End of classes, end of service, video

Above is a video project I did with my second graders (or at least the ones who came to class) as a way to show everyone, including the 2010 volunteer, around town.

(There was more actual update here, but then everything crashed and it got deleted. Such is technology down here. I'll try to update it more this week.)

Winding down

If I were to choose one sound to describe the last month, it would probably be ¨mehhhh,¨ or any similar sound that signifies a mix of indifference and laziness. October is usually the rainy month in Costa Rica, and by rainy, I mean the hardest rain you´ve ever seen, every day. Since the country is basically subjected to Noah-level rains for thirty days, I´m pretty sure they adjust their schedules to have as little work as possible in the month of October. This year however, as I´ve been told by the Ticos, is different. A mix of global warming and the El Niño climate phenomenon (which, for those of you who don´t habla español, means... the niño) has caused October to be relatively mild. It still is raining a good majority of the days, but it hasn´t been of the usual torrential variety. The problem is, nobody knew this would happen when they made the schedule, so our school has basically been a joke over the past four weeks. I usually have a four day work week. The past four weeks: 2 days, 2 days, 3 days, 0 days. While such a schedule looks awesome, I long ago became vacationed-out, especially when I have a lot more material I want to cover with the end of classes coming up in about a month. This upcoming week is finally looking to be a full one, but exams are coming up, which invariably means that at least some of my classes will be cancelled.
I took a good chunk of my free week to head to Bocas del Toro, Panama. Bocas is a set of islands just over the border that is a prime stop on the ¨Gringo Trail,¨ or the key vacation spots for the 20 to 30 year old backpackers who make their way through Central America. I needed to leave Costa Rica for three days to get an extension on my visa, as it expires on December 31st and my flight home isn´t until January 5th. Just in case you´re wondering, it´s reallllly easy to border hop, but considering that the official border is a sketchy old train bridge with dozens of ways to fall to your death to the river below, why would you ever want to do such a thing? I´m now back in Costa Rica, completely over-ready (is that a word?) to head back to Boruca, eat nothing but rice and beans, speak Spanish, take cold showers, and chase chickens out of my classroom.
Messages and e-mails are always appreciated, especially at this late point in the year! Until next time...

Mmmm pictures

There's been a lot going on in the past twenty or so days since I've updated. Unfortunately, as some might have heard, the internet has basically stopped working in Boruca. Every once in a while, there'll be a good enough connection to load up and read a few e-mails, but almost never enough to actually send anything back or be online for more than a minute at a time. At this point in the year, though, I'm pretty much over my American internet ways, and the couple of minutes every few days is good enough. (This does not apply to weekends away at places with wireless internet, where I go crazy downloading anything that will entertain me for the following two weeks.)
As far as school news goes, we've just started up a school project to improve basically anything we can think of. I can usually follow these meetings but not chime in too much, but this time the teachers took the time to ask me what I though could be done better. I'm not about to use this space to rail against the educational practices of Costa Rica, so let's just say that I gave them a few pointers on how I would run things differently. Within an hour or so, we had eight points to improve upon - including the schedule, types of instruction in the classroom, communication with parents, use of technology and the new library, and ways to promote more reading and creative writing. Each task was split up between the teachers, and I helped (/pretty much did everything) on most of the projects. I had the schedule to myself, and came up with one for next year that gives the kids more consistent hours at the school, English class every day, a space in the day for extra help/projects/acto civicos, and ends the day for most teachers almost two hours earlier. (And don't worry, I didn't take away any of the kids' recreos) Since most of the ideas that I shared are pretty much foreign to Costa Rican education, I probably have a ton of work ahead of me to get this all going... but the teachers and my director were pretty excited about it, so it's a good start.
I mentioned in my last post that Independence Day was coming up. We had two days off of school, the 14th and 15th, in order to celebrate. The 14th is dedicated to lighting a torch in a nearby community, having the kids run up and down the mountains in 95 degree weather to deliver said torch to another community, then having the directors advise the kids that the best way to rehydrate is to drink coffee. This was a fun time. We even set my "most people in a pickup truck" record for the year, when we fit in 25 students and staff in order to drive to Bella Vista, our neighboring town. The night of the 14th was dance presentation/lamp contest/parade with the lamps lit up. If you're wondering if overzealous parents exist in Costa Rica, your answer is 'yes.' There were definitely some 4 year olds in the lamp contest with lamps made of intricately carved balsa wood.
The 15th is the actual independence day, and we celbrated with a big parade that made a loop through the town. This parade definitely had the lowest spectator/participant ratio in the history of parades, but the kids still loved it. I was at the front with my group of flag-bearers, but I still managed to take about 200 pictures. Here are some favs:
Alannis is ready with the torch.

Yup. No way she made that.



Kid stole my sunglasses. (This is the same kid who once scratched me, looking to uncover my browner, non-white skin. We're buds.)
The two dance teams from the colegio battle it out in an epic "Worst Outfit Ever" contest.

The rest of October is a bit of a joke as far as actual school goes. October is traditionally the month where it pours down rain Noah-style, so I think they schedule a ton of meetings and days off to avoid the double whammy of working in what amounts to a monsoon. In any event, we have two days off this week, the following Monday off, and then three days off two weeks after that. I need to get an extension on my time in Costa Rica to stay for New Years, so I'll be heading to Panama or Nicaragua for one of those trips.
About time to check out of the room and head to the beach one last time. We're hoping to catch the Pats game (or any football) before we head back to the pueblos again. Until next time...

