School's out

This week there was no school Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, so Tuesday was my last day. My last few days at the school were very laid back and I mostly just enjoyed being with the kids. Its sad to have to say goodbye and I miss them already. The feeling of being part of a community in foreign country, with people I had never met prior, is both unique and unexpectedly comforting. It's reassuring to know that good people like them exist and share the same world as me.


In the background is the main entrance of the school. Behind that is the sugarcane factory where most of the children's fathers work. I met the owner the other day. He came to the school to check things out because he donates money regularly for upkeep:


My surprise going away party:


The woman in the middle is the English teacher I worked with, Vielka, she's really beautiful.

Manty Ants

Last weekend we went to another touristy town called Manuel Antonia. We relaxed most of the time and on Sunday Becky, Phil, and I walked around the National Park.


We went to an open house for some new condos in Manuel Antonio. If anyone is interested, this is the view from the balconies.


A herd of cows added another fifteen minutes to our six hour trip:

Centro Duirno

I went to an elderly day center last week because there was no school. It was a lot of fun. Everyone there is a character. the man in the picture above is 102 and still participates in the daily aerobics (which are done to instrumental reggae versions of The Sound of Silence). The woman he's standing with has the nickname Gossip Queen. I played a rousing UNO and was beaten by a cheater who was not remotely slick with any of his moves. We also had an intense game of Bingo that did not end in tears but throwing beans at one another instead. It was a fun day and definitely very relaxing compared to school.

The man below is named Santiago but we just call him The Don.

Pictures

More picture from Escuela:

Jah Live

We took a gruesome 6 hour drive out to the carribean coast last weekend to a town called Puerto Viejo. Puerto Viejo is completely rasta-ed out. Everything is covered in red, yellow, and green and I was asked 15 times if I wanted to be given dred-locks. Our room at the hostel was empty with the exception of two stained beds, a pipe sticking out of the wall as a shower, and some sort of red powder on the floor that mysteriously stained everything. None of that really mattered to us though because the beachfront was right in our backyard. The water was really nice and aside from some awful food experiences I won't go into, we had a good time.

There were two pigs hanging out on the beach with us...probably Phil's dinner.

Waterfall

For last weeks day trip we went to the La Fortuna waterfall. It's the one the zip-lining went over. We all just sat on the rocks in the water next to it. The leaves looked really cool because they were moving in waves along with the wind from the water. I've seen a lot of waterfalls, in Israel and such, but this one was the most beautiful and impressive.

Talented Tuesdays

Becky and I made everyone in the house participate in talent show the second week. We thought it would be a good bonding experience, and we were also just bored. Everyone here makes fun of our Chicago accents, especially when we say words like talented.

Here is a picture of the the kids in the house. They made masks and crawled in a circle for 10 minutes singing a Disney song:

One of my good friends here is leaving this weekend so we're having a costume party at the local Pizza hut.

Escuela

Becky came with me to school and took a picture of me teaching

This past week at school has been fun but also very difficult. Like I said before, the kids don't have a lot of context for the text and vocabulary that's taught, so after class it's usually forgotten. I decided that giving them a basic grammar lesson would help with their comprehension of the readings. English is my favorite subject but I always hated Grammar and I don't have a strong knowledge of all the rules. Planning the lesson with my teacher turned out to be really frustrating. I had to teach her what I wanted to teach the students, and explain the activities I had in mind. Grammar is difficult enough as it is and the rules don't always make sense. Given the differences between English and Spanish some of the concepts are almost impossible for the kids to grasp. Class ended up going pretty well but I'm working on more ideas for next week.

Doing review of lessons is also something that the teacher doesn't do very much of. I think she's starting to understand how important it is and I'm in the process of making simple tests for all the grades. Today I had white pineapple.

Last Friday was the celebration of a holiday here called The Day of the Cultures. The holiday is pretty much a day to give recognition to all the different nationalities that make up Costa Rica. Here they have Nicaraguans, Italian Nicaraguans, Germans, Blacks, Chinese, Canadians, Americans etc. On The Day of the Cultures the kids learn about what each group has brought to Costa Rica and the importance of respecting one another. The kids got dressed up and performed dances they had been practicing all week. Once again, they were adorable and I had a lot of fun.

P.S. I finally brought my camera to school so I'm putting up a lot of pictures.

