Hi guys! So this past week we did a mini ISP (Independent Study Project) in Monteverde for 5 days. Basically, each of us stayed with a different local family in their house and chose different internships to work at during the week. The family I stayed with was amazing! The family was the mom, Miriam; the dad, Maynor; and the 9-year-old son, Andrei. They were so fun. When I got there the first night they were all very welcoming and made conversation with me. They asked me about my family and Puerto Rico and talked to me about Costa Rica. The dad cooked dinner and told me how he loves to cook and has been doing it since he was 8 years old. After dinner, Andrei wanted to play ping pong so he pulled out two paddles and a ball. He asked if I wanted to play, I said yes and asked if they had a ping pong table. He nodded his head and pointed at the dinner table. He then grabbed the dinner table and moved it to the living space. He grabbed two chairs and put them in opposite sides of the table and the table cloth on top of the chairs to act as the net. We then started playing and the dad acted as the referee. We played two sets of 30 points. The first I won and the second he won. Since he had already gotten revenge, he didn’t want to play anymore (lol). The mom was very friendly. She would always cook breakfast for me. She would talk to me about her family, her neighbors, and the gossip around her town. She would give me a lunch to go and I would leave for my internship.
My internship was with this woman called Yamileth that did upcycle. She would take recycled rubber out of car tires and turn it in into bags, wallets, jewelry, etc. She had her workshop in her sister’s house which was right next to hers. I would walk down the street from my house and go to the bus stop. The bus would come anywhere around 7am and 7:30am. Sometimes I had to wait a while but there was this guy that would always talk to me and keep me entertained. Then I would take the bus ride of about 20 minutes, sometimes more when it was raining, to my internship.
The first day on my internship Yamileth showed me the different sewing machines she has and what they are used for. Then she taught me how to use them and I practiced using them. At first it was kind of hard, especially trying to sew straight lines, but then I got the hang of it. That day I made a small purse which I gave to my host mom and two bracelets. When I got back home, my host mom loved it so much that she asked to make a fanny pack for her son to use for school. So that’s what I made the second day. The fanny pack was hard to do. We started doing an outline with cardboard paper and then tracing it in the rubber and cutting it. Then we sewed the pieces together with the zippers to make the fanny pack. Andrei loved it and used it for school the next day. The third day we started doing a backpack for myself. It took longer to make since she hadn’t done one like that before and we wanted it to turn out good. It took us a day and a half. We started with the small front pockets and then finished with the big pockets. The fourth day after finishing the backpack I did a sunglass case for my friend Elise who asked me to make her one. For lunch, Yamileth invited me to go to her sister’s restaurant called Turin. I had an amazing ceviche with fried yucca. It was so good. There I met her sisters and nieces which where all so nice and impressed with what I had made. The last day I made a gift for my mom. I’m not going to say what I made since I know she is going to read this and I want it to be a surprise (sorry, maybe I’ll post it later). I finished the gift before lunch so during the time I had left I made a bunch of bracelets for my friends.
That last day after I finished in the internship I got the bus back to my house, packed my bags, and got picked up to go to the Monteverde Institute and reunite with my friends. During those 5 days I saw some friends since some lived close by or we would meet up in town to eat or get ice cream. I really enjoyed this past week and I’m so glad I did it. I loved staying with another family and living like a local. I loved taking the bus back and forth to my house and working one-on-one with my internship supervisor. It was a really cool experience and I would definitely do it again.