Semana Civica

It's been quite a while since my last post, so I figured I check in. I've been busy, but as second trimester just came to an end, it's been mostly grade-related.
Independence Day is coming up this Tuesday (the 15th), so there's been a ton of preparation for that. Last week was devoted to cramming as many school assemblies as possible into five days, celebrating everything from the abolition of the army and death penalty, Costa Rica's first astronaut, and something that involved a life sized drawing of Pope John Paul II:

I would have gone with one of him skiing with the sick child on his shoulders, but that's just me. Anyways, I was in charge of the assembly about the abolition of the army, which involved me reading some info I found on the internet, most of which I didn't understand. This also happened to be the day that the guy from Boruca's radio station came to the school with equipment to broadcast the assembly to the rest of the village, since apparently listening to Americans stumble over four paragraphs of Costa Rican history is a popular radio format here.
There's a large parade to go with the Independence Day celebration, and somehow I was named a coach for the school's flag-bearers/marchers. Think of them as a less precise color guard. How I got this job is beyond me, as I have no experience with that sort of thing. Also, I can barely walk in a straight line without tripping over something. But I do have patience and a loud voice, so for a week after school I had 7-10 kids marching around the cement plot in the back of the school. I even changed some of the instructions to English when they fit into the beat of the march better than the longer Spanish words. Pablo, my first grader, has a habit of continuing to march along after I've called for a stop, either oblivious to the command or just really happy to be marching. Anyway, we'll see how it turns out, but I'm not too worried. The fact that 90% of the town is actually in the parade leads me to believe that if we do mess up, not that many people will notice.
Some other pictures from the week:
Some of my first grade boys: Jafet, Quehat, and Stiven left to right. (I've noticed that most of the girls here refuse to pose for a picture without their hands over their face.) Jafet is probably my smartest first-grader, and he recently saw the video to Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" for the first time. He is now obsessed with the dance move where Jackson leans almost all the way forward, so about five times a day he asks me to sing the song and hold his arms as he leans forward. After a week he has yet to become sick of this, so I've taken to calling him Jafet Jackson.
Since I am 24 going on 9, I use most of my free time playing jokes on other teachers. This one, for example, started about a month ago when I made fun of the first grade teacher's drawing of a tiny man on a huge horse. While she was out drinking coffee during recess, I recreated/slightly exaggerated the drawing on her board, and left the question of whether it was a large horse or a small man. To her credit, she later responded by writing that the horse was just a large Teacher.
The pre-school girls have apparently not developed the sense of shyness yet. I usually don't teach preschool or kindergarden, but the preschool kids asked for a class with Maestro Teacher a couple of weeks back. We read a book about baby animals and learned some various simple verbs, which was basically an excuse for them to act out things like running, jumping, swimming, and stabbing. OK, that last one wasn't true.
And this one, just because it's the closest thing to a good photograph I took all week.
At least the first two days of classes this week are cancelled for the celebrations, which means that Wednesday probably will be too. There's a whole group of volunteers heading to Manuel Antonio to take a TEFL course (which I decided against because I'm an attendance fiend with my kids, so I couldn't justify taking two weeks off myself), but I'll be heading there next weekend to celebrate two of the vols' birthdays.
Internet hasn't really been working at my site over the past two weeks, but thanks to those who are still sending along messages. Talk to everyone soon.

The computer is... what?!

I'm back in Buenos Aires for the second straight day. My laptop has a virus and the plan was to see if the computer shop could do anything about it. Unfortunately, after the two hour bus ride down, and waiting another hour for the place to open up, I found out that on Sundays only the internet cafe is open, not the shop. Oh well.
With time to spare, I figure I'd do another quick blog update. Seeing how part of my update yesterday was highlighting some funny 'English-is-a-long-process' moments from my class, it's only fair that I share one of my weaker moments in Spanish:

Since the English Laptop has been up and running, there's usually a mob of students racing to my room as recreo starts to ask if they can use it. The usual drill is to pretend I have no idea what they're talking about until they ask me in English, at which point it's all theres. My classroom only has one working wall outlet, and since my personal laptop (the cheapest computer I could find after my old one died in September 2007, and I needed one for school the next day)has the battery life of early-90's Sony Discman, the English Laptop usually runs just on battery. Last week, I had forgotten to give the English Laptop a charge during lunch, and the battery gave out right as recreo was starting. As the kids came rushing in, I wanted to let them know that they had to wait a few minutes, since the computer was charging... or, "el computadora esta cargando" in Spanish.
That's what I meant to say.
What I actually said was "El computadora esta cagando," which, despite the absence of just one little 'r,' means a very different thing. Since I strive to keep this blog family-friendly, you can have some fun with Google Translator finding out the difference between:
"El computadora esta cargando."
and
"El computadora esta cagando."

Needless to say, the group of fourth graders thought this was the best thing in the world. I now know not to let that 'r' drop, despite my Boston roots.
Time will tell if my computer makes it through the week with this virus, but send along some e-mail or whatever anyways!

Chickens

This is my second straight weekend (and third in the past four) that I’ve kept a low profile and mostly stayed in Boruca. I’ve headed down to Buenos Aires for the morning to use the internet, hit up the ATM, and attempt to find the restaurant that a teacher at the school told me about that apparently serves “really good” pizza. What constitutes such a rating in Costa Rica, especially in a dusty, cultural wasteland like Buenos Aires, remains to be seen. I’m half-expecting a slice of white bread with ketchup, cheese, and a side of rice.

For all the crap I give Buenos Aires, it’s not the worst place in the world to spend five hours after a week in Boruca. The internet is about 80 cents an hour, and there’s a really good restaurant that specializes in seafood where I can get a huge plate of rice with shrimp for about $4.30. I will, however, lodge my official complaint against the ATM lines. While ATM lines in Costa Rica are always long by American standards, the fact that Buenos Aires has the only two ATM machines for 50 miles in either direction makes the situation bad. The Friday-morning lines are the worst; they easily stretch 25 feet to the street corner, take a turn, then go for another 25 feet. Easily a two-hour wait. My longest wait thus far was a 45 minute one, which was amplified by the fact that I was the only one shortsighted enough to not bring a hat or umbrella to shield me from the 90 degree heat.

Time continues to fly by in Boruca. It’s hard to believe that it’s almost September, which, as my American hard-wired brain tells me, is the official start to the ‘end’ of the year. Second trimester is winding down, and with it came another round of reviews, tests, and kids deciding to show up to class after not coming since April. (Not kidding.) My favorite in-class stories from the past week or two:

-As I was doing the daily warm-up question about the weather with my second graders, Davort, a short, toothless, usually aloof ball of ADHD remarked, “Teacher, estoy morriendo de hot.” Which was his Spanglish way of of saying, “Teacher, I am dying of hot.”

- Felix, who pulls double duty as both my craziest and smartest 6^th grader, makes constant use of the question “How do you say …. in English?” No matter what the word is, though, he immediately practices is by using it in the sentence “Teacher is …,” regardless of context or whether the word is a adjective, noun, or verb, and always leaving out ‘a.’ This week alone, we’ve had “Teacher is moonwalk,” “Teacher is scarab beetle,” and “Teacher is itch."

