day 9: cultural exchange and cheese farm

What does that cow sayyy?? MOOOO!! Hey everyone! It’s Laila and Jacob, today’s leaders of the day! Today marked our last full today in Turrialba; with our day starting doing a cultural exchange at a local school, then a tour at a cheese farm, and lastly ending our day bonding at a dinner spot downtown.

Starting our day off on the right foot, we headed to the local elementary school to have a cultural exchange lesson with the students. The kiddos ages ranged from 4-13 years old and they were all excited to meet us and make new friends. We had three lessons and games we had to come up with to teach which were: a language game, physical game , and (as you can tell by the photos) an arts and crafts one. The first lesson was language, we split up everyone into 2 groups. The group Jacob led did Pictionary and Laila’s group did telephone. Next we moved onto a physical, both groups did face paint. Many kids wanted dogs, cats, hearts while mine’s wanted Gallo Pinto! Lastly our final lesson was a physical so we did “Pato Pato Ganso” and “Simón dice”, a fan favorite Simón dice was definitely seis siete. After hours of laughs, smiles, and screaming we finally had to say out goodbyes in hope that what we taught left an impact of them.

The next part of our busy day was heading to the the cheese farm to take a tour and learn about Costa Rican cheese. As a group we all played games with the staff like matching which kinds of grass the cows eat for nutrients, milking cows, and making cheese. Two people out of the group got to milk the cows while the rest of us watched the overall process; which included lessons about how to clean a cow before hand, what to fead it so the milk comes out nicely, and lastly how to milk it properly. I got to partake in the process of actually making the cheese and adding flavor to it. We added this kind of chemical and mixed it together and pushed it down to solidify it. Very interesting process!

To end our last day here we all bounded over a family dinner style at Fratelli’s Pizzeria. At dinner we all played games and on the bus talked about how fast this trip was ending. The trip has been very inspiring to me and being leader of the day showed me how much of a leader I can truly turn into. In the past I have had trouble seeing my leadership skills but now I know what I am capable of. Ending this trip we have all turned into a family and leaving is going to be really bittersweet. I’ve made friendships, lots of inside jokes and seen the world from a traveler’s eye. I really do miss home and my cats but being here has given me so much peace of mind and calmed everything down. I am looking forward to being with my family in the next 48 hours because I truly miss Peanut Butter and my two cats! -Laila

As day 9 comes to an end, I reflect on extremely eventful experiences that our Global Glimpsers endured and what I view with my eyes as today’s leaders. To get the boring stuff out of the way, today I learned that people have major effects when it comes to purchasing items. What I mean by that is there are many companies that create the same item, yet the effect on the environment may differ based on the process they use to create that item. Today our group meet so many people, for example our day started off with a local vendor who specialized in traditional are pieces, mainly made of wood. Although many people believe wood isn’t a valuable material, this man created such beautiful pieces which will immediately alter someones way of thinking. Many of the students were intrigued by his work, deciding to purchase many of his creations for themselves in order to support a local vendor of Turrialba.

To continue on my partners points, we had an outstanding day at the local middle school with many kids ranging in grade levels. We divided and conquered the middle school with fun activities which consisted of pictionary, face painting, and even pato pato ganso (which if you didn’t know, it translates to duck duck goose). These activities left both out older and younger kids with the joy of the present and the sadness of the future in which we have to leave. Generally seeing my both groups coming together and enjoying the time made me joyful because it showed that language barriers can’t effect the motion of fun can connections

Finally we come to one of my favorite time of the day, which is dinner. Today’s dinner was special to all of us for many different reasons. Our dinner experience starts from the moment we step into the bus; it is never silent, but instead it is filled with noise of community which we have formed over these last 9 days. We have people playing games of contact, or people talking about childhood memories, it is everything but silent within that bus. Once we arrive to our destination for dinner, we sit as a unit ready to eat and enjoy our last dinner in Turrialba. Going into my perspective as the leader of the day, I felt a sense that is deeper that community. I didn’t see the other students as people within my community anymore, I saw them as family, and I will never view them anything lower as family. I am extremely grateful for my Global Glimpse family today, not only for making my day better, but for leaving a positive impact on Turrialba as travelers. I’m am very honored to have been LLD for today and although I struggled a little in the morning, I was able to bounce back and come back stronger later in the day for the many people who looked forward to my leadership today. As a reflect on this day, I was inspired by the many local activities we did and truly learning how differently everyone live on the same world. – Jacob