(upbeat pop music)
- Good morning everybody from Jaco, Costa Rica.
My name is Sonia Morant.
I am originally from Connecticut in the United States,
and today I'm gonna be showing you
around where I live, what I do.
I moved to Costa Rica 5 1/2, six months ago.
So as you can see, I'm just waking up.
This is Sonia fresh out of the bed here.
And that's because I work late at night.
I teach late, I sing late, I have different jobs here
and they all require me to be up late.
So I get to sleep in in the day, in the morning time
because I don't really have any commitments.
So this is kind of like my routine, my schedule.
I just tend to wake up late in the mornings
because I'm up really late at night.
These birds, though.
They wake me up every day.
I'm not exaggerating.
They like, come and bang on my window, they,
yes, I see you, yeah.
So this is really my mornings.
Away from this bird's face.
Ay, there they go making noise.
Do you see the noise I'm talking about?
They hook on. (bird chirps)
(laughs)
Oh my gosh.
This is every morning, I'm not kidding.
All right so these are the leftovers I'm making right now.
Yesterday I made a chickpea curry with peas, potatoes,
cauliflower, whole bunch of good stuff.
It's really cheap to buy food and groceries in Costa Rica
if it's natural vegetables and fruits and stuff like that.
All right, hey guys.
So I'm gonna do a quick little apartment tour
really, really quick.
So, I live in a studio apartment.
This is kind of what it looks like here.
Here's the bathroom, got the little kitchen area over here.
And when you leave the apartment, this is what you see.
These are all my neighbors.
This is my backyard area, we've got the pool,
laundry down this way, and my bike is down there.
And as far as prices go.
So my apartment is $400 a month
including everything, Wi-Fi.
All right, so this is my street,
and here we have the apartment buildings and my bike.
So, what I do is ride my bike basically everywhere here.
All right, so this is my gym that I go to.
It's a one minute bike ride from my house.
And this is the main strip of town actually,
so everything that you would possibly need
is just on this one street here, and it's pretty easy.
And I'm gonna answer everyone's questions
as soon as I leave the gym, I just got here.
I do kind of a strict routine with my workouts
and who I train with, so as soon as I'm done
and I leave here, I'm going to head to the beach
and answer everyone's questions.
(speaks in foreign language)
This place is the best for smoothies.
The best, best, best, best.
Alright, here we go.
The beach, like I said, very close to my home,
to everything, to the main strip.
Okay, now I'm really ready to answer some questions.
I'm here at the beach, I got my smoothie, beautiful view.
I'm ready to speak.
So, I chose Costa Rica for no particular reason
except for the fact
that I wanted to be in a Spanish speaking country
to learn and perfect my Spanish.
And also to be somewhere warm, beautiful.
I mean, you hear Costa Rican people are very relaxed,
low-key; it's a very chill atmosphere,
and I would have to agree with that.
I have amazing friends here,
and it's a beautiful place to be.
And I just picked the place.
And also to be somewhere warm, beautiful.
I mean, you hear Costa Rican people are very relaxed,
low-key; it's a really chill atmosphere,
and I would have to agree with that.
I have amazing friends here,
and it's a beautiful place to be.
And I just picked the place.
This question's interesting because I don't know the answer
to this question.
But also because I kind of moved here
with the intention of having other jobs,
and not only having English teaching be my.
Southern Connecticut State University.
I ran track and field.
I got my Bachelor's in Mental Health Psychology,
and I graduated this past May, and once I graduated,
I packed my stuff up and moved to Costa Rica.
This question's interesting
because I don't know the answer to this question.
But also because I kind of moved here
with the intention of having other jobs,
and not only having English teaching be my.
It's too hot at the beach, so change of location.
How nice is this?
We're gonna be sitting here and chatting.
I actually teach gymnastics up here, up above,
so, I also have another job here where I coach.
Okay, so what I was saying was,
basically I moved to Costa Rica
with not plans really to have other jobs.
I just wanted to get my teaching certificate.
I got certified with ITA Costa Rica in Heredia,
and I highly recommend it.
Luke and Melanie are amazing, amazing instructors.
And once I was there, I took that month to figure out
what I wanted to do, traveled around a little bit.
I came to Jaco, and I fell in love with this place.
And there's a really big music scene here.
And for me, my full time job in the States was music.
I'm a singer, so I knew that would be a great way
for me to kind of get my way in to the scene here.
And now, that's really my main source of income
because I'm singing almost every night.
So, I definitely think if you have other talents
or things that you're good at,
don't think that you're not gonna be able
to do them in a foreign country
because you can't speak the language.
Everything in person.
I came to Jaco for the second weekend to explore
because I knew I wanted to live here.
I found my apartment that day, it was so easy.
I saw three places, and the last place was the place for me.
Same thing with my teaching job, I just went in person,
and got the job.
I feel extremely safe being away from home.
I love Jaco, and the friends I've made here
are all local people, like I don't have any friends
who are from the States here,
and it's just incredible.
I mean, it's such an amazing place.
The school I teach at is a private school called
IPAI Language School, and my class,
I had no preference really, I truly didn't care.
So it's not really grade levels.
These are adults who I teach or people my age.
I'm 22 years old, so anywhere from.
Yes, but that has nothing
to do with my teaching necessarily.
Like I said, I chose to teach part time
because I have other things here that I do
as far as singing every night,
I teach gymnastics up here
because I did gymnastics for 16 years,
I do social media marketing.
