Twin Travel: Pura Vida

Holaaaaa mis amigos,

Sorry for not posting in so long, finding the time and energy to do so is hard but I will try harder! Because every spare time is siesta time! Yet again so much has happened but you are in luck because I can't remember it all but here's what I can...

My residence Cahuita won the inter-residence competition!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got a lovely trophy that is quite obviously made of solid gold. In the basketball, which I participated in, we came second!
CAS has started now, I have had two fun dance lessons in which we have learned a bit of hip hop and contemporary. A DoitYourself class where we planned to customise/alter t-shirts whilst eating brownies in our next session. DIY is a creativity CAS where we make and create things in the most sustainable and fun way possible whilst eating yummy food! I have also completed one session of my service CAS La Carpio, which I thoroughly enjoyed. This is a very poor area in Costa Rica and we help the children and their community out by putting on fun sessions and visiting their homes. But for the first session they came to our school for a day, in meetings we planned to do many fun games and activities around the topic of sustainability. I met such amazing kids, it must have been incredible for them coming from a slum to my school, it must have seemed very surreal!Also academics are going well and are very interesting, a few tests and presentations are under way. I really enjoy art as, at the moment, we get to do what we want and be very experimental.. and I love being creative!

I went on a hike on Sunday up the mountains of Costa Rica, it was so beautiful! We stopped off at the fruit market before hand for breakfast and snacks then made our way up, literally climbing through the tropical plants. I was cut and stung so many times but it was worth it for the view. Annddddd I lived up to a British stereotype by getting very very sun burnt that day. Oopps, then sun cream is running out fast!

I also visited Carla's house, my Honduras/USA/Costa Rican friend who lives here in Santa Ana and also attends UWC. I went with Clara from Chile/The Netherlands and Maia from Barbados. I had an amazing time looking out across the incredible view of Santa Ana , sipping incredible Costa Rican coffee and eating Chikys(biscuits). It was nice to get away with friends and just relax from all the madness. 'Thanks gurl'

There was also a Costa Rican Independence Day parade in Santa Ana in which our school participates in. UWCCR was out in force all dressed in traditional outfits and clutching our flags in the hot hot hot morning sun. It was realllyyy fun and nice to see the community and people from afar cheering us on and nice to talk to a few locals and for children asking to get pictures with us. It was also great to see other schools and groups participating in the parade from all of Costa Rica, they had clearly been practising for a long time!

MUN (Model United Nations) is now getting under way, it is to be held at our school from the 24th-26th of October. All of the first years, some second years and external schools participate. There are many councils involved such as Security, Social Economic, UNWomen and many more. I am in Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs council representing Japan.... which will be challenging but a lot of fun. Now to start my research and paper for it!

Now social life.. well casual walk around Santa Ana, mainly to get smoothies which, I repeat, are soooo good :) There is also always many events in San Jose or closer that I can go to. An amazing event I went to last Thursday was a reggae night at Jazz Cafe in Ezacsu where a band called Avanti played. It was such an great night skanking and took me straight back to the nights at Woodcraft Folk camps and with my friends. Miss you!!

An important concept here is 'tico time', tico's are people who live in Costa Rica. If someone says '8pm tico time' it means that the time is flexible, it will be alright to be late. Ok, so it is a stereotype that ticos are always late but it's something that everyone uses here... Just like UWC to enforce stereotypes! Personally I love it because it means that I'm always on time because, 'being British', I always strive to be on time. So don't blame me if I'm late for things when I come home (mam)! :)

Soo there is a little bit of my life so far.
Thanks for reading!
Love
Ali