CAFTA

The free trade agreement between the U.S. and Central America basically eliminates all taxes on U.S. manufactured goods. This referendum has been at the forefront of Costa Rican news for weeks, because although people in America have yet to hear about it, the decision effects every worker in the country, rich or poor. In general, the progress which CAFTA engenders for Costa Rica, is another step in its economic development. Along with the agreement will come an influx of big American companies that will compete with smaller local businesses. Since these large companies can afford to have lower prices than the local businesses, what starts as healthy competition will end in brisk elimination. Farmers, who represent 19% of Costa Rican workers and 10% GDP, are the ones whose livelyhoods are at stake. Unfortunately Costa Rica doesn't have the resources to cut themselves a better deal than CAFTA, which is an agreement that is more in America's favor.

The results of the vote were 51.5% to 48.5% in favor of the agreement. Last night as we sat in our living room, people were driving around, honking, playing music, and shouting in celebration. Being here during such an important part of Costa Rican history has been an interesting and eye-opening experience about global politics, especially from a non-American perspective.

I still think blogs are weird

I had a great time on Friday at Becky's placement. Her kids are trouble makers, but like all the rest, they're adorable. Her Tia (the woman running the day care) is pretty incredible. She takes care of the children from morning until evening five days a week. The government gives her money for meals and toys but she doesn't recieve a salary. She loves all the children as if they were her own. She also makes really good juice.

I promise i'll put up pictures of my school soon, I just haven't had a chance to bring my camera.

Now I know why my dad got me Medivac insurance

My kids didn't have school today so I went with Phil to his placement. He works at a pre-school with the cutest kids in the world. Like always here, I was greeted with infinite hugs and kisses. Phil warned me that they don't really care if I speak Spanish or not and will just keep talking anyways. This was true so I just said Si and smiled a lot. I was really happy playing with them and letting them take turns showing me their favorite games. Phil is a musician so he brought his guitar and we sang beautiful renditions of Casey Jones (Grateful Dead) and All the Small Things (Blink 182). Phil also sang an incredibly inappropriate song about Pokemon (yes, THE Pokemon song), which they loved and could not understand a single word of.

Today's trip was to a small hotel nearby to go horse back riding through the sugarcane fields. Again, the scenery was more beautiful then i can describe or show in a picture. It was also really fun because they let us go as fast as we wanted on the horses. Mine went the fastest. Interesting story though: as I was riding as fast as the horse would go, my saddle loosened up and fell to the side. I then fell of the horse on to the ground underneath me. Becky was freaked out because she thought I was trampled and dead, but somehow I was fine. I got back up and kept riding. Lesson learned. Sort of.

As I sit here I'm still not sure how I'm ok but I am very sore and tired. Tomorrow I'm going with Becky to her placement and her dad is coming to visit this weekend.

On Sunday Costa Rica is holding its first non-electoral vote on whether or not to have free trade with the U.S. As of right now, the country is split 50/50 on voting yes or no. All around there are signs people put up saying whether or not they support CAFTA (the free trade agreement). I'm going to a discussion about it on Monday so I'll write about what happens.

La fortuna

We liked the Volcano so much that we decided to go back to the town near by it for the weekend. Its called La Fortuna and its one of the more touristy areas. Nine of us from the house went and all stayed in one room at a backpackers resort aka hostel. Israelis were present. It was one of the girl's birthday so we went out to a nice dinner on Friday. I had fish. After dinner we went to a disco-tech and saw a live reggaeton concert.

Saturday was one of the funnest days of my life. All of the girls decided to go zip-lining while the boys went to a hot spring spa. We were about 300 ft in the air and the longest line was 1/2 a mile. I was literally flying over trees and a huge waterfall. At first I was almost to scared to do it and was shrieking the entire time. By the end I was having the time of my life. Everyone reading this should come to Costa Rica and try it (except maybe Grandma and Grandpa). Sunday we walked around the town and took the bus back home.

Pura Vida

My Spanish has gotten a little better. I've memorized how to say my name, where I'm from, that I have two brothers named Evan and Gabe and no sisters. Evan is 20 and Gabe is 14. Also that I have a dog named Murphy who is Negro Y Grande.

School this week has gotten a lot more comfortable. I have a better understanding of my role in the classroom and the kids are getting to know be much better. The topics I cover with them are things like fruit, vegetables, beverages, places, clothing, family, etc. In my not so professional opinion, I think the way they have been taught isn't as successful as it could be. A lot of the lessons are hearing and repeating. For this reason, they do well during class, but the next day don't remember anything because they weren't given any context. I'm working on helping them actually understand and doing more review.

For our day trip this week we went to the Arenal volcano in La Fortuna. We went on a short hike over the hardened lava from the last big eruption, which was in 1992. I also learned that Jurassic park was filmed in Costa Rica. A volcano is as cool as you would imagine, probably cooler. Enough said.

(In the picture: the black is hardened lava from the last big eruption)