- And finally, in my “I am definitely teaching in a village on top of a mountain” moment of the week, comes Brandon, one of my favorite 4^th graders. We’ve been learning words that have to do with places in the village and the verbs/grammar that goes with them. Brandon was working on a worksheet with the question “What is your house near?,” with me looking for answers along the lines of “My house is near the school/store/police station.” It should be noted that Brandon can’t do anything at less than 130% speed, as evidenced by his spending recess, barefoot (as if to say that shoes and socks could never hope to contain him), simply bombing around the school and screaming, chasing what ever it is that might have his attention. When it comes to translating English, he does it with the demeanor of someone who truly believes that a bomb will go off if he doesn’t have his sentence correct in the next 30 seconds. After checking with me to make sure he understood the question, he ran back to his desk and spent a minute or so working on an answer. When he came back, I asked him, “So, Brandon, what is your house near?” He looks me dead in the eye, and, with a pause after each word to ensure he’s saying it right, tells me “My… house… is… near… chickens.” Seeing how animals weren’t part of vocabulary set (I had skipped over them entirely with fourth grade this year), I switched over to Spanish to make sure that he wasn’t confused or something. He flipped over his sheet and drew me a picture of his house, and explained how his house was on the outskirts of the village on top of a hill, not near any of the places that we had learned in class. There was, however, a spot next to his house where the chickens usually hung out. That works, I guess.

This internet cafe is roasting, so I'm off to find this magical pizza place. For those not in the know, my sister, Deborah, is due to have her first child within the next week or so! I'm wishing her the best (as should you), and it's a scant four months until I'm home to spoil Baby. Until next time...

Quick photo update

I've come to San Jose for the weekend to say goodbye to the WT Summer Volunteers (who leave tomorrow) and have a going-away shindig for our Assistant Director Paul, who's heading back to the States in just over a week to start graduate school.
(The mere mention of those words frighten me. Grad school is in my future since I want to continue teaching, but sitting at a desk in a class or writing a paper is about the furthest possible thing I can think of compared to what I'm doing right now. I mean, this time yesterday I was visiting the first grade class during their lesson on the dangers of walking from their house to school: packs of stray dogs, horses, snakes, and the river.)
Nothing notable to write about at the moment, plus I have limited time to write before I head off to a (free) lunch with the summer volunteers. The highlight of my week was the Materno students (Pre-K, so about 4 years old) starting to call me "Maestro Teacher." Costa Rican students usually refer to their teachers as "Maestro" or, for example, "Maestro Carlos." I, on the other hand, am simply "Teacher," so all the Materno kids think that 'Teacher' is my actual name. So now when I visit them during snack time, I'm greeted by a chorus of "HELLO MAESTRO TEACHER!"
Here are some pictures I took on a a walk outside of town to my favorite spot along the road down the mountain. The road follows the spine of a mountain, then drops off steeply to each side with the resulting valley filled in with endless green and views of distant mountains. Pictures don't quite do it justice, but have a look anyways:

(Clouds coming over the mountains back towards Boruca. Turned to my right, in the same spot as the first photos.)

Here's a couple of photos of the new English Computer in action. If you look closely, you'll notice that I've now outlawed shoes in my room, since they just bring in mud and cause our two cleaning ladies to make fun of me for having the dirtiest floor. I've noticed that the weird lighting in my room makes it nearly impossible to get a clear photo. Such is life.)

Can't believe that it's already a week into August. September is usually when my mind starts to think that the year is coming to an end, so I might enter what-am-I-going-to-do-next mode soon. But until then, keep up with the messages, and I hope everything is well back home.

Back in Boruca

(Written on Tuesday, posted on Friday... we didn´t have internet in Boruca this week since the school´s computer teacher was at a conference and couldn´t fix our big confusing internet box. But don´t worry, I am alive.)

I’ve been back in Boruca since last Saturday, and as I readjust to waking up at 5:40 every morning, I struggle to stay awake to write this at 7:50 at night. Paired with the fact that I hurt my leg last week and have been walking a bit gingerly since, I’m in full-on Old Man Mode. Up next on tonight’s schedule is watching Wheel of Fortune, drinking sarsaparilla, and sending a check equivalent to my life savings to a nice Nigerian man who e-mailed me about a fantastic investment opportunity.

Anyways, for those who didn’t hear (since I assume that you all keep up on Costa Rican news), our two week vacation was lengthened to three by the Costa Rican government in order to stop the potential spread of Swine Flu. All the cases have been in the San Jose area thus far, so the cancellation for my part of the country was more of an added perk than a necessary precaution. With extra time on our hands, some of the other volunteers and I hung around San Jose for two days being really indecisive about every decision we faced, then eventually went to Puerto Viejo for three nights to enjoy some beach and surfing. As my friend John (the surfer of the group) puts it, I’m really good at surfing right up until the point when I have to actually stand up and surf. I’ve got everything else down, though.

The readjustment shock that everyone asked me about has been pretty much nonexistent. My Spanish fell right back in place, and my mind has yet to explode like it did the last time I came back from a long vacation. (No, really. It actually exploded. You should be impressed that I’m even typing right now.) I’ve had all of my classes this week, which puts me on pace for my first non-interrupted week since sometime in March. Here’s some of what’s been going on since I’ve returned:

- I’ve now read fourteen books this year, fifteen if you count my re-reading of Goosebumps #9 Welcome to Camp Nightmare, read in about an hour while waiting for the bus on the side of the Interamericana. Since the topic of Goosebumps rarely comes up anymore, I will go on record as saying that Welcome to Camp Nightmare had the best ending of any book in the series.

- I continue to add to my legendary exploits while playing along to “Quien Quiere Ser Millionario,” Costa Rica’s version of “Who Wants to be a Millionare?” For example, just as I’m typing this, I got three questions right (about amphibians, ancient alphabets, and subatomic particles) even though our TV’s picture isn’t working. The top prize for the CR version is 25 million colones, or about $44,000. By the way, when I said that my exploits were “legendary,” I actually meant that they have been mentioned, in passing, during a coffee break at school. Once.

