Top Five best experiences in Costa Rica

1. Experiencing the amazing landscapes. It was so beautiful where we stayed in Costa Rica. We were approximately in the center of Costa Rica, and surrounded by mountains. And all of the plants were amazing there were flowers everywhere.

2. Working at the school I was assigned to. There was an amazing mixture of races, and culture, it was the most diverse school i had ever seen. Plus of course the whole staff was very welcoming and nice, as well as the students.

3. The bakery, this one might sound funny to those of you who are lucky enough to have a good bakery. We on the other hand have no such thing in Jonesboro. There were several bakeries in our area but we had a favorite. I can't remember what it was called but everything they sold was delicious, and we went at least every week but probably more often than that.

4. We made a lot of friends that we regret having to part, but that's just a part of life. But it was great knowing them for the short while.

5. Our favorite Jaunt: Jeffrey, Maya and I would take this ling walk all the way out of town to this huge cliff, when you looked over the cliff there was this beautiful rushing river, which then met up with an waterfall. Being the first time we ever seen a waterfall in person, We found it awe striking.

**Note**

Just in case I have not mentioned this already, we would have pictures of a lot of these things because we had 2 more disposable camera's filled with wonderful picture but we can not figure out what happened to them. I don't know if customs took them for some reason, or if they got lost shortly after we got here, or what.

top five worst experiences in costa rica

1.My husband and daughter leaving a month early- They had to leave early because the stress was beginning to be too much, but once they were gone I became so lonely I could hardly concentrate.
2.The transportation problems I had- The trip from where I lived to the school I worked at was absolutely insane, I got lost many times, and once when I didn't have any extra bus fair, because of the financial problems I had to walk home what I'd been told had to be at least ten miles. On the way almost getting run over because of the lack of place to walk on the side of the road.
3.The false quotes on living expenses- I did not plan on having to spend so much on bus fair because I was told transportation would be provided for free, so that alone threw us off. Also the lady we rented from required a huge deposit which we did not plan into the budget, which was our biggest disappointment.
4.The diapers -the diapers that were available at a price we could afford were practically third world diapers, I almost rather her run around naked and just put towels over her messes. But we only had two towels which we had to buy our selves because for some odd reason the lady we rented from provided everything we needed except bath towels.
5.The washer machine- It was like nothing I had ever seen before. You know how our washing machine does each cycle automatically by its self well this one I had to go and set it to do each separate. It took almost an hour to do a load of clothes that consisted of about 5 items. To make it worse it was tearing our clothes to pieces.

The First assembly of god church in costa rica

This is where i would wait for the school bus. I found it very funny that there was a banana tree growing in this little bitty space in between these two buildings. If you zoom in you can see a huge bunch of banana's just waiting to be picked.

We were walking one day and noticed that Costa Rica has an Assembly of God church. I found this interesting because this is the church my sister used to go to and this church is renowned for being wide spread nationwide, and all around the world.

This is the room I was staying in at Marylins house.



This is the room we stayed in at Costa Verde Inn before Jeffrey and Maya left. We stayed there 3 days and it was really nice.

I woke up one morning and saw this and was in awe at how beautiful it was. it is a little outdoor area that the door leads too look closely at the glass pane of the door.....
it is a reflection of a Madonna statue. The house had a lot of religious statues that were simply gorgeous. Plus the house always had such a nice feeling of peace it was a truly blessed place.

The lady that i was staying with did a lot of charity work and one of the things she would do was get these wheel chairs from the US and donate, and deliver them to the people that needed them. More information on where she got the wheel chairs can be found at http://www.freewheelchairmission.org/

I went with her once and the people that she delivered them to were so amazingly grateful. One guy owned a chayote farm and his house was a tiny place that was two rooms one room was the living area which included what would have been thought of as the kitchen although it was not much of a kitchen. It contained a small amount of food and a hotplate all on a small counter that i am almost positive he built himself. the other room was his bedroom. The place he used as a bathroom was a small shack about ten paces from the house. Keep in mind this man could not walk. He alreday had a wheelchair but it was so worn down i could not believe it was still in one piece. He was so curtious and clean cut. You could tell that he had dressed in his best clothes just for the visit. The other house that we visited was a bit bigger. It was a two bedroom house with an inside toilet. But it had 7 adults and 5 children staying in it. The lady that needed the wheel chair did not have one and aparently had not had one for some time. She was gone from the hips down and all she had to do was sit, or lay on the couch or in the bed for the main part of the day. She was 96 years old but still quite healthy considering the cercumstances. she was also dressed very nicely and she was so happy the tears were flowing from her eyes.

I was in Costa Rica for a total of 14 weeks and my husband of daughter left 3 weeks early so this is me cuddling my daughters care bear when i missed her. LOL

this is the whole school in a school assembly. the school was so small they all fit in this room fairly easily.

These are some of the final projects that we did in the regular class.

This is my cooperating teacher Ileana Moya.

This is me in the art room that I interned in with one of the projects that two of my advanced students did. They were twins named Ruve and Maude. The seemed to work together so well and would just be working on the same peice with out any talking or anything as if they were reading each others minds.