naranja means orange

So continues the stories of Semana Santa.

After returning home for a brief bit to my Venecia house it was time to head out to Guanacaste (the Northwestern section of Costa Rica, only a few kilometers from the Nicaraguan border). However, in the brief time I was home I had to pack up all my things for my return to San Jose post Semana Santa. You can all guess how that went with my delightful talent to avoid packing to the very last millisecond.

We headed out Wedneday afternoon for my host brother’s house (one of four who are all older than me and live in their own houses around Costa Rica). The car carried me, Angelina, my host mom and dad, and my host sister Maria Mercedes (the youngest of my host siblings besides Angelina, Maria is the same age as me but attends the U of Costa Rica and is only home occasional weekends). We made our way across the country. Let me tell you, driving is a whole lot more timely than taking public transportation in this country. However, I lack a car so I’ve never really had the option.

We then proceeded to pass four wonderful days at the beach, cooking food, going to a lot of Mass and just hanging out. Thursday was a beach day (for us, and all of Costa Rica). The beach was pretty packed, but pretty beautiful as well.

What a view. The mountainish landscape leading to the beach was a new look I hadn't previously seen in Costa Rica.

Angelina photos are always necessary.

Friday was a more holy day, so we never went to the beach. However, my host brother does work on an organe/pineapple/passion fruit juice factory (he is some sort of supervisor, I couldn’t teally tell you exactly what he does). Our first night we had gotten a tour of all the machineary and the plant itselt. However, on Friday we headed out to the orange orchards that surrouneded the house we were staying in. Now, I have been a little upset with Colorado’s lack of apple orchards in the fall in comparison to good ole New England. But this was a whole new experience to go orange picking. There was also a beautiful view of Lake Nicaragua across the border, and of a nearby (no longer active) volcano. It was great.

It was beautiful. I love fruit. And the places where it grows. 

Flowers. Bumble bee. 

The volcano

I take alot of pictures of the fruit I am eating. This day was no different. 

Pretty dang beautiful view. 

Dad, Brother, Brother, Sister in Law, Mom, Angelina 

Orange orchard for your strolling pleasure

Yum yum.

Its like a real live minute maid commercial. 

Saturday we returned to the beach (a different one so I could get a better sampling of the variety offered in the area). Again it was beautiful and wonderful.

The water is really that color.

This is not a postcard.

Beach rocks. Little barnacles. Cool. 

Cactuses growing right next to the beach. The usual. 

Buena Vista!

Fruit. Beach. Perfection. 

This is a churchill. It is a desert of shaved iced, dried powdered sweet milk and red syrup flavor (previously mentioned in an earlier post). It tastes like heaven when you're at the beach. 

Sunday was our day to journey back so we never made it to the beach. However, we spent the morning visiting, and had Easter lunch at Pizza Hut. During lunch I tried to explain an easter egg hunt. When you think about it, they are extremely weird. Also on the way home I got to take pictures of the scenery. I had not previously visited a place in Costa Rica that was not overwhelmingly green. However, Guanacaste looked a whole awful lot like Colorado. I’ll show you what I mean: 

Colorado?

Slowly transforming back to the green Costa Rica I know. (Note the windmills in the background)

Still trying to figure out how the heck the GPS works here since there aren't any street names here....

Tomorrow we have a field trip. That means there is soon more to come! 

tortuga means turtle, mudo means mute

It has been a very, very, very long time since I have written here. So I’m going to start at the very beginning (a very good place to start), and see how far I get. With more consistent internet access now that I am back to my city stay (now you know current location) I promise to be less absent.

So, about two weeks ago was my final week of research in my rural stay. I was working in the high school, doing my best to navigate a school of a lot one thousand kids that changed classes and locations approximately every fifty minutes. They were also in mid term exams a lot of the time , so it was definitely an experience. However, my favorite part of that week was working at a nearby elementary school with the English teacher. It was so fun to work with the younger kids, and as the school only had about 150 students total, over the month and a half that I worked there I got to know them pretty well. The teachers there were very welcoming, and let me help teach their classes as well whenever I had free time. It was definitely a great experience, and is fueling my interests in education and ESL. My final day we spent a little time reviewing the week’s theme (body parts; tongue, throat and stomach being the most challenging words), and then it was time to listen to some good ole American music. The list indlued Hey Soul Sister by Train (try explaining the lyrics to a bunch of fourth graders), Avril Lavine, Black Eyed Peas, Celine Dion and Miley Cyrus. Here are pictures of our air guitar contest during an Avril Lavine song.

When the week came to and end it was definitely sad to say good bye. Hopefully I will be able to visit one last time before I leave the country for good. But ahead I had a whole week of vacation to look forward to. Easter week (or Semana Santa as they call it here) is a national holy vacation for a good portion of the week. None of the schools are in session, and Thursday through Sunday even banks, super markets and a lot of places close. I was going to spend the first part of it in Tortuguero (home of Sarah PS the summer past) and the second part with my host family at the beach.

The first night of Semana Santa Chloe and Mike came to visit for another quality sleep over in my Venecia home. We took it upon ourselves to try to cook a good ole american meal. We went to every supermarket in Venecia (3) in search of pesto but to no avail. The final menu was lasagna with zuchini and home made tomato sauce, sautéed green beans, and guacamole with mangos in it. The final product looked like this

Tortuguero is on the north east of Costa Rica. What makes it interesting is you canonly get to the island itself by boat. Tortuga means turtle, and that is where Tortuguero gets its name. It is the nesting site for two varieties of turtles, and home to a national park with many a wild life spotting. Needless to say it was beautiful, and I saw a turtle laying eggs. This event is probably in the top five coolest things I have ever seen in my whole life. Explaining it in person is probably a better way to convey how amazing it was, and even then I think it probably sounds pretty lame when I try. But just trust me on this one. I payed $15 for a guide, a 50% chance I would see a turtle, and permission to walk on the beach at night. After having seen it I would have paid ten times that much easily. Unfortunately you can’t bring your camera to those walks, but I did have my camera the rest of the time so here are some more pictures for your viewing pleasure. 