- I brought back an (American) football with me to Boruca, since some of my students had expressed an interest in learning it/really like playing Madden ’98 on my computer even though they have no idea what’s going on. I brought it out during recreo today, and within about 30 seconds the every single one of the boys that had gathered wanted to be a professional placekicker. No interest in the throwing, running, defending, or blocking parts of the sport. Just the kicking. Figures. I don’t yet have the heart to tell them that the kicker is usually lowest on both the respect and pay totem poles, but I must say that with my help, they’ve got the snap-hold-kick down to under two seconds.

- My family’s house has been added on to a number of times over the years, so it has a few quirks that come with constant expansion. My bedroom, for example, has a window… into another room. Before I left, my curtain (read: sheet on a string) was a nondescript floral pattern. When I came back, though… POKEMON! Picachu and Jigglypuff now protect me against mosquitos and large spiders every night.

- Boruca's new English laptop is up and running with some sweet English and typing software. As of now, the kids are using it during recess, lunch, and sometimes after school, and it's a great thing to have when only three kids show up to class and I can't use my lesson plan since I'd just have to repeat it next class anyway. The Peace Corps volunteer and I are going to work out a system where we can lend it to adult students in her English night courses so they can practice their English at home. For now, though, I will continue to enjoy eight kids huddled around the laptop, all screaming "The girl is walking" into the microphone at different paces and pitches, confusing the program enough that it just tells them that they're wrong. They'll learn.

It was great to see a lot of you while I was home. If I didn’t get to see you, well, solo seis mas meses hasta mas Tiempo de Dan. (It sounds a lot more fun/less creepy in Spanish) It was also really fun hearing about the random people who read this blog (and by that I mean people who aren’t named Patricia Roberta Mary Schaub Perkins), so leave a comment/send a message if you’ve been following but I haven’t been in contact this year. Hasta luego.

Last post before vacation!

I’ve been slacking on the blog a bit lately due to a hectic/irregular schedule and an average bedtime of 7:30 or 8, but here’s one last update before I head home this Friday for our vacation.

- The MEP (Minesterio de Educacion Publica) meetings at my school were a blast, even if they did end up cancelling most of my classes for two weeks. The point of the meetings were to introduce the various directors and bureaucratic types (who live and work in San Jose, which might as well be a different country) to the culture and lifestyle of indigenous people. What this means is that, for at least a few days, I was not the most touristy-looking person in Boruca. Each day the MEP members were split into groups, and each group got to visit a ‘local’ town to talk to the inhabitants and study the school. The first day, I was told to go with a group to a town called ‘Alto Las Moras,’ which according to our map was 1km away. The map was wrong. Alto Las Moras is actually a 3 mile, 2 hour walk almost straight up the mountain. This two hours could have easily been reduced to about one if the San Jose-ers didn’t stop nearly every 30 seconds to take a picture or argue the edibleness of a number of plants. When we finally arrived, all of Escuela Alto Las Moras was there to greet us – all three students and one teacher. Three boys: one in fifth grade, two in fourth. Their prom is going to be pretty lame. I spent a good amount of time talking to the teacher about their English classes. Since they’re so isolated, she’s had to teach herself English and then do her best to pass along that knowledge to her students. She’s even gone through the effort to create a huge book of lesson plans, material and (most importantly) pronunciations for any future teacher who might take her spot. Pretty impressive.

The view from Alto Las Moras. Boruca is down the mountain in the center of the picture. Remember that it takes an hour to drive up the mountain just to get to Boruca and that should give you an idea of how isolated Alto Las Moras is.

The next day, I was chosen to be the leader of a group that was heading down the mountain to Rey Curre. I’m pretty sure they just did this to make me feel needed, since my sole responsibility as leader was to tell our driver to take a left at the bottom of the mountain. My day in Rey Curre was a full one – a class in Brunka (the native language of Boruca and Curre), visiting various village elders, and lunch at the local swimming hole. While all of my other group members decided to stay professional, I took advantage of the hot day by going swimming with our sixth grade tour guides. The swimming hole had a 13 or so foot ledge that you can jump off of, and as I was about to make the plunge, my colleagues screamed at me to stop. “Hay piedras?” I ask, trying to find out if I was about to jump into rocks. “No, tiene que esperar por una hora despues de comiendo para nadar.” That’s right, in Costa Rica, they’re damn serious about the probably-false-since-I’ve-never-actually-seen-any-evidence-of-it-
being-true rule that you have to wait an hour to swim after eating. I shrug them off, jump in, and come up screaming and gasping for air. They jump up, readying themselves to come in and save me. “Que mentiras,” I say as I change my expression to an “I-gotcha” smile, letting them know that they’ve been had.

-While watching another demonstration of the “Juego de los Diablitos” on the street next to my house, a preschooler who has recently decided that Teacher is his best friend sat down to me and started to talk. After a few minutes of asking me how to say different words in English, sometimes asking the same word two or three times upon forgetting it, he makes the astute observation that my skin is white.

“I know.”

“Why?”

“In my country, there are many people who have white skin.”

He ponders this. After apparently failing to accept my answer as truth, he proceeds to scratch my arm with his fingernail.

“Que buscas?” What are you looking for?

“Su piel café.” Your brown skin.

- I spent the weekend in Dominical – the usual of getting burnt, getting physically abused by the waves while surfing, and eating. This time, though, we had the added activities of watching the MTV Michael Jackson video marathon and looking up random MJ trivia on Wikipedia. Did you know, for example, that Slash played the main guitar riff on ‘Black or White?’ Or that he wrote ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ because his mother wanted a song “you could shuffle to?” Or that ‘Bad’ was originally called ‘Exceedingly Mischievous’ before his label suggested the lyric change to make things flow better? Yup. Most if not all of those are true.

And, to give you an idea of the standard of news down here, in the coverage immediately following his death, the stations clearly didn’t have enough money to pay for the royalties to all of his most famous videos. So, with time to fill and nothing to fill it with, they proceeded to play a full two minutes of Weird Al Yankovic’s ‘Fat,’ a parody of ‘Bad.’ No commentary, no insight, only the line “Jackson was one of the most imitated musicians of all time” under the video. Awkward.

- Yesterday, I had my first mask-carving class with the father of two of my students. All the masks here are hand-carved from balsa wood or (less commonly) cedar. We started one out of balsa - cutting and trimming the trunk of its bark alone took about an hour, so I can only imagine how long the carving will take me. I’m sure I’ll force pictures on you at some point, so stay tuned.

