More from Heather

Hola,

Had an adventurous bus ride from San Jose to Monteverde. There was a traffic jam of some sort and the bus came to a halt for one and a half hours. The students were so tired that they didn't even notice. We got into Monteverde around 8 or later and got set up in the hotel-hostel and then went to eat. Much grouchiness yesterday. Coming out of the homestays and with nearly ten days to go, all are tired from the strain of speaking Spanish to the hosts and trying to get comfortable in other people´s houses. Lots of mosquito bites due to more rain the past few days (in Roxana-not here) but no illness from those bites, just some itching and scratching. Monteverde is a mountain town, and its hills and steep streets remind me of Peru. It is touristy though, lots of restaurants and tour group shops geared towards tourists.

We just returned from touring the Cloud Forest school. It´s in a beautiful location, with an amazing view. Awesome forest, and the school is on nver 100 acres. Their mission is environmentally based, and their original founders were Quakers - their foundation headquarters are in Tennessee. It´s bilingual, with classes mostly in English, but civics and social studies in Spanish, and classes in Spanish as well. They do a sort of block schedule of three classes per day for a quarter, and then at the next quarter, change the three classes. 25% of the students are international. It´s elementary through high school. Anyone who is interested in ecology and environmental science would love it. Drew will meet with soeone there tomorrow to talk about exchange program possibilities. The kids were tired but did rally and we painted some cement pier foundations for a couple of hours before we were treated to lunch. The students at this school are much much much more wealthy than those in Roxana, lots of Ipods and laptops.