On June 10th FITFAMS left to visit Costa Rica. We stopped at a few schools, talked to many "TICO'S" (term used to describe anyone from Costa Rica) and developed some new friendships.

The first school we visited was Green Forest, in the LaFortuna area of Central Costa Rica. We simply walked into the school and they welcomed us with open arms. One of the older students walked us around and introduced us to many students and teachers. Like many schools in Costa Rica, a lot of kids go home for lunch. Those that stay at school for lunch have it prepared on site. Something that really struck home was with all lunch programs everyone used REAL food; no processed food, nothing that sold by the case that is already prepared in some factory somewhere, simply food from scratch. This is such an important practice that assists in the low rate of childhood obesity in this country.

The Panamerica School was one of the other schools that we visited in our travels.  Panamerica is located in Heredia in the Central area of Costa Rica. Their campus has 5 buildings; housing the preschool, primary school and the high school. What impressed both of us, was the guidelines they set in their lunch program. The first being that no products that list sugar as the first ingredient are allowed, no products that contain Trans Fat are allowed and the final guideline, and something that is so different from the schools in the US, is there are NO fried items allowed. If they have items that are breaded, they are baked, not fried.

Jennie spent time turning on some Costa Rican folks in Playa Jaco to Turbo Kick." The Costa Ricans that took Turbo were desperately looking for an alternative to the treadmill so I think they would have been happy with 1 hour of jumping jacks to music. However, the response we got was fantastic. They asked me when I was coming back. It was proof that exercise is missing great music and fun moves!!" Jennie also added in to those folks , "Ill be back soon for another visit".

We found the people and places of Costa Rica to be so welcoming, helpful and interested in what we were trying to learn. Something that really stuck out to me was the amount of recycling that is available in all towns, big and small. Obviously a very important habit to Costa Rica. The countryside is beautiful and full of green hills and mountains. The variety of trees, plants and flowers are vast. The layers of mist and clouds that layered themselves over the mountains and volcanoes were breathtaking.

If you would like to follow our travels, you are welcome to read our travel journal.