5 am in the morning, the herons are up and on the go.

crazy black and red crickets. they are about three inches long.

crocodile. we were in a canoe a mere 3 feet away. no one lost an arm luckily. 

wood are curtsey of the local forest insects. 

dragon fly!

my rain boots for walking in the rain forest. which is meters away form the beach. who would-ah thunk!

dunes. 

sunsets. boats. yes. 

mike and his sand castle. 

Then I returned home after four wonderful days in Tortuguero. Semana Santa was in full swing, and it was time to make empanados mudos. Mudo means mute, but the use of the word is in reference to the fact that they don't have meat. During all of Semana Santa no one in my family ate meat. My host mom started referring to it as Semana Jessi as everyone was eating like they were a vegetarian like me. 

The outside pastry is a mix of potatos and yuca with onions and flavoring. The inside is marinated veggies, beans, and cheese. Then you wrap them up in banana leaves and boil them. My family was astonished to find out that we do not have banana leaves for sale in our local super markets. I then mentioned sometimes people eat grape leaves with rice inside. They thought that was pretty weird. 

Alright, to keep this from getting overwhelmingly lengthy I am going to stop here for now, but stay tuned for more updates. I will leave you with a picture of the miniature version of the Church of Venecia that my neighbor made (what is this, a church for ants??) 

semana santa means easter week

Last week was my last week of research, and thus a little bit crazy. This week is Semana Santa, and the biggest week of festivals and beaches and family and church time of the whole year. So a little crazy too. Thus, I promise updates, but not until Easter has come and gone.

Until then, here is another twin banana I found. 

Happy Easter and Passover and Springtime Festivities to all. 

gemalas means twins

Again, my search for chocolate chips is this country continues.

I am not sure if I even mentioned here in this blog, but I attempted to make Muddy Buddies (also known as Puppy Chow) for my host family in San Jose. Chocolate chips were not to be found, so I cut up many a Dove Chocolate candy instead. I was informed by another student in my program though that chocolate chips could indeed be found at a few of the super markets. However, I never got around to looking again. On Friday, I decided it was time to make some more good ole American food. The only recipe I have memorized that was fathomable to make here is the Nestle Toll House Choc Chip recipe.  So, the search for chocolate chips began again. And, seeing as I am now in a small farming town, obviously they were not found. But they still had chocolate,

So I figured the home made chocolate chip approach would work once again. The process went pretty smoothly, and I had the assistance of my host mom, cousin and little sister. The use of margarine instead of butter in the recipe proved to be interesting, and the brown sugar of Costa Rica is definitely not the same as what the Nestle company had in mind (I’m pretty sure its molasses flavored white sugar).  So the cooking process went a little bit like this.

Eleonor (my cousin) helping making home made chocolate chips 

The process begins

Angelina and Mom hard at work in the kitchen

We tried to make them into shapes. Chocolate chip cookies (especially made with margarine) are really hard to make into the shapes of butterflies 

Baking in the really large toaster oven. No one really uses their actual ovens here.

Eleonor after her first bite of a chocolate chip cookie. 

Angelina was pretty thrilled with them as well. 

Other than that is has been a slow weekend. But since we are on the topic of food, I can update you on more food happenings in this country that I have neglected. Last weekend when some friends of mine from my program came for dinner, my host mom cooked up a feast for us. It reminded me of the amount of food consumed by my friends and I while sitting on the floor of my Dunbarton Rd kitchen thanks to Mom buying groceries with all of mine and Andrea’s friends in mind as well.

Sideways photograph of home made guac and bean dip. YUM.

Gringo guests!

Also, when I went grocery shopping with my mom I found this banana. It is a Siamese twin banana. I thought it was fantastic. My host mom explained they’re pretty common here, and she looks for them always. The cashier than explained that she was the town pro at finding them, but that was also because they only charge you for one even though its really two! What a bargain shopper I am now going to be in this country, searching the land over for Siamese twins bananas and plantains.

And a final food update (hungry yet?). I have been working at an elementary school during my research time here in Venecia. Usually I work with the English teacher in the older classes, or help out in the Kinder class (a combination of Pre-School and Kindergarten). But sometimes I find myself helping out in the Kitchen as well. The school has just one cook, and she is always jolly and smiling.  One day last week I found popcorn (unpopped) in the kitchen. I had only seen it in packets here, but not the kind I love, that you have to pop in a pan. I got really, really, really excited. The cook laughed at me (I am often being laughed at in this country for varying mannerisms) and explained she had bought it but no one knew how to cook it. Then, about twenty minutes later, I had made popcorn for the whole school for snack. They of course added their Costa Rican touch of pouring a bit of condensed milk on top (popcorn without sweetener or flavor was not going to fly with the kids) but none the less I finally got the popcorn I had been missing.

The bags of palmito (popcorn) I found. HOORAY.

The cooking process.

The final product with a fine drizzling of sweetened condensed milk 

(a favorite ingredient in this country)

Apple crisp is next on the Loca Gringa cooking show. I wish I could say I made that name up, but that is what my host aunt calls it when I cook American food for them.