My host family

Before I get into the topic of my post this week I want to answer Kristen's question from last week. She asked if the cities that were wiped out by the large 1968 eruption of volcan arenal rebuilt in the same spot or if they moved somewhere out of reach of the volcano. They actually did rebuild it at the base of the volcano and now it is the town of La Fortuna which is also where the Tabacon resort is located.

Now onto this weeks topic: My host family. I could not have asked for a better host family to live with. Some students were placed in houses where their children had already moved out of the house so they were just living with a set of parents. My roommate and I lived with a family that had four children and one grandson. Our parent's names were Heriberto and Flory. Their oldest son Henry who is 32, is married and no longer living in the house. The children that did live in the house were Yinia who is 29, Dayan who is 22, Maria Fernanda who is 16 and baby Jonathan who was four months when I was living there and is now almost a year old. Jonathan is Maria Fernanda's son and although many people who I tell think that having a baby when you are 15 is normal in Costa Rica, it is not. The family and community were very upset that she had a baby so young. She needed to take time off of school (8th grade) because of the pregnancy and when I was leaving the country in the beginning of February of last year she was just about to start 8th grade again now that the baby was a little bit older. Maria Fernanda took care of the baby 24/7 while she was home, and when she went back to school my host mom was going to take care of him. Pictured above from left to right is Heriberto, Maria (16), Flory, Dayan(22), Jonathan (4 mths), and me. To the left is me holding baby Jonathan!

My host father was a mechanic so he would be up and out early in the morning and then be home for the day around 4:30 or 5 o'clock. My host mother was a housewife and she cooked and cleaned and took care of the baby when Maria was not around. She cooked breakfast and dinner for us every day. Usually in the morning it was bread and fruit and for dinner she had a variety of different meals that she cooked. During the month I was there, she only served the same meal twice. She always found different ways to prepare the meals and this allowed me to try many different styles of food that they eat in Costa Rica. Yinia worked in the school system there as a teacher and Dayan was going to college to also become a teacher. She worked during the day and then went to night classes at a school in San Jose.

The house they lived was very nice. My roommate and I stayed in part of the upstairs and we each had our own room and a bathroom to share. The rest of the family lived on the bottom floor. Each of the girls had their own room and Jonathan shared with Maria. Living with a host family was one of the best experiences I had while staying in Costa Rica. They taught me a lot about their culture and customs and it also helped me out a lot with my spanish since no one in the family spoke a word of English! I was constantly thinking about how to say things and learning new vocabulary from them so this helped me a lot! I hope you all enjoyed reading about the family that I spent a month with.