I’ve been missing in action lately, which I apologies for.  I’ve now been in Costa Rica for an incredible four weeks.  Even if I had only planned on coming for a month, this has been the most amazing experience I’ve had.

The primary reason I came down here was for school. The school is a cute little school in Monteverde called the Cloud Forest School or El Centro de Creativa (CEC).   I have three of my classes taught in Spanish and the rest in English.  The English classes will help me continue to keep up my good grades and not get behind for when I return back to Canada. Learning in Spanish is very difficult and has its challenges so this is a great mix for me.

My classmates are all super nice, and quite funny.  Everyone accepted me right away, but just like every school, it has its dramas.   I’m very happy I got placed in this grade though, as it is the top grade for youth in Costa Rica.  From Grade 11 they graduate and move onto College or University.  The school has around 200 students, just like St Margaret’s (SMS) in Canada.  The class sizes are about 13 students, or 14 including me.  Some major differences between SMS and CEC however, is well.. it is not an all girls school for one.. and that all my classes are with all the same students, however we move to different classrooms. I’m with the same people for every single class, except for Spanish.  This is one of my favorite classes, where I’m either one on one or with the other 3-4 international students.

The international kids I know are all in grade seven. They are all super kind and they are good company to be around. I always go up to them and talk to them, see how they are doing, and considering I’m the oldest of the international students, I’m sort of the person they look up to, which is really funny in my opinion.

The other class I have is without the other students is Pre-Calculus, which is also one on one.  The teacher is pretty cool.  I brought the SMS Grade 11 Math book to stay on track with and we are moving through it.  The teacher is very into mindset and deep thinking so it is enlightening for sure. One class I find very interesting is Environmental education, because although it’s all in Spanish, we usually go outside and we mark trees and count them and soon we will do statistics on them. I’m not entirely sure why we are doing this however it’s a conservation project that we are doing.

At the end of each day, for the last hour of school, everyone must practice for the upcoming September 15th celebration. September 15th is Costa Rica’s Independence Day. We had a choice of either joining a marching band, learning their history, or creating their school banner… can you guess which one I joined?   I joined the marching band. I play an instrument called the lira, which for anyone who doesn’t know, like I didn’t, it is like an Xylophone but with two sets of bars instead of one. It’s really fun to play and it’s very loud… I’ve had fun with this.

All in all, school has been pretty amazing so far. 🙂 I can’t wait to see where it takes me.

Be sure to check out the video below, maybe you will spot me playing my Lira.