Tag: colegio

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Why Not Mopt instead of Mopped?

LICEO ENGLISH CLASSES “SPELLING BEE” CELL PHONE PHOTOGRAPHS
LICEO CLASES DE INGLÉS FOTOS “Spelling Bee”:

These two seniors stayed through last several rounds until girl on the right spelled
“Mopped” as “Mopt” to be eliminated. Wow! English is a difficult language!
Inglés es difícil de aprender.

A few of the early arrival participants. Orange shirts are seniors and
blue shirts are 9th through 11th grades. They were all so nice and polite.
Los estudiantes son muy simpaticas.

The 3 other “Native English Speakers” as judges besides me. Mainly record keeping!
But good to have several because I could not understand some of the kids at times.
The man and woman at other end of table are from Australia.
Gringos ayudan.

And another Expat read the words and definitions or examples when requested.
The girl in blue is spelling one of the words.
This expat lady also does the free lending library at La Carreta Restaurant.
Estoy feliz de ayudar.
We had several breaks in the three hour spelling bee when students showed
some of their other English language work. Here some students put on a
puppet show of “Little Red Riding Hood” in English of course! Cute!
Linda!

I was there at 8:15 and left a little after 11:00 for my jungle adventure which will be storied in other posts. Maybe one more tonight. 🙂    And note that I am back to including Spanish language words and phrases in red so you will know what is Spanish AND because my Spanish teacher wants me to use more Spanish all day every day and include a Spanish section to my blog or just some Spanish lines like I have done with this post.

❝If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.❞
‒Nelson Mandela

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Spelling Bee and Carara National Park

All the students walk to and from
school, are clean cut, polite, friendly

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT SPELLING BEE
Tomorrow, Thursday, 30 July 2015, I’m starting the day as a “Native English Speaker” at Colegio Liceo de Atenas, the big high school near where I live, to serve as a judge and maybe to pronounce the English words for their English Language Classes Spelling Bee. They have 3 full-time English Teachers in a Spanish-speaking school! A big high school!

How fun this will be! Even though I was going to leave early on my birding adventure, I can’t turn down an opportunity like this to relate to the community! I’m trying hard to not be like most of the segregated expats who only associate with each other. I didn’t move to Central America to spend all my time with North Americans! I’m here to get away from them! 🙂 (No offense now! I still like some of you! But I sure like the culture down here better.) So I will leave for Carara at 11:00 after the Spelling Bee! FYI the school Facebook Page.    or  School Video   and    Google Images  of the school or just Google the school and you will see pages for the students to do homework, etc. You will get a report from me on this for sure!

Hope to get a better shot than this one on
my 2011 Tarcoles River Cruise as a day trip
from the Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship,
our FBN Panama Canal Cruise

CARARA NATIONAL PARK
Now for the planned trip: I have a rent car and I’m spending two nights at Hotel Villa Lapas at
Tarcoles, the closest one to the Carara Park and have scheduled a 5-hour guided tour of the park with hopes of Scarlet Macaw photos. This is mating season in the second most populous Scarlet Macaw forest of the country, so maybe some cute, cuddly couples to photograph!  🙂 But regardless, there will be many birds and much else to photograph! And if not raining too much, I will hike to the tallest waterfall in the country or at least see it from a distance at a nearby botanical gardens. I’ve done the nearby Tarcoles River cruise 3 times, but that is always another option if I get bored – ha, ha!

Tico Times article on Carara National Park

Costa Rica Bureau Page on park (not sure if it is official park page, if any)

One National Parks Page on the park (maybe not official)

A Guide Service Page     and the Wikipedia Page is good

And hopefully more than overfly shots like this one I made in 2009 at
Corcovado National Park in the South on Osa Peninsula. 

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” ― John Muir, Our National Parks

And my PHOTO GALLERY of Costa Rica Birds if you want more!  🙂

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Great Neighborhood Project!

Except for Atenas Central, there are few sidewalks (like Donelson-Hermitage)
So in the neighborhood between Roca Verde and Atenas Central, the neighbors
got together and decided to build their own, since government isn’t doing it.

Today it was young adult volunteers mixing & pouring cement, other times
have had some older adult men doing it, at least a quarter mile finished now!
The orange roofs on hill at top of photo is a part of Roca Verde.

Today’s young men shoveling cement into the forms. Great!
I gave them a thumb’s up and said “Muchas Gracias” as I walked by.
Again you can see one Roca Verde hill in distance.
This is an earlier photo I took going down the hill toward our gate.
I feel much safer walking on a sidewalk than in narrow streets or very
rough shoulders if any! The closer to Central Park, the more sidewalks.
First shift leaving high school.
Almost all students walk to school here. 

It is interesting to watch how many people still walk in the street, possibly from years of habit, I would guess half. Of course further up you have no choice and that includes walking by the high school where there are no sidewalks. Gangs of teens leaving or arriving just fill the streets and cars wait (photo below or at right).

But it was sad to see in Tico Times recently that Pedestrian Deaths Outnumber Drunk Driving Deaths in Costa Rica.  Speeding and irresponsible lane-changing are the top two causes of road deaths here.

Maybe this one more sidewalk will save another life or two. Everything is not perfect in Costa Rica! Infrastructure is still lacking in many areas.