It has been a little while since I last posted. The school year has come to a close and with that we have finished up many projects and had great times!
Now, what have we been up to?
We took a mini vacation to the beach at the end of October to show some of our non-Guanacaste volunteers what we have to offer on this side of the country. Beautiful, verdad?
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| beach + friends = wonderful time |
Then immediately following the mini vacation we headed to San Jose for the All Volunteer conference (AVC), which is where EVERY volunteer in Costa Rica got together for a 2 day conference about various subjects. AVC also fell on Halloween so of course we took advantage of this and dressed up.
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| The two plates that caused all the earthquakes |
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| Tico 23 ready to trick or treat! |
The Hubs completed his bachillerato review course for the high school seniors. The bachillerato is a collection of tests covering the five main subjects that must be taken in order to graduate from high school. The Hubs reviewed for the English portion with about 10 seniors on average for about 6 weeks. The kids were kind, appreciative, and wonderful to work with. Many told him afterwards that they believed it helped their grade improve. And one student even told a teacher about a technique that the Hubs taught her (awesome).
I finished up my two conversation clubs and deemed them a success. The two groups of teachers worked with me for 10 weeks for four hours a day speaking in English the WHOLE time. I saw their confidence and fluency grow. I saw one teacher go from barely talking in the first session to dominating the conversation in the last two!
The conversation clubs will become my primary project in the upcoming year and I will take a more supportive role on creating workshops. I am excited. The conversation club is something I create and facilitate independently.
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| The high school teachers gaming it up! |
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| Elementary teachers enjoying the favorite food day |
As we close 2012, we decided to let it go out with a bang! So we joined some of our fellow volunteers and headed to Panama for a quick trip. There we watched 8 friends complete either a relay or marathon. Then we jetted over to the beach for some down time. At the beach, we slept, talked, snorkeled, swam, ate, rode horses, laughed, talked, and laughed (but before that we had to endure looooooooong, cold bus rides, bring your winter clothes to travel in Panama by bus).
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| The runners (minus one) and cheerleaders |
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| Panama Canal |
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| Enjoying the beautiful beach with my bestie |
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| These women are amazing |
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| Our very eventful horse ride |
And now we are on to Christmas!