As Fourth of July nears, I figured I'd post this video/song. It's Jose Feliciano's 1968 version of the "Star Spangled Banner," one of the first 'alternative' renditions of the song and my personal favorite version of our national anthem. (Yes, I keep track of these sort of things.) I listen to my mp3 of this song almost every night here in Boruca. Happy Fourth!

I’m heading home this Friday, and should be back in Boston by late Friday night. I’ll be around for two weeks, before make the culture-shocking 36-hour turnaround from Boston to teaching in Boruca again. Thanks, as always, for reading, and hopefully I’ll be able to see most of you when I’m home.

Jugador sucio

RECREO!!!

Just an update to let everyone know how everything is going. My week helping out with summer orientation was great, and a definite change from the chaos of dealing with the needs of 155 students in Spanish. The summer volunteers are a great group who had a lot to take in during just one week of orientation - both adjusting to the culture and (for most) being a teacher for the first time. They all had the chance to evaluate my work as a orientation assistant at the end, and while I did get a number of good comments about the classes/workshops I ran, the vast majority took the time to let the Boston headquarters that I am the world's cheapest and dirtiest indoor soccer player. This may or may not be true, but all I know is that my team won it's game 12-0, and I scored way more goals than my limited athletic ability should have allowed me to. Entonces, creo que ellos tienen un poquito de celoso.

The biggest news is that our volunteer group has been officially declared an "epidemic" by the Costa Rican government. It seems that someone in our group caught mono and was contagious during two weekends where almost everyone was staying in close quarters - our rafting trip and our mid-year meeting. (And since sanitation is pretty much non-existent here, it was bound to happen) In all, at least 12 of our 21 have caught it, including me. I was spared from a really bad case, so I was only tired for a week or so and sick/feverish for two or three days. In my eyes, this is more than a fair price to pay to say that I've been part of a government-certified epidemic. I've already updated my resume to include this exciting accomplishment.

We have a MEP (CR's ministry of education) meeting in Boruca this coming week, and we've been having a number of meetings to prepare for the 100+ outsiders that will be staying at our school for the week. Since these meetings are in Spanish, I tend to follow along for a few minutes and then lose track of things once people get into details and start talking faster. Since the meetings have been anywhere from 2-4 hours, I've been pretty bored. So, like any responsible adult, I do my best to drag down the overall maturity level of those sitting near me by passing notes. While everyone else is arguing about what fruits to serve with dinner on Wednesday night or how we're going to keep these people clean when we don't have showers, I'm writing poems about how I have Swine Flu. I've been told that I have 40 people sleeping in my room for Wednesday and Thursday nights. I have trouble fitting in my 4th grade class of 27 students, and that's just with them sitting in desks. I can't wait to see how it plays out. My director says that I definitely don't have classes Wednesday, and that "we'll see" about Thursday. "We'll see," I'm guessing, means "there's no freaking way you're having classes." I'll be sure to get photos of the poor souls that are sleeping in Teacher's room.

I've also received a few kind donations over the past month or so that I've yet to give public thanks for - and, in this age of Facebook and Twitter, nothing is official until it is published online. Laura Atwell (my aunt) and Michelle Cheney (family friend) both donated WT in my name, which lets me purchase supplies for my class/students. And Darcy Schramn, a parent of one of my students in Cohasset (you know, that other school I taught at, the one that didn't have fires and stray horses outside of my classroom) donated a laptop(!) that I'll be bringing back with me after my trip home in July. The students are always asking to use my laptop during recreo, so they're quite excited that they're getting one of their own. If you happen to know of any good/inexpensive games or programs that teach English or typing skills, let me know, as I'll be loading it up while I'm home. So, a huge public thanks to Laura, Michelle, and Darcy.

Back to Boruca tomorrow. I've been told I have classes on Monday, but I'm getting ready for a crazy week. Thanks, as always, for reading, and I'll be seeing everyone in Boston in about three weeks!

Obligatory "Cute Kids" post

Casa Yoses, San Jose
I'm spending the next ten days away from Boruca in order to help run the orientation for WT's summer volunteers, who teach in remote high schools where the students otherwise learn by video. Since I have the bandwidth, I've uploaded a few videos of my first graders showing off their skills:

One of my first grade classes singing "Hello Teacher." It's second nature to them now, but the first time we sang, we spent at least 25 minutes on the "I am fine, thank you" line. I told them that people in the US would be watching it, and they were quite excited.


The Hokey Pokey. They're not all there on the words, but the do know all of the body parts, "in," "out," and sometimes "Hokey Pokey." The rule is that we can't sing/dance until they say the word in English. We also always end on "body," since it's a good excuse to go crazy and just push each other around. Not the most studious method in the world, but hey... they're 6 and they know 14 different body parts in English.


My other first grade class practices their animals by drawing on the board. Monkey is the consensus favorite. They also don't see the need of using an eraser, so instead they use their hands and get covered in chalk by the end of the drawing session.

Some pics of my classroom:

From the door
Side view, set up for the first/second graders because they lose focus if they're more than 5 feet away from me.

Pablo and Samuel, two of my first graders. Pablo's version of a smiling is looking really, really worried.

Some sixth graders work on their family tree. Notice the ruler and protractor for precise lines. Costa Rican kids can be insane perfectionists - if it isn't perfect, they erase it and start over. Also, if you notice my desk in the background, you'll see one of the drawers sitting on top of my desk. I somehow managed to pull it all the way out, and now it won't go back in.

We ended class early so we could wash all the chalk off.

Rough day at the office for Pablo

Miguel, one of my sixth graders, missed school the day of a test and didn't study for the makeup. He's having a bit of trouble here. I couldn't resist.

Heading back to Orosi tomorrow morning, and I'm excited to get to know the new volunteers and have longer conversations with my original host family. I'll have good access all week, so I hope to hear from some of you. Take care!

