Pura VidaIn Practice
WCU Department of World Languages immerses sudents in Costa Rican culture
WRITTEN BY CAM ADAMS
Home is found in the unlikeliest of places. For Bri Myles this summer, it was in Costa
Rica.
Navigating the Spanish language in conversation and adjusting to a brand new culture
takes mental tenacity. But when all was said and done for the day, there was someone
that was there to ground her amongst all the excitement and frustrations.
Her rock. Her Mama Linda.
I'd come to the door, and I'd go 'Mama Linda!' and I'd tell her about the day, and
we'd have coffee together. She'd ask me if there was anything I needed, and there
was always patience there from her, Myles said.
Along with Myles, 25 other 泫圖弝けapp students also found a new home
on a study abroad trip to Heredia, Costa Rica with the WCU Department of World Languages.
For four weeks in the Central American country, students took two Spanish classes
taught by WCU faculty, partook in a slew of excursions and navigated an almost authentic
life in Costa Rica with homestays.
The immersion experience was far from what Myles and her peers encounter in a classroom
in Cullowhee. Costa Rica was no longer a place on a screen and a culture that was
written about in a textbook.
Costa Rica became real.
I think it was the most important thing I could've done as a language learner to
really give yourself a perspective of where you're at with the language and to give
yourself some sort of connection and to make the language real, Myles said.
It makes the language personal. It puts stories behind it. It puts meaning behind
it.
Getting the trip booked
It all started with a regret.
While he was undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WCU
assistant professor Michael Martinez never jumped on the opportunity to study abroad.
It's one of the biggest regrets that I have about my undergraduate education, Martinez
said. I think that study abroad is just so important specifically for students that
are studying a second language, but also just for any kinds of students across the
campus.
So about a year before Martinez and WCU associate instructor David Jons led this summers
trip to Costa Rica, the Department of World Languages duo got the ball rolling on
a new study abroad program.
The first component of it: how could they provide a valuable learning experience and
also ensure student safety? Martinez and Jons teamed up with Arcos Learning Abroad,
a company that provides study abroad programs for high schools and universities.
Arcos helped plan some of the excursions the group went on, supplied the homestays
for them and a host of other things as well. Jons and Martinez elected for their students
to study in Costa Rica because its one of the safest countries to travel to in Central
America.
The two WCU faculty members also aimed to make this trip both affordable and educationally
worthwhile. The cost of the trip and two three-credit hour classes was under $6,000,
a price tag thats almost unheard of in the study abroad realm, especially for a month-long
trip.
Its honestly really, really incredible, said Megan Comer, a WCU senior who went
on the trip. It's the most accessible way for me to travel, especially since I am
still in college without going into massive amounts of debt for it.
Thats what WCU is all about.
I think it exemplifies everything that WCU stands for, Martinez said of the trip.
This is Western North Carolina's regional comprehensive institution. WCU is dedicated
to academic excellence, affordability and access.
I think that the Costa Rica trip really exemplifies those three core values of the
university.
Jons was also able to scout out Heredia a few months before the trek, and he came
away impressed. Costa Rica is an ecotourism hot spot that attracts millions each year.
However, Heredia is not exactly a tourist destination. Its an authentic Costa Rican
city.
You don't find a lot of ecotourist shops set up for foreigners and tourists. You
find hardware stores. Even the shops and restaurants are not set out to attract tourism
because there's not a lot of tourists in that particular town, Jons said. There's
just a lot of people living their lives.
Jons and Martinez are hoping the program can happen every two years, not just to benefit
the students going on the trip, but the department as a whole.
The idea was to try to create a new kind of culture here in the world languages department,
to try to create a positive and dynamic learning environment, Martinez said.
David and I, we both think that this is a crucial piece to how we're going to be
creating this new positive culture of community here in the world languages department.
Pura Vida
Omar De Jesus-Gomez is quite familiar with the Spanish language and the culture of
a few Latin American countries. Hes the son of Mexican and Salvadorian parents, but
growing up around the two different cultures, Jesus-Gomez knows how different they
actually are.