And to touch on that a little more,
there are so many people here who I've met
who don't speak Spanish, but they're bartenders,
they work in restaurants,
there's so many other ways that you can make money
in addition to teaching if you're concerned.
And to touch on that a little more,
there are so many people here who I've met
who don't speak Spanish, but they're bartenders,
they work in restaurants,
there's so many other ways that you can make money
in addition to teaching if you're concerned
about not being able to save enough a month
after teaching here.
But you can definitely, it's so doable
to work full time as a teacher and save money.
I know many people who do that.
I just don't know what, how much the income
would be for that because I don't do that,
but it's, you can do it.
I mean you can do anything, really.
If you wanna live here, if you wanna live
in a foreign country, you can make money and you can do it.
You just have to be proactive,
and really go out and look for what you want and find a way.
I say try either one, honestly, but definitely in person.
If you walk into any of these schools here,
and you're a native English speaker,
you're most likely gonna get hired on the spot.
It's, I mean, there's been, and even,
people ask me for private lessons all the time.
Work at with IPAI I get paid 4,000 colones an hour,
which is almost $7 an hour.
This is pretty low, I mean it's good for where I live.
For the price range of living here.
But like I said, I chose that.
It's a conversational class, very easy side money for me.
(speaking in foreign language)
(laughs)
The scene is great.
I'm actually gonna bring you guys tonight.
I have to sing and perform in greenroom tonight,
and it's a local spot, they have live music every night.
Everyone goes, it's super fun.
I mean, all the restaurants here have live music,
so it's truly, truly, truly amazing
and that's why I moved to Jaco.
♪ Let me tell you one more time ♪
♪ If you love me won't you say something ♪
♪ If you love me won't you say something to me ♪
♪ If you love me won't you ♪
♪ If you love me won't you say something ♪
♪ Say that thing to me ♪
♪ If you love me won't you say something ♪
♪ If you love me won't you say something to me ♪
♪ If you love me won't you ♪
♪ If you love me won't you say ♪
♪ Say something to me ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ You're the greatest part ♪
♪ Won't you say that thing ♪
♪ Say that thing to me ♪
I wanna go to Thailand, think that's the next place.
Thailand, Thailand, Thailand.
And they have a pretty good music scene there too,
and I think I'd be able to do and make money
with my music in Thailand as well, so that's the plan.
None.
Everything here is like word of mouth,
and when I got to Jaco I just.
I mean, even during the interview,
they didn't even ask me for my resume,
they didn't ask me for anything.
He was just like, you're hired.
That's it.
There was nothing required prior.
Moved here, my Spanish was not good like at all.
Couldn't hold a conversation.
Been here six months, it's improved so much.
I don't think you need it really.
To teach, you don't need it at all.
Not at all.
Oh I was teaching eight hours a week.
Now I'm only teaching once a week
because I am so busy with my other jobs.
So it's only like two hours,
but that's again through choice, not.
(speaking in foreign language)
I'd love to say Jaco has,
it's like a big city, small town feel.
Like I already know everyone in the town,
it's just so amazing.
And it's not too touristy, but it's not
not touristy at all.
There's definitely a lot of English speakers here
because there's so much.
This was so, don't hit me.
This is an example of what the center of town looks like.
I go grocery shopping here, gymnastics over there.
I sing up here, I sing over there.
And they have so much amazing food.
And then, literally, every street to your left
is where the beach is.
So it's less than 200 meters of a walk to the beach.
And yeah, there's just so much to do.
So I'm going back to the beach
'cause I answered everyone's questions.
Thing called Artify Jaco, so almost all the walls here
have amazing paint artwork that artists have done,
and the whole point is to try to make the entire city,
or town, it's not really a city, town colorful.
First of all, thank you so much, that's so, so nice of you.
I'm back at the beach, sorry.
So yeah, you can come here no problem
for two months, definitely.
You just can't be here for more than three months at a time.
I have to leave the country every three months
for like a day, two days or something.
Okay, I'm going to get food.
Into the mountains and the horizon here.
We have really awesome jungles
10 minutes from here.
(upbeat music)
(speaking in foreign language)
Ooh.
Wow.
No, I'm not vegan.
However, I prefer vegan, vegetarian dishes
and I'll eat meat maybe once a week or once every two weeks.
It's just not a main part of my diet.
We're heading back into town.
Gonna sing tonight.
This is my view.
Always out on the bike, and it's super safe.
♪ They tryin' us ♪
♪ Playin' games and you try to tell me ♪
♪ You gotta put me on hold ♪
♪ Ooh oh ♪
♪ Honey came in and she caught my red handed ♪
♪ Creeping with the girl next door ♪
♪ Picture this we were both butt naked ♪
♪ Banging on the bathroom floor ♪
♪ How could I forget that I had given her an extra key ♪
♪ All this time she was standing there ♪
♪ She never took her eyes off me ♪
♪ Makes you know say that she really no right for vex ♪
♪ Never you she see ya make the gigolo flex ♪
♪ Smaddy else a favor you inna di complex ♪
♪ Seeing is believing, so you better ♪
I am signing off, everybody.
Thank you so much for watching, I hope you enjoyed.
It's actually an early night for me, surprisingly.
So, thank you guys again.
I'm riding my bike home.
Almost to my apartment.
Thank you guys so much.
(upbeat music)