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!