Mafia, machetes, ghosts, and Slytherin seems to be the highlights of today’s adventure in Costa Rica. With the day starting out with another yummy breakfast we quickly returned to the Wilson house (where we are staying) to get some work done. With the trip nearing an end projects have been rushed to be finished.
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After about an hour of work our fabulous guide Rodo joined us and told us what we were going to be doing this morning. It turned out that we would be going into the garden and finding the number of epiphytes on palms, ferns, and trees. So of course we had to make this a competition. We split up into our Hogwarts houses and got to work. With Ravenclaw tackling trees, Gryffindor covering ferns, and Slytherin doing the palms. Hours were spent plucking epiphytes and placing them in plastic bags. As time passed we finished our collecting with Slytherin finding a whopping 36 specimen. On the way back to the Wilson house we ran into something that was truly spectacular. We saw what was possibly is the biggest moth ever.
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We returned to the Wilson house where Rodo and an expert named Miguel helped us identify the specimen that we had collected. In the end Slytherin had won the epiphyte competition winning a prize of 100 points. For those of you who don’t know the people in the Slytherin house are Alex, Isabelle, and myself. The score now stands:
1.Ravenclaw= 360 points
2. Slytherin= 270 points
3. Gryffindor= 220 points
4. Hufflepuff= 45 points
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Lunch came along and more exciting events happened. At lunch you always have a choice of water or juice. A researcher who was sitting with told us that the juice was passion fruit juice. Excited at the thought, Carly Britt eagerly jumped in to try it. After drinking two and half glasses she had the entire table laughing which caused Mr. Willard to come over and ask what was so funny.
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After lunch we experienced a little bit of a weather setback. In order to pass the time we played a game called Mafia with Rodo. In Mafia you have a mafia (also known as the killer), a doctor, and a detective. The whole point of the game is to discover who the killer is before they kill off everyone in the circle. With Eli Barr getting killed and then getting saved twice, suspicions rose and it was discovered that Mrs, Sebastion and Alex Heintze were the mafias and Eli Barr was the doctor who had saved himself almost every round.
After the rain had slowed down we set out to save biodiversity and give back to Las Cruces. There were two jobs we did in the rainforest: picking weeds that were an invasive species and cutting down the ginger plants to help Rodo with an experiment. The key component to this was the machetes. We all got to use them to cut down try ginger plants and it was a lot of fun. We worked fairly quickly and our outcome was amazing.
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Before
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After
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After our little service project in the rainforest we headed back to the Wilson house to shower off all the dirt. This is where the practical jokes began. Last night we discovered that the upper level of the Wilson house was haunted by the ghost of one of the founders, Catherine Wilson. Carly Britt decided that it would be funny to turn the lights on and off during our showers in order to convince us that The ghost of Catherine Wilson was among us. We later discovered this when she came into the bathroom dying from laughter. Another joke that was pulled was when Carly was walking back from dinner. She was leading the way and was without a flashlight in the dark. Next all you hear is her screaming. We all of course come running to make sure she is okay. We find her on the ground in the ball. Grant had jumped out and scared her. Luckily she is okay, just a little freaked out. To make this evening even better, when some of the girls were walking up the stairs to our room Emmy Adams decides to scream. Thinking it is the ghost of Catherine, we run back downstairs. With many people looking at us like we are crazy, we make the journey back up the haunted level of our house. Emmy then jumps out from behind the couch and causes us all to scream and fall on the floor laughing from the great prank she had pulled.
Today was a eventful day in Costa Rica. As you know we will returning home soon so we have been running around trying to finish out projects before our final exam. I am frankly exhausted, scared out of my mind of ghosts, and have a lot of work to finish. Sweet dreams and Good night from Costa Rica. May the ghost of Catherine Wilson keep you safe at night.