- Translation from my Spanish workbook from the “por vs. para” section: “I exchanged my dog for a bicycle.” Hmmm.
- Last week I saw a man riding a horse while talking on a cell phone.
- I’ve seen a number of commercials for the TV show of an animated character that I’ve decided to call “Thomas the Badass Tank.”He’s basically Thomas, but he’s older, speaks Spanish, and looks like he’d break a chair over your head if you looked at him the wrong way. I can’t wait to catch his show.
- On the trip back from Boruca, I paid a man 300 colones (53 cents) and half of my Coke to walk me to a bus stop that I couldn’t find. I thought I got a pretty good deal… I saved 1,200 colones by not taking the taxi and got to find out how to walk to a stop that I’d need to use in the future. Oh, and the stop was three blocks up on the same street.
- All of the volunteers took Latin dance lessons a couple of nights ago. I was awful to the point that students from the summer school we’re running were taking pictures of me. On the bright side, I decided that the “Cotton-Eyed Joe” dance goes well to just about any type of Latin dance, and that I’m better at it than all six million residents of Costa Rica.
- In the states, I got about 5-6 hours of sleep a night, never ate breakfast, and didn’t drink coffee in the morning. Here, I get 10-12 hours of sleep a night, eat breakfast, and drink 3 cups of coffee before lunch. By 11am, I’m usually punching walls just to expend extra energy.
-There’s a reggaeton artist here named Nick-Y. The “Y,” of course, is pronounced like the Spanish word for “and” (i.e., arroz y frijoles). I spend at least twenty minutes a day thinking about how much this bothers me.
- One of the “cultural quirks” that I had been told about (and originally laughed at) was that Ticos never walk around barefoot – even inside – for fear of getting sick. Last night, I was doing some Spanish homework in my bed and needed to get a book out of my backpack. I got up, took a step towards it, realized that I was barefoot, stopped to put on my sandals, took the extra step that it took to get to my backpack, made the two-step journey back to my bed, and took my sandals off. The language part might take a while, but my cultural assimilation has started.
- The kids learned sooo much better when we provided them with words to make fun of people with/their opposites. Recreo usually turned into a verbal war with my sixth graders: "Teacher, you are weak!" "You are weaker!" "No, I am strong!"
- At the post-graduation fiesta, I was making it rain with candy as the kids scattered about and fought each other for it. Easily a top-5 moment in my life.
Pictures:
My host mother Luz and I. Her favorite phrase is "Que frio!" and I would give up a year of my life to learn how to make empanadas like her.
My group of teachers switched to 6th grade halfway through the week. Only six students, but they were a good group. Lisandro (far left) was a quick kid. While playing a game of charades to demonstrate adjectives, he discreetly gave the middle finger to the rest of the class to demonstrate "bad" without my fellow volunteer (who was teaching at the time) noticing. I was laughing too hard to say anything... and I thought that it was a pretty good demonstration anyways.
Two students and I at the post-graduation fiesta. Marlon (left) was in my third grade class and constantly by my side, usually asking me where my soccer ball was and if I would be on his team. After he realized that I didn't understand 90% of what he says (he speaks about 1000 words a minute), he decided that he'd name himself my official tape-tearer for when I was preparing for class.
