the group has made great progress on the classroom with the walls set in place through stacking cement slabs between pillars.
The group is also working on painting a gigantic world map! Right now it is measuring about 6×13 feet! Yesterday the group found an electric sander to sand down the wall for the map and just finished putting a coat of primer on the wall before they begin the meticulous job of painting the map accurately.
Each student is enjoying acclimating to the homestay, the initial adjustment was a bit challenging, but now the students are finding their way through using their Spanish skills, and becoming more and more comfortable with the interactions with their families. Some of the students have realized their Spanish is not quite where they would like it to be, so the group took on the initiative to lead lessons as homestay pairs and trios for the rest of the group. Each day a pair or trio picks a topic and spends 45 minutes with the group sharing useful phrases and vocabulary in Spanish that the students can then put to use when speaking with their host families.
The group will be taking a short excursion to the beach in a few days, we will speak to them again when they get back!
