Pura Vida de Costa Rica... de nuevo!

Uh oh, another language. Don't let the title turn you away! Translated (literally) it means: Pure life from Costa Rica... yet again!

Pura Vida is a common Tico term that basically means "life is good" or "hey, all is good."
Tico is a term that means "Costa Rican".

If you aren't familiar with my global blogging tendencies - let me warn you that I often include language references to the countries I visit. Mind you, I haven't been to a lot of countries and haven't done a lot of blogging in different countries, but I did do a lot of blogging about my study abroad at EARTH University this past summer - which just happens to be located in Costa Rica.

So now you know at least 2 new Costa Rican terms and a few words of Spanish! This is an "education" blog, after all... what would it be without me teaching something?

Okay, but really, here I am in 80-90 degree sunny weather, living in a DIFFERENT part of Costa Rica with a DIFFERENT host family (than 2 years ago) and working with a DIFFERENT University. So there are a lot of new things, and a lot has happened in the past 5 days, but things are going well overall.

Let me just tell you about my week. Then you can scroll through the photos at the end of the blog. Photos will be a big thing here, since many people don't know what Costa Rica looks like - and people constantly ask for photos :)

I arrived in country on Sunday night, leaving only 2 days to recover and pack and mentally prepare after I left my awesome placement in Wellsboro. I definitely didn't mentally prepare myself enough, because when I arrived on Monday at my placement site (Universidad Tecnica Nacional, UTN in future references), I learned that there really were no plans for me to be a student teacher there. But before I delve into this confusion, let me give some background:

My major, at Penn State, is Agricultural and Extension Education (AEE) - this major is not in the College of Education but rather the College of Agricultural Sciences. Starting about 2 years ago, I considered the idea of student teaching abroad, something that had never been done for someone in my major. The College of Education has a short term student teaching abroad program set up with Indiana University, but they have never had AEE students, and has hardly had anyone outside the majors of Elementary Education or English Education - two majors that are fitting for a student teaching experience abroad, when you could easily work with primary students by teaching English.

Due to my previous experiences in Costa Rica; short term immersion in 2012 and EARTH study abroad in 2013 (see blog posts from August 2013 and prior); I felt that my Spanish and knowledge of Costa Rican agriculture would suffice for some sort of global teaching experience here. Everyone else thought this would work well, and my advisor has been working with me to develop this experience through the College of Education program. The Costa Rican office of this program is located here, in Atenas. The students who come to student teach here (not just from Penn State) usually work with a local public elementary school that has a strong English language program (and obviously strengthened by frequent native English speaking student teachers). Because of my unique situation of teaching agriculture, the director of the program here searched for a more appropriate placement. UTN is the nation's technical university (translated: National Technical University) which focuses on a variety of degrees in technical areas (food technology, animal production, veterinary assistance, accounting, etc.). Because of its proximity and agriculture focus, I was placed at UTN for what would be a student teaching experience, but it is not one you would normally expect.

The plan for working with UTN, which was told to me on Monday, is to assist several different courses in the agricultural sciences, talk with the professors, and see if I would be able to eventually teach a few lessons between them. Because this is such an unusual occurrence (based on the looks I get when I explain it to the professors), I am treading lightly on this concept. It is also challenging to think about "teaching" students who are my age, and furthermore difficult due to the fact that classes only meet once a week. However, we are taking it slow and I am attempting to work with classes that I have more content knowledge in, so that I may be more available to assist and teach.

Nonetheless, it was a challenging and, at times, discouraging first week. But I did have some awesome experiences so far! So what else did I do this week, other than brainstorm how to maximize this experience (stay tuned for more discussion)...?

Monday night I met my host family - a very kind, and large, family that kind of shares 2 houses. One of the daughters of my "host mom" is expecting her 3rd child within the month, so it will be exciting to be around for a birth! I already promised to take some photos for them when the baby arrives :)

Tuesday was my first day of observing classes: in the morning, I was able to tour the facilities a bit with one of the professors, helped water the worm beds (vermicompost), and observed a class of veterinary assistance students brand dairy cattle! It was quite interesting to see first hand, especially since these girls were to be milked later that day. This practice is done in the tropics as a less expensive method to keep track of cattle, especially since almost all cattle in the tropics are grazing cattle (usually don't have access to much grain). Tuesday afternoon involved me observing a basic chemistry lab - first year students were testing the conductive properties of various chemicals by inserting a split wire (which was attached to an outlet and light bulb fixture) into the liquids. Sounds like fun, right? It actually was kind of fun, and due to my background in chemistry, I found myself already jumping in to help some students with concepts of the lab.

