We have two guides here while we stay in Costa Rica. Meggie is our school guide and is with while we attend school and local events during the week. Meggie is an amazing young woman from Chicago if I remember correctly. She came here one summer for an internship and fell in love with Costa Rica and now has built a family with CPI and works here translating all day long. Word around the street is two years ago when Meggie came here she could not even pronounce the common saying “Pura Vida.” Pura Vida is the way of life in Costa Rica and necessary to be able to say while living here. Now, Meggie is not only fluent in Spanish, but I could not tell which her first language was when I met her. She now even has Spanish dreams; this is how proficiently her language is progressing. She is always smiling and deals with situations extremely well. Meggie is an excellent guide and a joy to be around.
Javier is the other guide that travels with us. Javier is one of the smartest people I have met in quite some time. He is considered our nature guide. He knows every plant, seed, leave, animal that passes us. And what’s so impressive is that he knows all the Spanish and English names for everything. Javier is so much fun to be around, always joking around and also sets good boundaries for our group. He’s been an amazing guide for us and has taken us all around San Jose, and also Monteverde. We have hiked five trails with him and I’ve seen more wildlife with Javier in three weeks than I have my entire life. My brain contains so much new knowledge! Thank you Javier!
How can we forget Roy. Roy is our dedicated and talented bus driver. Roy has had our life’s in his hands almost every day of this trip, winding around the mountains of La Paz and then continuing to Monteverde. Roy has traveled with our group to each site and then patiently waited for us to finish our daily activates. Everyone has gotten to know Roy a lot better and also really enjoyed his company on our 3-4 hour bus rides to our activities. Our slogan some of the students have come up with is that “We trust in Roy.” Thank you Roy for your dedicated service!
To the staff of CPI: Students, who are wishing to join this trip, please do! CPI is a wonderful, friendly, warm place to come study. The teachers offer nothing but support and help for you while you attend your classes. There are times when you are going to feel frustrated at your Spanish skills; however the teachers at CPI offer humor to lighten the mood and also great teaching skills. In Herdia we had a teacher named Henry, who I really enjoyed. Henry had a game planned for us each day we were with him. One of the games we played was Jenga, the game had Spanish phrases written on the blocks and once you pulled one out you must answer the question. The classes are creative and go at a great pace that pushes you, yet also does not make you shut down. I would definitely love to see more emersion schools like CPI closer to home. Again as I said earlier in my blog, Meggie our guide learned Spanish fluently in two years. This language building is due to emersion and solely emersion.
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