Costa Rica: Lesson 1: Learning I Have Potential

Today is deserving of a post of its own. Today, while long and intense was entirely enlightening of my skills and potential. The early morning began with a two hour photography lesson. We took a thirty minute drive to a "real" Costa Rica beach. Fishermen set up their nets and groom their boats for their future trips. Children, wives and dogs alike roam the beach looking for work and play. Broken down boats crowded the beach as did strange but interesting situations such as cows steering a cart, and a young boy sitting alone in the drivers seat of a boat with broken glass as windows.

When Carlos, my photography instructor, approached me to look at my photos, he seemed pleasantly surprised with my work. He took a look through a few photos and said, "These are great! You don't need my help." And with that, he walked away. I was completely shocked at his response to my photographs. Thrilled, I continued shooting and gained confidence to shoot photos of strangers.

After the photography trip, I came back to Jaco for four hours of Spanish class. Today, I was even more surprised than yesterday. We had two quizzes, and I did the best on both of them, getting a majority of the questions correctly (I got five wrong on the first one and only three incorrect on the second). My teacher also seemed pleasantly surprised with my immediate progress with the language. I understand most of what Laura is saying, and usually respond to her questions correctly. I now need to work on my grammar, some more vocabulary, and a lot of confidence. By the time I leave Costa Rica, I am confident that I will be an entirely different Spanish speaker than when I arrived!

I am still working on including myself with the other students here, as they are much older then me. The girls all range from 25-35, and there is a man whom is about 50. I am the only girl that does not take yoga or surfing, so some afternoons allow a lot of down time for me. Now I have no excuses to not finish some of my reading for my internship at Echo Hill!

You will hear from me again soon! Here is some of my photos from the past two days...Enjoy!