First, a few highlights from this week of school.
On Wednesday I had a very long sculpture class spent preparing our clay to be shaped. We all lined up with our wooden trays and waited to receive huge globs of wet clay, the beginnings of our final projects.
To get the clay dry enough to sculpt, we had to go through a five step process.
- Knead a handful of clay.
- Ball up that piece of clay.
- Throw it on the ground (covered in newspaper).
- Repeat until all the clay is on the ground.
- Keep throwing the clay on the ground, flipping it until it’s dry enough that it doesn’t stick to your hands when you knead it.
Maybe, like me, your clay won’t be dry by the end of class but you’ll just have to pile it up and put it away anyway.
Another highlight of my week was visiting the Carlos Monge library at the UCR.
In the online catalog I found James Baldwin’s “If Beale Street Could Talk,” which I had been halfway done with reading when I left Kansas. I’m proud to say I navigated the library and checkout system all by myself and walked off happily with exactly what I was looking for.
I finished the book within a few days and would definitely recommend it.
On Friday I went on another solo excursion, this time to the Costa Rican Nacional Bank Museums – a double feature of the Coin Museum and Pre-Columbian Gold Museum – hidden underground beneath the center of San José.
And before I headed home I stopped by a different artisan market than last time, this one recommended by my host moms. There I found something I’d been searching for, a painted letter L like the one I had in my room as a kid. Something to remind me of home while I’m here and to remind me of here when I’m home.
On Saturday morning I got up bright and early at 6am to go to the feria (an outdoor market) with my host moms. They got groceries, I took pictures, and we all ate a delicious breakfast featuring Salvadoran pupusas.
These are jocotes, one of many new fruits I’ve tried here. 
Another new fruit for me – zapote – has a fleshy texture and tastes like a sweeter papaya. 
My host moms call these “mini-vegetales” 
A little piece of Kansas. 
Pupusas! 
That afternoon I had “planned” a coffee tour for the grupo de Kansas girls and me. Really I just had to look it up online and make the reservation, but we had such a good time that I can’t help but feel proud for making it come together. We got picked up at 2:15 and got to the Britt Coffee Tour grounds for the 3:15 tour.
For the next hour and a half we were shown around by two guides who taught us about the coffee production process from seed to final roast, with lots of jokes and audience participation mixed in. Along the way we got to try 6 different types of coffee.
I learned a lot, and here of some of things I remember:
- Coffee plants are raised as seedlings for a year before they’re big enough to go out into the field, and even then it can be a year or two before they first bear fruit.
- The coffee beans make up only 20% of the fruit, the rest can sometimes be used as fertilizer.
- Coffee roasting is an artisan practice – it must be done very carefully and constantly checked. It is so important to have the precise roast that when the coffee beans are ready they are immediately dropped into a cooling chamber to stop the roast.
One of many terrifying spiders we saw – if anyone knows what kind these are let me know! 
Seriously there were a lot of spiders. 
After our lovely tour we tried and bought some more coffee and some chocolates at the Britt store then headed back to San José.
And just like that, the second month comes to a close. I can’t believe how many of these blog posts have gone by already. The last two months have been packed with new experiences and the realization that soon I will be halfway done with this trip is pretty crazy. I’m very happy to have made many more memories this week, officially ending my second month here.
Pura Vida 