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!