The same goes for Costa Rica.
A lot of people like to assume that because all of these countries speak Spanish,
the cultures are the same, when in theory, it's not, Jesus-Gomez said.
They listen to a different type of music than the Mexican culture does or differently
than the Colombian culture, like it's all different. I think it's just really important
to just educate yourself because you don't want to categorize everyone into one little
section.
For a lot of the students that went on the trip, even native Spanish speakers like
Omar-Gomez, the Costa Rican culture came as an astonishment. The food was different.
The hospitality was different. In Costa Rica, life was just different, and the students
got a first-hand taste of it.
The students went on several excursions during their four-week stay in the Central
American country, including some sight-seeing destinations like Manuel Antonio National
Park. The park featured monkeys, iguanas and a beach, something Myles had never seen
before.
Having never seen the ocean, hearing when people talk about it, they're like It's
super powerful, and it's super dangerous, and it is, but then it's like you can also
have a lot of fun hanging out on the beach and in the water and whatnot, she said.
Myles and her fellow classmates also got a sample of the lives of the Costa Rican
people. They went to the central market in Heredia and got a tour of San Jose, the
nation's capital, and they took Costa Rican dance lessons.
The students even had their classes with Jons and Martinez at Universidad Politecnica
en Heredia, a private university in Heredia, taking a Spanish conversation class with
Jons and a culture class with Martinez.
But the biggest way students immersed themselves was through their homestays.
Ice Cream Bean (Guaba)
Water Apple (Manzana de agua)
Starfruit (Carambola)
They lived in the homes of Costa Rican families, often with their Mama Tica, their
Costa Rican host mother, and their Papa Tico, their Costa Rican host father. Students
ate with them, talked with them in Spanish and slept in bedrooms in their homes.
Our host parents are very talkative, Comer said. They have a lot of stories that
they want to share, a lot of advice, and they love their country, and they love talking
about it. They're very proud of a lot of things in Costa Rica like the middle class
here in Costa Rica.
(My roommate) Hannah and I were getting immersed in really complicated Spanish everyday
and meals are usually two hours or more because we sit around talking.
Conversations like those not only helped improve Comers and her peers Spanish-speaking
skills, but it also educated them on the intricacies of Costa Rican Spanish. Though
many countries speak the language, Spanish is not the same in every one of them.
In Costa Rica, even saying You is different than in some countries.
Growing up, my parents taught me with an older person, you talk to them using the
word usted. Usted is the formal version of you in Spanish. It's a symbol of respect
to your elders, Jesus-Gomez said. They don't use the word tu. They only use the
word usted,
There were these elderly people telling me 'usted.' Usted this, usted that, and I
was like super shocked Turns out that over there in Costa Rica, usted is just how
they talk. Usted this, usted that. Even to their dogs, which I was like super shocked.
But the Costa Rican dialect was actually quite familiar to Jesus-Gomez.
To my surprise, (the Costa Rican dialect is) kind of similar to the Salvadoran dialect
more than the Mexican dialect, he said. Here in Costa Rica, they use a lot of Vos.
For example, if someone were to be talking with me, they would ask me a question like,
'Vos tienes.
In El Salvador, we use a lot of vos, which in Mexico, it's not really used a lot,
so it was nice to see that there's another Latin American country that also uses that.
But between living with their homestays, buying things in the central market and taking
two Spanish classes, language skills were essential. Myles said there were some days
where the students had to speak Spanish for about 90% of the day.
Not exactly as easy as using it three or six hours a week in Cullowhee.
It becomes a little less automatic in your brain, and you're finding yourself grinding
through staying in the language and keeping your brain working in the language, Myles
said.
But by the end of the trip, she knew a thing or two more about the Spanish language.
On one of the last days, I was talking with one of the women who led the program
named Adri She stops and she turns to me and she goes, 'When I picked you up from
the airport, you spoke three words, and now you have a mountain of things to say,
Myles recalled.
