Day 9 Cultural Exchange and Cheese Farm

Dear families and friends this is your leaders of the day Andres, Michelle and Makai. Day 9 of our Global Glimpse trip was our cultural exchange program and cheese farm. Our day started at 8 am with breakfast and our mental warm where we played a fun game of hot potato to get our day started with spending 2 hours with the local kids for our cultural exchange. We did a bunch of fun activities , all separated into two groups. We first began playing soccer and began our planned activities with red light green light, drew what we wanted to be in 50 years, paper snow-flakes, and dancing! We all had so much fun with the kids in the local community.

We then came back for lunch at our base house to take a quick break.Then our trip started with heading to the cheese farm to learn about the animals and the impact of agriculture in the environment. We even learned how to milk the cows and make cheese with the farmers with ingredients that they had in their local farm. We were introduced to Karla, a former worker who is experienced in milking cows and assists in the process of making cheese, she created these fun competitions between us glimpsers to encourage us to pay attention and overall, have fun. Two of our students participated in a “who can make better cheese?” competition, one of them being Andres, whose cheese was unfortunately too salty. Karla quizzed us about natural decomposition and the importance of the roles of every aspect that contributes to the enviorment, such as the worms that deliver oxygen to the roots of the trees during heavy rain here in Costa Rica. Karla presented the impact of tourism and its impact on our ecosystems, our buisnesses, and local communities that are the base foundation of Costa Rica.

We came from the cheese farm and got all dressed up, our private bus helped us arrive at the pizzeria here in Turrialba. The pizza had thin crusts and were fairly small, so we did eat a lot (11 pizzas). Some students decided to go to the pulperia and some ordered pastries to try from the pizzeria. The bus ride back home was loud and funny, we all joked about looking like ghosts in all the pictures and joking about Tenzing’s “imaginary friend”. Our night ended with a campfire roasting s”mores and having a dance party. Everyone’s screaming of course, we made it our own fun. Some of the s’mores did burn and set on fire, but other than that, they were delicious.