¿Que es Venison?

So I think I should start with explaining the title of this blog, What is Venison? On Friday I took my very first field trip =) The Kinder and Pre-Kinder classes at the Montessori, along with the teachers of course, went to a place about 40 minutes away called INBioparque.

http://costa-rica-guide.com/travel/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=179&Itemid=352

That website talks a bit about it. Basically, it is a zoo here in Costa Rica.

Here are some of my students, from left: Adrian, Isabela, María Jose, Isaí, and Santiago

It was very interesting for me to go to this place to see what kinds of animals they have here in their zoos and for me to listen to the tour guide talk in Spanish. I actually understood most of what she was saying, so that was good! Anywho, the first animal that we saw was a deer. All of the children were being sooo quiet and trying to spot a deer I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. After we saw a couple mommy deer and baby deer, we walked on down the path. As we were walking I was telling Gaby, my teacher, and Ericka, the Pre-Kinder teacher, about how many deer we have in Wisconsin. I then told them how much I hate driving at night because I have hit a deer before. Their response was priceless: "WHAT, TEACHER SARAH, NOO! NO CRASH WITH DEER!" I then told them that I actually love venison. Their response, "Que es venison?" When I told them it was deer meat, I thought they were both going to fall over right there from a heart attack.. hahaha.. I explained that it's okay that we eat deer because there are so many around us and that we actually have a season to hunt deer. They were clearly not used to this idea seeing as deer are in a zoo and are protected animals down here, but it was quite the conversation to say the least.
So after all of that, we continued on to see some huge fish, a butterfly garden, turtles, pigs (which were all black), chickens, etc. There was also a "petting zoo" area where the children got to sit and feed the goats as well as pet bunnies, chicks, and the goats.
Isabela and Camila are here petting a rabbit, they absolutely loved it!

It was definitely a fun first field trip because I got to tell all the students what everything was in English and tell them what we had more of and all kinds of fun stuff like that. The children also couldn't believe that I see deer all the time (I didn't tell them the car crashing or eating parts =) I didn't want to traumatize them haha)
Another school week in the books, and I actually only have 4 more weeks at the Montessori before I move to my next placement! It is crazy how fast time goes.. I have been here nearly a month now, crazy! I actually got to teach my first lessons this week as well. I worked with them on the letters V X and Y and their phonic sounds. I also taught them how to count 10 by 10. Overall, I thought the lessons went really well and if I needed help communicating something to the students, Gaby was there to help translate. Gaby is actually out of the room for most of the day now, which is pretty neat because it makes me feel as if she is not only confident in my teaching skills, but my Spanish skills as well!

As for this weekend, we decided to lay low and save some money by hanging around Tres Ríos. Yesterday we hiked La Carpintera, the mountain right outside our house. It was a 3 1/2 mile hike up (and obviously back down). It was a beautiful view and we saw many beautiful, and VERY scary things along the way. For example,

THIS SPIDER!

Dear goodness was it frightening! Frederico, our "tour guide" for the day quickly told us to leave it alone because he thought it was dangerous. It was just hanging out on the walking path not moving.. Meghan let out quite the piercing scream when she walked by it.

Overall the hike was really awesome. It wasn't too hard until the end. At the end we had about 6 rather high "parts" to climb where it leveled out briefly and turned a bit. It was super muddy because of all the rain, so climbing was a bit challenging. About half way up there is a little waterfall that we played in for awhile! It helped to clean off our legs/shoes as well! We got to the clearing, that we can see every day from our house, and took some pictures, sat down for awhile, and ate some grapes and crackers. We could tell there was a storm coming so we headed back down the mountain shortly after we arrived at the top. My legs surprisingly aren't too sore today, so I think that is motivation to do it again another weekend we hang around here! haha It actually reminded me a lot of climbing up Garvin Heights in Winona.. just a bit bigger =)

That teeny little bright green patch is the clearing that we hiked to.Stunning.Meghan and I just hanging out in the big tree in the middle of the clearing!

This next weekend coming up, us girls got invited to go to a beach house in Puerto Viejo. Kelly's host mother, Flor, has a niece that is 25 who lives with her that has a beach house. She is a student in San Jose and has some sort of break? I'm not really sure. All I know is that Puerto Viejo is about 4 hours away on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. Apparently we are going to take turns making dinner for the three nights we are there and I'm guessing just enjoy a relaxing weekend! I am very excited!