A home away from home
Amid all the unfamiliarities of the culture and language, they found something so
much more valuable than an international trip or six credit hours: a new home. The
homestays werent just breeding grounds for practicing their Spanish.
These students became a part of the families lives, and in their eyes, they were
a part of the family, too.
My roommate and I, we were really, really close with our Mama and Papa Tica, Comer
said. They were a lot like my grandparents in the sense of they just are really big
on family and talking about family, and from the moment we got there, we were treated
like family.
Myles lived in one of the bigger homestays with three of her classmates. They stayed
in a two-level, multi-generational house with her Papa Tico, Mama Tica, their children
and her Papa Ticos mother, Mama Linda.
Sometimes we'd have meals upstairs. Sometimes we'd have meals downstairs. We'd come
and play games. We'd go upstairs and hang out with their kids and play with the animals
and talk with them, she said.
It was a very big, large, welcoming family environment, which I loved very much.
Myles lived in a household full of personalities. She said her Papa Tico was the epitome
of the Pura Vida phrase, her Mama Linda was the rock in the experience for her
and her Mama Tica was quite special to her as well.
Mama Tica was super talkative, super funny, super friendly, super fashionable, and
honestly, has become one of the women in the world that I admire the most, Myles
said. She's self made. She built herself up. She went to college.
She's done all these things, and now, she's taking care of this household and still
has the strength and the knowledge of self and the belief in self. She's smart. She's
powerful. She's open-minded. She's loving. She's kind. (She's) a real inspiration
for women anywhere.
Jesus-Gomez also learned a lot about his Mama Tica and that theyre not that different
from each other. He got to talking about his Mama Tica about their childhoods, and
despite growing up thousands of miles away from one another, they were pretty similar.
They both played in the mud, rode bicycles and played around with their neighbors
and pets.
I used to always tell myself everyone has a unique childhood, and not everyone has
the same childhood as you did, but it's interesting to find people that actually did
have the same childhood as you, and in this case, it's a 60-year-old woman versus
a 20-year-old guy, Jesus-Gomez said.
And those bonds will last longer than their four weeks in Costa Rica.
A lot of tears were shed when we left because people really found a new home, both
in the country and with their host family, Jons said.
I've talked to a couple of students who talk to their host families every day after
coming home, saying theyre still calling or chatting with their host moms every single
day because they just made such a powerful connection. That's life changing to find
a new family in another country.
While students found a new home in Costa Rica, one of their homes in the United States
was right there with them, too their home at WCU.
Before the trip, Martinez and Jons aimed to create positive personal relationships
with their students, allowing them to come to them with the issues that come with
staying in an unfamiliar place.
That also meant helping the students develop relationships with each other so that
they can depend on one another.
Knowing that the students could come to us, to me and Michael, if they needed anything,
anything at all, and knowing that they could count on each other and that we could
communicate about all of these experiences in authentic ways, Jons said, I think
that level of support can really make a trip and can make the challenges so much easier
or help students navigate the challenges, and then we can also laugh about things
that happen.
That showed when the professors checked in with students in class. That showed when
they took on thrilling excursions like ziplining. It showed when times got tough.
We were able to use that to navigate the challenges that came up. It was just comforting
to have people we knew, people we trusted, Comer said. When I went to the hospital,
Professor Martinez went with me and that made the experience so much less scary.
And even after the trip was over, this group of students remained in touch with a
group chat. These students didnt just find family in Costa Rica with their homestays,
they found family thats going to come back with them to Cullowhee.
The people that you go on this trip with, whether you guys are best friends for life
or you just had a great month or a great four months, you have honest, eye-opening
conversations that put you close to people and remind you of what the humanity of
people is, Myles said.
It gives you time to form some of the truest connections that you'll ever have because
you get to see people in an amazingly raw, back-to-basics state... You get to watch
these people, whether you've known them or you just met them, start from ground zero
and build themselves up and build each other up so fast.
