Lakeside School

Through Lakeside's Global Service Learning (GSL) program, students in a Spanish IV/V class taught by Mara Morales Ortiz lived in a host community in Costa Rica for three weeks. They live with homestay families, learn about indigenous Bri Bri culture in the rainforest on the border of Panama, and put on a Semana Santa camp for kids in the community. The following posts are from the first week of their trip.

From trip leaders Mara, Debby, and Jay: 

Two days before leaving for Costa Rica, I ran into a Lakeside colleague who is an alum who participated in the GSL Senegal program decades ago. She excitedly shared the news that she was planning on spending her spring break traveling to Senegal to visit her host family from her time in high school.

The most impactful, memorable, and meaningful component of the GSL experience for students is quite often the deep relationship that is forged with their host family. Our students in Costa Rica are blessed with the distinct advantage of being able to communicate with their families since they are in an advanced Spanish class together. Their high level of language allows them to go beyond basic conversations and salutations; they can delve into deeper conversations about culture, hopes and dreams, how life has changed in the village in their lifetimes, and they can also share more about themselves with their host families. Our host village hosts many groups of tourists but ours is the only one that is staying for 3 weeks with host families. Our students appreciate and understand what a gift this is, allowing them a window into a rich and multi layered culture.

During our daily morning meetings, we start with “shout outs”, moments of appreciation we each feel for something that occurred the day before. Our students regularly share an anecdote about their host mom’s cooking, a card game they shared with a younger sibling, or a conversation about politics in both countries with a parent of grandparent. The leaders look forward to hearing more about these vital cultural connections, and we encourage you all to ask your student about what they learned from their host families when they return.

From Jillian M.

The bracelet on my wrist is made of more than just string.

The first day here my host mom gave me a bracelet which I immediately put on and haven’t taken off since. I thought it was just a pretty bracelet until Letty, my host sister, started talking about it. She would ask me where my bracelet was, and when I showed her my wrist the biggest smile would appear on her face. When she brought me to meet her aunt, one of the first things she said was “look at her bracelet! My mom made that!” I had inadvertently accepted them into my family by wearing their art, and I am so glad that I did.

Last night I spend hours sitting on the floor teaching Letty, 10 years old, and Luri, 14 years old, how to make bracelets out of string just like I used to do with my friends in Seattle. Once they got the hang of it and weren’t constantly asking for help, I got to hear all about their friends at school and what they want to do when they grow up. Luri is learning English in school and demonstrated her growing vocabulary, and the two of us taught Letty how to count to ten. Our evening was filled with laughter and silly games, and it was wonderful.

The bracelets we made are memories. Memories of staring contests and card games. Memories of Letty attempting to sing in English and bursting into laughter after mere words. These moments are tied in colorful knots around my wrist, and will stay with me forever.

From Julius J.

Our class isn’t the only group staying in our host community. Many people come here from many different places (so far I’ve heard at least Canada, Germany, and England). Every person has a unique experience, but what group you’re with has a pretty massive effect. Obviously friends and group activities and other such things matter, but something that surprised me was that not every group stays in homestays. This surprised me because one of the most important parts of this experience for me has been my family.

At home, I’m an only child. Here, I have 3 little brothers. They’re very little (my youngest is one month old!), making deep conversation rather impossible, but I certainly spend a lot of time with them. These siblings have completely changed how a day would go, but they aren’t the only ones.

The host families we live with are all part of their own much larger extended families. As if that wasn’t a lot of names to remember there are also certain community members acting as family members for us. Eliodoro acted as a grandfather to us all by teaching us about some medicinal plants. Generation after generation, whenever a new problem arises in the community, a cure is found and added to a wealth of medical knowledge. Elio showed us a variety of plants with an even wider variety of uses, from healing broken bones and dry eyes to an intimidatingly spiky plant that stops liars (I took a mental note to be my most honest self).

Even if we forget what all of these plants do, we’ll still remember how happy Elio was to share them with us. Much the same way, even as we readjust to society back in Seattle (though we still have two weeks before we even begin that process), we’ll all remember how it felt to be welcomed into a new family, even if it’s a bit bigger (that is, has a few more littler people) than what we’re used to.