Day 3-Volcanoes and Tico Families

Today has been another long day and its only 4:30! We have done so much today already and we still have a lot left to do! We began our day by eating breakfast and packing up our stuff very early in the morning to get to the Poas Volcano before the clouds moved in! We made it just in time to see the amazing site of an active volcano and within about 10 minutes of being there, the clouds set in and we could hardly see it anymore. We then hiked about a mile to a lagoon which was also such an amazing site. We had a little time to rest there and take in the beauty that God has created for us here on the earth! Coming down from the lagoon, the volcano started erupting, but unfortunately I wasn't able to see it. Some of the people in our group saw it and described it as a big puff of black stuff coming out from the center! From there we ate lunch and headed to our school that we will be taking spanish classes at called CPI.

When we got to CPI, I became so overwhelmed with everything and I honestly felt like an ESL (english as a second language) student who comes to an American school for the first time. We were greeted by one of the workers who explained everything that we would be doing in spanish and to my surprise, I almost understood everything that she said! We walked into a room as a group and there sitting on our tables were our placement exams for what level of classes we will be placed in the next three weeks. The test was 4 pages long and half of the questions I didn't even know what it was asking, much like a student who doesn't know english feels when they are taking an exam. It is hard to answer the question if you don't even know what the question is asking! We then had a conversation test with one of the workers here who asked us questions verbally and we had to respond using as much spanish and grammar that we could. I was almost embarrassed when I walked about because I knew that nothing I said probably made no sense at all. We find out tomorrow where we are placed!

After our tests, we played a telephone using spanish words which was hilarious because we could never even get half of the sentences correct and we played another game where we learned the body parts. It was interesting to see how effective using interactive games are to learn things instead of just lectures. We then sat down and got an orientation of the CPI school and what we should expect in our host families. We have some free time right now and in about 1 hour we will all be meeting our new Tico friends (host families)! I am really excited and nervous at the same time to meet my family! I'm sure dinner tonight with my new family will be quite an experience! I am so thankful for this experience I am having and I am definitely learning A LOT!!! God bless!!