Day 12...Relational Diversity

Waking up thirty minutes earlier than usual was not as hard as I expected. I did my usual routine and did some work before departing to hear our fourth speaker. As we walked towards the University of Costa Rica, many of us began to complain about the heat. Finding the building, we fully expected to walk into a full blast of air conditioning. However, to our surprise, we walked into an even hotter area. As we signed in and followed our speaker to a classroom, most of us felt as if we were going to pass out from the heat. We did try to ignore it throughout the talk. Our speaker, Vanessa Smith, discussed discrimination and racism in Costa Rica amongst all types of people, especially immigrants and minorities versus majorities. After listening to the talk for about two hours in intense heat, we headed back to the hotel.

Arriving at the hotel, I headed straight for the fridge and grabbed some food for lunch. My lunch was an eclectic one consisting of a banana, strawberry yogurt, rice, fruit loops, and water. During this break, I prepared for class. I read the article and the chapter and filled in our worksheet. After completing this, I took a short thirty minute nap. Waking feeling very refreshed, I grabbed my books and laptop and sat down for class. Today we talked about interracial friendships. We discussed the idea that it is possible, though hard at times, to be involved in relationships with someone of a different race.

After class, we all changed for dinner. We ate at a nice restaurant called Cafe Mundo. I had Fettucini Alfredo with seafood along with my first Sex on the Beach drink. Everything was absolutely delicious. On the way to dinner, at dinner, and on the way back to the hotel I had a really good conversation with Shannel. It was really nice connecting with someone on this trip on a deeper level seeing as I had fully expected to simply have surface conversations with most people.

Though I have made some good friends here, as mentioned above, being here has made me truly appreciate my friendships back home. Of course I value all of my relationships equally but in different ways. However, I learned today that interracial friendships are important. My core group of friends from my high school consisted of an Asian, a couple of African Americans, a middle easterner, a boy from the Dominican Republic and a pacific islander. I have a vast majority of these friendships and each has taught me a great deal about different cultures. These relationships have helped shape my outlook on a variety of subjects and have allowed me to be a very diverse person.