Raquel Vargas

Yesterday we went to Poas Volcano and a Lagoon that was made by the volcano...which was really cool. But the highlight of yesterday was moving in with my new family for the week! We were waiting at CPI (our school here) for all the families to come pick us up...when Katie P., Megan and I were told that we were going to get dropped off at our homes. We got in the van and the coordinator told the driver the order: Megan first, then Katie, then Rachel. We got off in that order but the driver kept getting us confused.

Poas Volcano

 CPI (our school) 

I got to my house, walked through the gate and was greeted by Patricia. She told me that we were having a fiesta for her daughter's 28th birthday! I walked in the house put my stuff down. Patricia showed me my room and my bathroom. I knew that the name Patricia was not the name of the mom I had been told and when she introduced me to her husband I knew I was in the wrong place! My family was supposed to have a single mom and 3 kids and this family had a married couple and 2 kids.

I was completely overwhelmed! There were a few people there at the beginning of the fiesta who spoke both English and Spanish so I talked to them and they helped me with my Spanish a little bit. But as more and more people arrived it got more and more overwhelming! I got to the point were I was so frustrated that I couldn't communicate that I shut down completely and got upset. There I was in the wrong house with a family I could barely communicate with! Thank goodness that a man named William from CA was there who was bilingual and I told him about being in the wrong house and he kindly explained to my family what had happened! They told me "tenemos suerte" "we are lucky" to have me and that I was now part of their family! This made me feel much better and I started to get more comfortable. I talked to a few other people in spanglish, but for the most part just listened and observed. They began warming up to me even more and had me take a few whacks of the pinata! After everyone left I helped them clean up and put everything away, which they greatly appreciated. Me and my mama tica tried to set up the internet on my English computer with me trying to translate some of the issues, needless to say that was not successful! So my tica name is now Raquel Vargas!

A la fiesta! 

There were a lot of people speaking spanish all around me...I have never felt so out of place in my life!

 My room!

Today was a great day! I went to school and met with my UNCW class and we had a guest speaker from a elementary school here. He told us some of the inside scoop and what to expect when we get there on Wednesday. After that we met to talk about Cambourne's conditions of learning and some other info about the class. For lunch we went down to a little cantina about a block away from the school. This was extremely interesting, it was our first time in a restaurant without a translator. The waitress was very nice, but we (including her) had a hard time. We got lunch and headed back to meet our Spanish teachers. Katie P., Krista, Megan, and I are all in the same class with profesor Henry! El es fantastico! He was so funny and easy to get along with. He started us off with the basics and worked our way up to verbos! There are only 4 of us in the class so we each have to speak a lot which is good. It makes me more comfortable talking con mi familia tico. We also played verb jenga which was a lot of fun! It is definitely a game I can implement in my future class with many different variations.