Mi familia

KAPS Place Hotel, San Jose
As I've mentioned before, living in Boruca has made it impossible to sleep past 6:00am without making an effort, even when I'm not actually there and sleeping in a hotel halfway across the country. Entonces, it's 6:45am and I've been up for over an hour, even though I'm 7 hours of buses away from Boruca. All of the volunteers had to head into San Jose this weekend for our mid-service meeting, which was a one-day shindig to keep us updated and make us realize that the year is flying by. Normally, I'd be angry about having to travel so far for a meeting, but considering that the government payed for our travel, food, and lodging for two days, I can't complain. I'm heading back to Boruca around 10 this morning, finishing up the first grading trimester this week, then heading back to San Jose and Orosi for a week to help run the orientation for the summer volunteers.
A lot of people have been asking for info and pictures of the people in my family, so here we go:
Yaneth - Host mom: Yaneth, like any Costan Rican mother, is the head of the household. She weaves traditional textiles/bags/purses by hand for a living, using the big loom (Is that the right word? I'm no expert...) pictured above, or a smaller one that straps around her back. She's also recently started painting and selling Borucan Diablito masks, so we have a huge display of those hanging on our kitchen wall for any tourists who stop buy looking to buy some crafts. Yaneth keeps my diet well-stocked with avocados, and has an uncanny knack at beating me to the laundry machine the second after the water comes back on.
Oscar, host Dad (with Nashaly) - This picture might be the only time I've ever not seen Oscar smile. He teaches Brunka, Boruca's traditional language, in my school and in a nearby town. He's also currently learning English, and takes great delight in teaching me bad words in Spanish and Brunka. (His gift to me when I first arrived in town was a book named "Mierda." Feel free to look it up.)
Nashaly and Dilan, host sister and host cousin - Probably my two best friends in Boruca, and definitely the people I talk to the most. Nashaly is four, so she hasn't started school yet, but she knows a few phrases in English: "My name is Nashaly," "I love you," and "Please don't go" - the final one always sung to the tune of some song I don't know. Nashaly is very patient with my Spanish, and if I ask her to speak slower she'll start with "Vea..." (Look...), and take a second to say each syllable.
Dilan is two, and is usually living in our house with his mom, Josefina (who unfortunately I don't have a picture of). Him and Nashaly are constantly together, unless they're fighting, which happens a good 4-5 times a day. Dilan is big on trying to impress me with his one English sentence, which is the combination question/answer of "What your name is Dilan." This versatile sentence can also be used as a declaration of other people's identities, hence "What your name is Daniel" or "What your name is Scooby." He also woke everyone up one morning screaming "YA NO TE AMO!!!" (Now I don't love you!), which has since become my family's favorite phrase.
Isha, host sister - Isha is 13 and in her first year of colegio/high school, the American equivalent of 7th grade. As you could probably guess, 90% of our conversations revolve around making fun of each other and trying to start rumors about fake boyfriends/girlfriends. In case you were wondering, she's holding a cake.
Scooby, host dog - Scooby is our one remaining pet since Dooby died. Scooby is a former street dog who the family adopted. Because of this, he's well-known around town, and has a huge gang of other dog friends, of which I'm pretty sure he's the leader. He's not the smartest dog ever, but he's loyal and always good for a dumb-dog moment or two. For example, the times he's followed me to school to sit in my class/bite my students/jump on me and get me all muddy, or the time when he chased the family's truck down the mountain, a four-mile trek, because he was the only one that wasn't going. I keep Scooby well-fed, and he rewards my food and petting by playfully (usually) biting my hand and stealing my sandals.

Some other pics:

Nashaly tried to take a photo of Dilan and I. Didn't work out too well, but I'm sure some modern art museum would display it.
Half of my fourth graders. I think this was the day when we started to play BINGO, I realized I had nothing to give as a prize, and just ended up giving the winner 400 colones (about 70 cents).
It's about time to pack up, say goodbye, and head back to Boruca. The end of any term in school is always a tough week, so hopefully I survive the next four days.

If you want me to do a blog post about a specific topic, or want to see more pictures of a certain thing, let me know. Thanks for the messages as always!

Dan

Demasiado matematicas, and I'M VISTING BOSTON SOONISH!

Our bridge got washed out, so this is how I cross the river to get to school every day.
(Mentiras. A group of volunteers went rafting on the Rio Pacuare, and we found 25 or 30 foot overhang with a swingable vine next to it. If you haven't noticed, this blog is basically a place for me to post the few photos where I don't look like a tool.)

Just a quick update, letting everyone know that I'm still very much alive, despite no updates to this blog in a while. The first trimester of school ends next week, so I've been working nonstop to prepare/make/give/correct exams to my students. Unlike the US, where I could essentially determine the value of tests, quizzes, class participation, and homework, Costa Rica has a very specific system that requires more math than I'd like/capable of doing without computers. For example, correcting a single first grader's test took no more than 15 seconds (it's not too hard to see if they circled the picture of the dog or not), but figuring out their score's percentage as it relates to their overall grade AND the their grade for the 'exams' category (which is 30% of their overall grade, still following?) took a lot longer. The harrowing process of correcting and 'mathemetizing' final exams for ALL of my 155 students next week is bad enough, but then I have to do final grades as well, which involve combining the exam scores with scores from 4 other categories (observations, class work, attendance, and personal opinion), all of which have their own mathematical formulas. Fun. Basically, I've been spending a lot of time on Microsoft Excel. I'm pretty sure the entire system was designed to make things objective, but considering that at least half of any student's grade is based on my subjective observations of them and my 'personal opinion' of them, I'm not sure if it's quite achieving that purpose. Oh well... at least it's avocado season in Boruca, and the avocados here are free and twice the size of the ones we have in the states. Guacamole makes any situation tolerable.

Also, I've officially decided to head back to Boston for my two-week break in July - the 3rd through the 18th. All of the other volunteers seem to have their family or friends coming down here, but since my pregnant sister and airplane-hating mother can't make the trip down, I'll be heading up thanks to a combined birthday/Christmas/Columbus Day/Kwanza present from my family. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone, eating a ton of fast food, and having running water for more than four hours every day.

Today I'm heading off to visit Emily, a fellow volunteer near the city of San Vito, to observe her classes tomorrow. Next week we have a mid-year meeting (time is flying!) and the week after that I'll be helping to run an orientation for WorldTeach volunteers who come for just the summer. Lot's of stuff to keep me going as the rainy season starts.

As always, thanks for the e-mails and messages, and thanks for following the blog. Hopefully I'll get to see everyone in July. (And I promise I'll update with a real post soon...)

