Welcome to TAMU Aggies' first week in Monteverde with CPI!
Please go ahead and read a few of our adventures:
Day 1: TAMY Aggies received the host families with excitement and ready to immerse themselves in Costa Rica culture. After meeting their mama tica or papa tico they headed to their homestays where the adventure began.
Day 2: Monday started with Spanish Lessons, meeting the new Spanish teacher and heading to class for 4 hours. At noon we walked to Santa Elena town to know the place better and get to explore.
Day 3: On Tuesday, we enjoyed a Latin cooking class where we learned to cook Costa Rican famous arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) with a salad and handmade tortillas made specially by Mandy Lu and the girls!
Day 4: After a delicious meal at Sabor Tico we headed to the Public Clinic of the zone; where we received a talk with Felipe Quesada Cambronero, the clinic´s director. He proceeded with a detailed and well-explained lecture about the CCSS (Costa Rica Health Care system), explaining how it works from the financial area to the daily attending patient section. We then tour around the clinic, getting to know it´s facilities and staff. It´s important to mention that the Monteverde Clinic is actually classified as an EBAIS (lower level of classification in the health care system) and is currently fighting to become a clinic and receive enough budget, this is a subject that was emphasized during the lecture.
We then visited Veterinaria Suarez, the main vet of the zone. Here, Jesus Suarez received us on his small local and explained to us his experience as a vet in a rural area. The lecture headed towards talking about the differences between Costa Rica vets and US vets and how veterinaries work.
We had a great time and thanked both Felipe and Jesus for their time and flexibility to receive us.
Stay with us for a resume of our last days at the cloud forest.
Pura Vida,
Fabiola FZ