Wednesday morning was in the food processing lab -  I didn't take any pictures here, but the students made a pineapple juice mixture by: weighing, cutting, pulping, pasteurizing, and packaging 15 pineapples worth of juice. These were big pineapples... and it was neat to see the processing facilities after a few semesters of being a Food Science major. I was dressed in official food lab garb - hair net, white shirt, white pants, and white boots. I felt so official.

Wednesday afternoon brought me back to the chemistry lab, same professor as before, same lab as before - different group of students. I continued to help out with the content and am discussing with the professor about the possibility of teaching a lab in a few weeks! I liked working with the kids in the lab and seeing them get excited about chemistry... I even considered a career change to chemistry education! Just kidding :)

Thursday morning was in another food processing lab - this one is called carnicos: meats lab. Again in (fresh) food lab apparel, I observed students calculate, grind, mix, and fill casings with chorizo sausage meat. The professor told me that they were going to be slaughtering some goats later on in the morning... so after a meeting with my supervisor at UTN, I returned to put my lab swag back on and help skin a goat :) It was fun, and the professor seemed a bit surprised at my skills - I didn't tell him I had skinned various deer in my day, as deer hunting is illegal in Costa Rica. (note: I will not post photos of the butchering process... if you want more information about it, contact me). Thursday afternoon was supposed to be an animal nutrition lab, but there was a mix up in the schedule, so I didn't attend this lab, but rather re-organized my schedule and went home a little early.

Friday! Here we are! I can't believe it's Friday already... I know this time will go fast, but I was hoping to plan some sort of activity, and if anyone knows about Tico Time, they would know that 6 weeks is barely enough time! Instead of visiting UTN today, I visited the local private primary school that student teachers normally work with, maybe to see if I could work some agricultural education in to what they do. It was a cute little school nestled on the side of a hill and it has a gorgeous view. I got to witness the 20th anniversary celebration of the school - crazy hat day! The kids made me smile with all their crazy little hats... see photos below :)

Sorry for such a long blog post! I may post more frequently to keep them shorter... there are lots of things up in the air here in Costa Rica, so I hope to have more exciting things to share soon! Stay tuned! And, as promised... here is a plethora of phone photos.

Oh how I missed Tico food... time to keep of the weight!

A view of the UTN campus - dairy, chem labs, and food processing labs on left. Meat labs on right.

New biogas technologies - a professor is studying the use of the methane from their digestor on these appliances

The ladies leaving the milking parlor... they milk about 50 cows of various breeds (as you can see)

The "furnace" for heating the branding irons!

Several of the dairy cattle in the corral: the dairy production instructor is about to brand one in the far back

UTN used to be the "Latin American School for Livestock" - only about 6 years ago the name and purpose changed to focus more on technology and various other majors.

I went on a bit of a walk on Tuesday to explore the campus and fields. It was worth it.

Students in the chem lab, learning about polar bonds, electronegativity, and conductivity

Sign for the university from the road. I take a public bus (it's a souped up school bus) for a bumpy 30 minute ride each day to get to UTN!

The slaughter area of the meats lab - pretty interesting machinery.

Students in the food technology major, making chorizo

From today - a view from the primary school close to my house that student teachers normally work with

Crazy hat day at the school :)

The facilities at this local pre and elementary school are very nice. A bit nicer than the other public schools I have visited.

Students have their own cubbies! I remember these days :)

Whole school assembly! All 140 kids, grades PreK through 6, convening to award the crazy hat winners

One of the best moments of this week - spending some time on this mountain side (I had to scale the hill that the primary school is located on) and looking out on the Lord's splendor. This is one of the reasons I love Costa Rica.