Bienvenidos a Alas Azules

Greetings amigos!

Today was an amazing day, filled with beautiful emotions, landscapes and delicious food.

In the morning we had the opportunity to have a buffet breakfast. We could choose from waffles to gallo pinto.

Some students volunteered to help Don Tavo get our suitcases in the bus which was very nice from them.

We were told the traffic jam would be crazy but we were lucky that it wasn’t and that gave us time to drive around the city of San Jose getting to know historic buildings.

Then we got to our base house called Alas Azules (Blue Wings) which makes reference to the super special and favorite leydi’s butterfly the Blue Morpho. At the entrance of our base house, we got to see particular plants and birds that the students hadn’t seen before like The Heliconias and the Golden orioles. Later we even saw a toucan, two squirrels going down a tree, a gecko, and a toad.

For lunch, we had roast chicken and vegetables (sooo yummy!!) prepared by our already favorite cook “Doña Ligia”. The students tried the cas juice or sour guava juice (much loved by the Ticos).

Then we had a tour around our community just to see our surroundings. We saw rails that were used a long time ago to transport bananas, cacao, and coffee from the Pacific to the Caribbean. Near that place we made some energizers to get to know each other’s names and dance moves.

We got back to the base house and had our welcome, orientation, safety and culture instructions or seminars. We even shared a tiny moment of vulnerability sharing prompts like “At this point in my life I am still figuring out…”
Students learn about the concept of empathy and had the opportunity to demonstrate by being good listeners and willing to share with the group.

And we finished with the nightly meeting where we shared our “big loves” of the day.

We are so proud to be part of this amazing group.