Outdoor Ed.- who needs a classroom?

I found this painting and posting in an obscure corner of the main office area today. Someone told me both were done by students. I think they capture very nicely exactly what the school is trying to teach the kids.


You know, it's really windy here. They tell me it's worse in December, but geez, I feel like I am in a wind tunnel sometimes. I wondered if the wind was causing some of the bumps we hear in the night, but was informed today that many of the noises are caused by nocturnal animals who drop large pits or seeds or other things on the roof.



This picture was taken on Monday when we took the kids to the Monteverde Rainforest Reserve.
One of the kids found a small, thin avocado, about the size of her pinky, and the guide was telling us how the Queztal bird swallows the avocado whole, digests the skin and pulp, and then regurgitates the pit. Apparently, if this process does not occur, new avocado trees will not grow. In other words, you can't just take an avocado pit and throw it into the rainforest and expect it to grow. There is an important chemical process that happens in the stomach of the bird that prepares the seed for germination. One kid asked why the bird doesn't just expel the pit out its other end. I think the answer is that it is way too big to pass through the bird like that, but I didn't quite catch it all since the guide was speaking in Spanish really fast.

This is the classroom at the Reserve where a woman guided the kids through some skits and some slides of animals they would not be likely to see, either because they are extinct (like the Sapo Dorado frog- the last one was seen in 1988), rare (the Quetzal- but we saw one!), or nocturnal, such as mountain lions and owls.

Sorry this picture is a bit blurry, but I love this kid (the one in the blue sweater). His name is Daniel, and his mother is the school secretary. He is 100% Costa Rican, as are 97% of the students at the school.

Here, Daniel and his classmates are trying to find the 24 rainforest plants and trees on the "placemat" the rainforest educator gave them. They were able to find almost all of them, and they got to bring the placemats back to school with them. the next day, we walked around the school campus looking for the same plants. the kids ere able to find a bunch of them.

As an aside, it looks like we might be able to rent a different house from Daniel's uncle beginning sometime next week. In the meantime, I am still heating water on the stove every few days to wash my hair and take a sponge bath.