¡mi familia tica!

Studying abroad has been so much more than classes in a new country and adventures on the weekend. It has gifted me with a family that I've come to know and love more than I ever imagined. I live alongside two other study abroad students and our familia tica, an adorable group of my mama tica, papa tica, David, and Daniella.

While stimulating and fun, being apart of a native Costa Rican family with basic Spanish skills has its challenges. I have learned how to communicate with my mama tica using a translator at times when necessary (like when I asked mama tica how she met papa tico), and using the skills I learned in class to talk about our days, our likes and dislikes, and what to get David for his birthday...

Our conversations may be basic without a dictionary to help me, but the small talk mean the most because it is a reminder that I am in a new country, learning a language, and trying my hardest to make a connection.

It's a celebration every morning when I ask my mama tica to repeat a phrase or ask her how to say a verb I'm unfamiliar with. As shown this morning when our papa tico was talking about playing the guitar and I wanted to share that I missed my violin that I left in the states. "Cómo se dice I miss?" There was a small hesitation as mama tica thought about my question, then understanding lit her face and she answered, "echar de menos, entonces echo de menos mí violin." A small statement, but one that took teamwork to share across the language barrier.

Being here has taught me how much I take my ability to communicate in English for granted, and also given me inspiration to dutifully learn Spanish so that I may share my ideas with another culture.

sploosh!

Only a few days after settling in my new home, I clumsily allowed my cell phone to bounce out of my pocket and into my tica family's koi pond. I rushed down the stairs and grasped into the water hoping to touch the familiar shape, but instead only felt slimy fish. My papa tico found a net and helped me fish it out, but unfortunately the life already left my phone.

I wasn't as upset as I expected to be, but rather I felt a relief.

My adventure to Costa Rica was intended to be an escape from the expectations I believed existed at home, and losing my main connection to my friends and family felt refreshing. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through facebook and instagram,  my eyes took in the world around me. Without a small electronic screen to escape into, my attention focused on vastly unique gates that surrounded each house. I stopped and smelled the hibiscus and I smiled and said '¡hola!' to every stranger I passed.

Of course, being without a phone created difficulties with communication. It was a challenge to get in touch with my roommates or my mama tica to let them know I would be home late for dinner, but this forced me to think outside of the box and find a different method to achieve my goal.

It's been three weeks since that fateful day, and I once again have a cell phone. When it was in transit, I was ecstatic. Now that it is here, I feel discontent with myself when I absent-mindedly open snapchat and consider watching the lives of my friends. I consider downloading instagram, but I do not want to scroll through a virtual representation of my friends. My heart yearns to live freely, mindfully consuming my time with the people physically around me and opening myself to tangible experiences.

un påjaro

october 1st, you have been mucho bien to me. journey through a coffee plantation, a tropical rainforest, an active volcanic crater,