Juan Santamaria Day video... and sloth photo

Here's the video of our school "assembly" for Juan Santamaria Day. Fun times. For the full story, read the previous post. Just in case you wanted to know, you can see the outside of my classroom for most of the video - it's the left part of the green building that all the students are standing in front of. And here's my sloth friend and I, sharing a moment:


Some sad news to report, though. A few days after I got back from Puerto Viejo, our puppy, Dooby, became sick and passed away. Hammock time hasn't been nearly as fun, but life goes on. Scooby is still as crazy as ever, and he continues to follow me to class most days of the week.
I can't believe it's almost May. First trimester is ending soon, and the first and second graders have their first test on Monday. If their skill of singing "Old McDonald" translates, they should do pretty well.
As always, thanks for all the messages!

Sometimes, you just come home and there's a severed pig's head in your sink, you know?
With that being said...

April 17^th

It’s been an eventful week and a half: vacation, the most un-Eastery Easter ever, the culture shock of returning to Boruca, and perhaps my weirdest day at school yet.

Puerto Viejo was amazing – probably my favorite travel spot that I’ve yet to visit in Costa Rica. It’s located on the Caribbean coast, with a large portion of the population coming from a Carribean/Rastafarian background. This means that almost everyone speaks English, which was like running into a brick wall on the road to learning Spanish. The town itself is centered around two or three relatively busy streets with restaurants and bars, but luckily it’s been able to maintain the Caribbean vibe and hasn’t become too touristy. There are beaches within 100 yards of the center, but the further you walk away from town, the better they get. A day-by-day account would probably be boring (plus I’m lacking in the travel-writing department), but here’s some highlights:

(Actually, no. After spending twenty minutes typing out just the highlights, I realize that even they make for boring reading. Unless the story involves travelling to space or getting kidnapped, hearing about someone else’s vacation is about as exciting as hearing about someone’s fantasy baseball team or how smart their child is. Here’s the highlights of the highlights, in as terse as manner possible.)

- Kayaked down jungle river. Saw monkeys. Waved at monkeys. Monkeys did not wave back. Monkeys preferred to sleep.

- Watched Red Sox at a bar. A reggae bar. A loud reggae bar. Left. Found another bar to watch Red Sox. This bar played only 2Pac. Sox lost. Sang along to “Changes.”

- Ate avocado for breakfast. Ate avocado while riding bike. Ate avocado while standing in line for ATM.

- Saw sloth climbing a tree. Took photos. Was not satisfied with only photos. Approached sloth. Sloth reached out and shook my hand. Bonding. Invited sloth to come to dinner. Sloth said yes; we ate lobster. Last sentence was a lie. Sorry.

So there’s my five days in about 100 words. All in all, I recommend Puerto Viejo, but not as much as I recommend meeting a sloth.

It being Semana Santa (Holy Week) and all, we had to catch a bus out on Thursday or get stuck there for the weekend, as the country essentially shuts down. We made it back to San Jose by late afternoon, and the streets were so deserted that I was waiting for a horde of zombies to appear from around the corner. We spent a few days in the city, which wasn’t all that eventful but relaxing nonetheless.

Easter Sunday was definitely a weird one. Good Friday is the more important day in Semana Santa (essentially everything is closed), and Easter is more of a travel-back-from-wherever-you-are-day. I spent ten hours on or waiting for a bus on Easter, and my Easter dinner was me eating some cold chicken, rice, and beans by myself at the only fast-food restaurant open in Buenos Aires, the town where I catch the bus to Boruca. If it sounds depressing, it’s because it is. On the bright side, one of my friends from WorldTeach (who had been in Puerto Viejo and San Jose with me) had been kind enough to buy us all some chocolate eggs that morning, and I got to have my one Eastery moment while sitting on a curb in the hot, dry, and dusty plot of concrete with the terrible misnomer of Buenos Aires.

Getting back to Boruca was probably the biggest case of culture shock I’ve had since arriving in Costa Rica. Making the immediate switch from English, restaurants, beaches, and Red Sox to Spanish, rice and beans, more Spanish, and lesson planning was tough to handle all at once. Oh, and we didn’t had water in the house for five days after I got back, and apparently my family is building a small house for some family member outside of my room. Stressful and dirty would be two good words to use to describe the situation. Mondays are usually tough enough because three of my four classes are either first or second graders, but this past Monday I was unable to speak properly in any language by about 1:30 in the afternoon. Fortunately, all the other teachers seemed to be feeling the same way, so we made a collective decision to have an extra ten minutes in between each class.

During my final class, I saw the sixth graders carrying wood and dried-out palm leaves towards an empty spot about 30 feet outside of my window. It was interesting enough to investigate after school, and they told me that they were building a rancho palma hut for Tuesday’s celebration of Juan Santamaria Day, a national holiday commemorating a battle between the Costa Ricans and a group of invading American southerners in the 1850’s. The group, led by William Walker, were trying to establish a state in Costa Rica in order to obtain more votes for slavery in Congress. The basic plot is that a young man named Juan Santamaria died in an effort to burn down the American’s fort, becoming a national hero in the process. As the Americans fled, William Walker, the leader of the Americans, was eventually captured and killed, putting an end to the invasion. (History lesson over.) I helped build the hut for a while, with my official job being the tall guy who nails in anything that’s too high for the Ticos to reach.

As I walked past the school gates the next morning, I was greeted by the normal cries of “TEECHAR!”, only now every one of them was aiming a fake wooden gun at me. Turns out that all of the students are asked to bring fake guns to school for a reenactment of the battle. Since the battle, you know, involved shooting at Americans and all, guess who got shot at all day long? After failing to convince the other teachers and some older students that William Walker wasn’t representative of my part of the country, I cheerfully played along, happily grunting, choking, and dying every time I was shot at.

First period went by normally, as I practiced numbers 1-100 with one of my third grade classes. Right after taking attendance for my second-period sixth graders, we were all called to area in between the two main buildings to begin the assembly. Some pre-school kids dressed up as historical figures and told the story of the battle. In case you’re wondering, pre-school plays are the same everywhere. After what I’m sure was three or four weeks of practice, one kid got the microphone and said, “Hola, yo soy…,” turned to his teacher and asked, “Como se llama?”

