Thursday 5\17

Today our classes were in the morning, from 8am to 12pm. My teacher, Ilsen, played ALTO with us. This game is our class favorite. Each round a letter is chosen by one player and all of the players must think of a spanish word that starts with this letter in 5 or more different categories. For example, when the letter "B" was used, in the categories of fruit names I thought of the word "bananos." Also we had an oral exam in class, given by Profe. Each student spoke in spanish for five or so minutes about a topic given. I spoke of my experiences with my host families in Heredia and Sámara. My mamá tica in Heredia was a familial, kind, religious women who loved to cook and to talk about her experiences with her grandchildren. We had many discussions over religion and politics over dinner. Her home was in the center of the bustling city, and she lived a city lifestyle. My family in Sámara is larger, with a papá tico as well as a brother. This family talks less and lives a very simple lifestyle. Both my families were very kind and helpful.

After class today our group had the option to go horseback riding or to work with the crear program making friendship bracelets with the local children. I chose to go horseback riding, along with several other students. We rode horses for two hours in the hot sun, along the roads and in the mountain trails. The horse that I was given had a month old foal in tow. This foal proved to be a great distraction and made the trip a bit more difficult than necessary. However, by the end of the ride, I had learned a great deal about how to stay on the horse going up and down narrow trails, along with the random cantering spurred by the foal. Along the way, our group saw howler monkeys and a beautiful view high above the two beaches near Sámara. It was interesting that the horses were used to the cars and dogs in the streets. One major difference that I noticed was that these horses were accustomed to roaming free. We had a couple of younger horses without riders that just followed along as they pleased and never wandered far. In the streets many cows, horses, and dogs walk around during the day and return to their homes at night.

After we returned from horseback riding, I went to the cooking class at the school. Along with several other students, I learned how to make tortas de yuca. This is a type of yucca pancake, made with eggs, yucca, butter, salt, and milk in a griddle over the stove. The most difficult part of the class was grating the yucca. Yucca is a vegetable similar to potatoes, yet sweeter. Grating the yucca took half the time because it needed to be grated into very small pieces. After making the batter, our teacher showed us how to cook them. Everyone tried a slice of a torta de yuca with sour cream or queso blanco, a cheese that tastes like mozzarella.