Dia del Independencia

On Friday, 15 September, we participated in the Independence Day parade with La Palabra de Vida. Our school was represented by a flag team and a band (mostly drums).

As staff members, we walked behind the band and carried water to help keep them all hydrated. Fortunately a breeze kept us all from cooking, although we did get a bit sunburned.



When we got back to our car, we found that it had been broken into. Someone had used a screwdriver (or something similar) in the lock of the driver’s door to open the car. They stole Mark’s set of tools from the back seat, but then must have gotten interrupted (Thank God!) because my purse was under one of the front seats with the car keys in it!

The Butterfly Farm

Una Gira Educativa!

On Wed., 13 Sept, Adrienne took her 5th grade class on a field trip to The Butterfly Farm in La Guacima – only about 20 minutes away from school. It was a fun morning for the whole class. Since we are studying the stages of life of vertebrates and invertebrates, it was a great opportunity for us to see metamorphosis up close and personal.

Check out Fernando the butterfly!

Día del Niño

Kids often ask, "If we celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, why don't we celebrate Children’s Day?" Well, send them to Costa Rica! Yesterday, Sept. 9, we celebrated Children’s Day at Los Güizaros with a fiesta! It was a long and tiring day, but a lot of fun. We started off by cooking in Cecilia’s kitchen.

The fare for the day included the typical party foods of arroz con pollo (rice with chicken), frijoles molidos (refried black beans), fried tortillas, and a drink. You can see from these pictures that the kitchen is less than industrial sized (and this is even after a few improvements were made this year), but we managed to cook for almost 200 people – and the food tasted great if I do say so myself!

A group of international missionaries recently moved into the neighborhood, and they agreed to come and do a program for the kids. Two clowns performed and a short video was shown. The clowns are missionaries - one from Spain and the other from Equador. The kids loved them.


The traditional piñatas brought chaos and lots of candy for the kids to scramble after. Just in case they didn’t get enough sugar from the piñatas, we gave each child a small ice cream cone and a ‘goodie bag’ with a toy, some candy, crackers, and a notebook. Many of the items that we were able to give the kids had been donated by a couple of local churches and a work team that was recently here from Tennessee. God definitely blessed the children of Los Güizaros this Children’s Day, and they saw how much He loves them. What a privilege to be able to serve God this way.

Guanacaste Day

On Guanacaste Day (July 25), Costa Rica celebrates the annexation of the Guanacaste province from Nicaragua in 1824. At La Palabra de Vida, the celebration included a school-wide assembly. Here's one of the kindergarden kids at the assembly reciting a part of a story. (Okay, actually we didn't really understand what he was saying, but it was really cute!).
As the assembly progressed, each grade (pre-school through 11th) either danced or presented a skit. Then it was the teachers' turn.

I'm not sure exactly how we got roped into it. But probably due to some combination of our poor Spanish and our inability to say no, we volunteered to dance at the assembly. Of course we were assured that we would be thouroughly taught what to do. But at the scheduled reheasal, the coordinator (the only one who knew the dance moves) didn't show up. So, the day before the event we had a crash course in the Caballito Nicoyano.

In the Caballito Nicoyano the dancers are dressed "campesino style". The man wears a white shirt, work pants, a campesino hat and a bandanna. The woman wears a white, off the shoulder blouse accented with lace, and a flowing, tiered skirt of bright colors. The dance is between the character of a male cattle rancher and the woman he is trying to impress. The man in the dance is the cattle rancher and the woman is a colt that needs to be ‘captured.' The music mimics the sound of horses' hooves. The man follows the woman around in a circle attempting to lasso the ‘colt'. The dance ends with an intensifying chase as she twirls toward him, and is finally caught. I'm not sure our rendition of it was quite as dramatic as all that. But we did give the students a good laugh, and once again confirmed that many years back we made the right choice when we decided not to be professional dancers.