The students were then sent class-by-class to the area around the rancho palma. At the time, I had no idea why we were moving, but since I technically was in charge of the sixth graders I was told to go with them. I then found out that since they’re the oldest in the school, the sixth graders had the honor of going inside the rancho palma while everyone else stood about 30 feet away. After about two minutes of huddling inside the rancho with 18 sixth graders and having NO idea what was going on, one of them finally told me that we were about to reenact the battle. Why, then, were we inside a hut? Well, guess who was playing the part of the Americans? Yup! So, one by one, each class (playing the Costa Ricans) ran up and ‘attacked’ the hut, with the sixth graders fighting back and forcing them away. The hut was cramped, but I admit that it was fun fighting off 7 year olds who were attacking me with wooden guns. After about five minutes of this, we had successfully repelled every class, and a long pause ensued.

Then I saw the torch. One of the teachers was wrapping a towel around a stick and getting a lighter ready to set it on fire. Still huddled in the rancho palma hut, I asked the kids if we should leave. They said no. At this point, I figured it was a good time to start recording a video. The teacher eventually lit the torch and handed it off to a student chosen to play Juan Santamaria. It was right around this point when I realized that our reenactment was going to be pretty friggin’ realistic: the rancho was going to be lit ablaze with us inside, and we would have to run for our lives. Let’s take a moment and remember that this is a school assembly. Felix, the student playing Santamaria, did his best hero impression and stumbled toward the rancho, falling down and reaching out with one last stretch to light a corner on fire. Being made of dried palm leaves, the caught fire almost immediately, with 17 students and one confused teacher inside. It wasn’t until smoke filled the hut and one wall was completely engulfed in flames that the students decided to make a run for it. We pushed our way outside, and as soon as I was out of harm’s way, I turned around to record what our fate would have been had we waited a few more seconds: The hut had turned into a fireball, with flames reaching more than 20 feet up into the overhanging branches of a nearby tree. The entire school chased after the student who was chosen to play William Walker, and they returned a minute later with him ‘captured,’ forcing him to face a 155-student firing squad shortly thereafter. Just like that, the assembly was over.

Not quite knowing how to react to government-sponsored arson and child endangerment (but having thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless), I let my sixth graders know that the rest of class would be cancelled so we could watch the video over and over again. I’ll upload it to YouTube/this blog the next time I’m in San Jose with a fast connection. Even though a school assembly where a hut is set on fire with kids inside of it would probably be a national news story in the US, apparently it’s no big deal here. By lunchtime, everything was back to normal – except for the fact that my room reeked of smoke.

That's about it for now. I'm hoping to do devote my next update to my host family, house, and a day in the life. We'll see if they allow me to take photos of them. Thanks for all the messages!

Semana Santa

Cases Yoses, San Jose (again) - 7am
I'm back at Casa Yoses for the umpteenth time as I get ready for a week vacation in the Carribean town of Puerto Viejo. All of Costa Rica has Holy Week off, so a small group of us are heading off to one of the few places in the country that had any vacancy.
Nothing too big to report on, other than the first round of tests going pretty well - at least for the kids who regularly show up for class. For the regulars, very few scored under 90, which obviously I was happy about. The excruciating part was giving the test (they were all oral exams, basically short conversations with me using the questions/answers/vocab they know from class) to kids who decided to show up to class for the first time on the day of the test. Obviously, there was no way they were going to pass, but I still had to sit there and ask them if they knew what each question meant in Spanish, then wait to see if they could formulate a response in English. I wish I had written some of the worst answers down, but I heard more answers like "I am pencil" and "Yesterday is today" than I thought was possible. My favorite part was a 4th grader trying to explain to me that the test was unfair because all the words were different than they are in Spanish. Hmmm. Yes. That would be called 'another language,' Like... say... English? The lesson here: go to English class.
We've been learning colors, 1-10, and simple classroom objects in first and second grade. It's like herding cats sometimes, but at least they're cute cats. BINGO with a sticker as a prize is their preferred means of practicing, and we'e even made it all the way to the point where I've outlawed Spanish during BINGO games (ie no yelling out 'azul' after I call out 'blue'). Making the BINGO cards was an adventure. We needed 16 spaces on the cards: 10 colors, 6 classroom objects. Total time needed to make them in each class? One hour, ten minutes. Even then, we ran into problems like kids coloring in a whole column orange, or realizing after the fact that they only had 12 boxes in their card. No worries, though... they were content to place the markers on the paper and just yell out "BINGO!" anyways. One student who wasn't there when we made them showed up to the next class cardless and clueless as to what BINGO is. He was happy to put the markers on the random colors and drawings that he had in his notebook. His version of BINGO was 4 markers in any order, anywhere. He hasn't won yet.

Obviously, soccer is a big deal here, so when the school teams have a game, classes are more or less canceled. I learned this the hard/boring way last time, when I decided to stay at school and ended up having classes of 4 kids all day long. This time, I asked my director if I could cancel my classes and go along. He was surprised that I was even asking, and told me to go along and take pictures. The games were fun, the weather was scorching, and it was refreshing to see kids playing sports for the fun of it - no overbearing coaches or parents, no spots on more elite teams up for grabs, etc. A couple of pictures:
We headed up to a sketchy bridge after the boys team lost in a shootout to hang out for a while. As we entered town on the way back, the kids announced their return/loss with a chant of "perdimos" ("we lost!"). Video:


Classes were canceled again the following week for National Sports Day, aka National Play Sports and Let the White Guy Get Burnt Day. Pics:
Action shot of two of my favorite first graders, after five minutes of tying.
Hockey, without the ice, puck, or sticks.
Mini-soccer games. My insane tallness compared to the students/Tico teachers made it easy to just sit by the goal and head the ball in. Also, I had a moral decision when I took the final penalty kick to win the game against the 6th grade boys: miss it and let them feel good about tying the teachers, or rocket the ball at the poor goalie's face and let him know that Americans can play soccer too. Obviously, I unleashed one on the goalie, and the teachers were victorious.
And now, the obligatory Dooby picture:

He somehow got into my room and decided to take a nap on my backpack. I did not object.
Heading off to Puerto Viejo soon. Apparently they have good wireless access there, and I'll be trying to set up a Skype account. Thanks for the tons of messages you've been sending. Talk to you soon!