Spanish Language and Tropical Agriculture in Costa Rica

The final  part of my professional development year has started. During my stay in Costa Rica I am planning to accomplish three objectives: 1) studying Spanish, 2) learning about organic agriculture in the tropics, and 3) scoping out the posibility of developing a Costa Rica field trip course for my students.

I have been studying Spanish in the saftey of my home since Christmas. Now it was time to put it to the test in Costa Rica. I just finished attending two weeks of Spanish language school in Tamarindo, on the Northwest coast of Costa Rica. I was glad that the speech program had paid off. I was placed right away into an intermediate level. Of course talking to real people in Spanish was quiet different than talking to the computer screen.... I was very quiet the first two days..... But soon I became a little more confident and more comfortable in my role as a student. The teaching was intensive. We were four students in the first week and two in the group in the second week. The teachers switched after a week. Both my teachers were very good. Thank you Alba and Alejandra. Besides the Spanish they taught me much about Costa Rica, its people, politics, and geography. I had also chosen a home stay, meaning that I overnighted, had breakfast and dinner with a family some 10 mile inland. That of course gave me more Spanish practice and insight into the life of ordinary Ticos, as the like to refer to themselves. I wish I could have stayed longer.

Now I am off to see agriculture colleagues at several different universities across Costa Rica. In fact I already visited Dr. Hega Blanco, an entomologist at the University of Cost Rica and a (the?) driving force in organic Agriculture at UCR. Over the weekend,when the Spanish school was not in session I was also able to visit an organic coffee farm near the famous Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. More on that in my next blog entry.

PS: By accident (or stupidity...) I shiped my camera cable to Oregon. I will therefore not be able to upload any of the Costa Rica picture before I return.