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...