Changes in San Miguel

Time has gotten away from me and kind of a lot has happened since the last time I wrote. So far, I’ve thought about my time in Costa Rica in chunks and those chucks tend to have some big event related to them. I always tell myself, I know I’m going to want to write about that, so I’ll wait until it’s over. And I wait, but the next week has another event that I’m going to want to write about so I wait again. And now it’s been almost three weeks and I have lots of stories.    

Going back to Semana Santa, aka Holy Week:

Costa Rica is a Catholic country, and because of that, schools are closed and many people have the entire week off of work. Unfortunately, I had classes until Wednesday, but the rest of the week I had free.

I think I mentioned this before but my host sister, Ruth, was pregnant. When I came home from class on Wednesday, Dona Luz, my host mom, told me that she was at the hospital all day with Ruth because she was having contractions and it seemed like Jimena, the baby, would be born. I love babies; so obviously, I was super excited to have a host niece around.

About two hours after that initial conversation, Dona Luz told me to pack a bag for one or two days and that we would be leaving in an hour.   Whut?    Now, I had remembered that the week prior, Dona Luz talked about going to visit the Province of Cartago, where her son lives. But, we have talked about other plans before and rarely do they come to fruition. And Ruth was in the hospital. So, I thought, hm… ok, we can go to the hospital and hang out for a bit until the baby is born. It’s a little weird, but I’m down if that’s what we’re going to do!

Now, disclaimer here, Dona Luz very well could have said exactly where we were going and why I needed to pack a bag. And she probably did. But with my Spanish abilities I get the really important information, like pack a bag of clothes, but not the minor details, like where we are going, what to bring, how long we’ll be gone, who’s coming, ect.

So, just in case, I packed three outfits, six pairs of undies, and a bathing suit.

And good thing I did. It turns out we were, in fact, going to Cartago and we were going to stay at Freddy’s house, Dona Luz’s son. We stayed there for two nights and he was a fantastic tour guide and cook. We went to a couple of church ruins, La Negrita Cathedral, Rio Paloma, and other little stops along the way. It was really interesting to be traveling with Costa Ricans who know the history and stories that go along with the sites. It was a lot of fun but also quite a learning experience not knowing all of the details of the trip. Since that experience, I’ve gotten better at asking questions or repeating back information to make sure I understand it correctly and I have it all.   

Tech Week:

The week after Semana Santa I went to visit another PCV in a town next to Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui. [This is not the Puerto Viejo where Coco and Chris will be honeymooning, but it is the Puerto Viejo where Will Smith and his son were just filming] The goals of this week were to observe four hours of classes, co-plan for four hours, and to co-teach for four hours. And I did just that along with some other non-work-related things.

La Guaria, where Marlene volunteers, is super hot. I was sweating all the time. It’s in the plain lands but there were mountains within walking distance. There were a ton of pineapple and banana fields, which is where the majority of people work.

Marlene works in two primary schools and both are fairly large. Also, there are basically two school days in one, which I found interesting. One group of k-5^th grades comes in from 7:00am until 12:00 and another group goes from 1:00 until 5:00. The teachers teach the same lessons twice every day. And while the kids get about five hours of school every day, the teachers work about ten. The kids were really great though and I thought the English teachers that Marlene works with had a high level of English and worked really well with her.

She also has a community class that I observed and taught in. It is a beginning class and she has about 30 adult students. It was awesome. The classroom was packed and every student was engaged and interested in learning. We played a lot of really fun and interactive games to help reinforce the vocab and get them speaking. I loved it and I thought Marlene did a great job.

When we weren’t working, we did some non-English-teaching related things. Marlene and I went to a “Zumba” class and it is in quotations because, in reality, it was a pretty hard core dance class with cumbia and meringue and other Latin dance moves. My hips just don’t move like that, but maybe by the time I leave Costa Rica I’ll be dancing like a Latina.

We also took a boat tour on the Rio Sarapiqui and it was gorgeous. We saw a crocodile, monkeys, an iguana, bats, and a ton of birds. All in the wild! It was super cool and I felt really one with nature. And, it was free because the boat driver was one of her community class students and insisted it was free. I can’t wait to have a community class!

I loved visiting another place in Costa Rica and seeing variance in weather and landscape firsthand. It was a great week.

Additions to the Family:

When I came back to San Miguel this past Saturday we had four new additions to my host family. We gained a dog and two parrots before I left for tech week, and Jimena was born on the Thursday that I was gone. She is beautiful, with a full head of hair, and sleeps a lot.

I had gotten a text from Dona Luz saying that Jimena was born, so when I got to the house on Saturday and no one was home, I figured they were at Ruth’s admiring the baby. I was going to drop my bags off and I head over after but, very suddenly, I became a prisoner.

Let me set the scene. Practically every house in Costa Rica has a fence around it. The one around my house is green and very tall and impossible to climb. It also has a padlock. On top of that, the door to the actual house automatically locks when it closes.

So, I got home, unlocked the padlock to the fence and locked it again to signal that no one is home because I didn’t want to talk to anyone to explain that Dona Luz wasn’t there (people ask for her a lot because she recharges cell phones). I unlocked the door to the house, put my stuff in my room and took Pinky, our new dog, out front to pee. As I walked outside, one of my students was walking by and stopped to ask where I was the last week and when I would be coming back. We were chatting it up in Spanish and I was feeling really good about it until I heard a SLAM of the front door. I whipped my head around just to confirm my fear that I was now locked out of my house, but inside my front yard without my phone or keys. Awesome. I explained this issue to my student and he laughed and waved goodbye and I was alone with Pinky who kept staring at me like, “Now what are we gonna do?”

It was a nice day so I sat down and I thought I would wait for 30 minutes and someone will probably come home. They knew I was coming home at 2:30 and they would meet me here. So I sat. And 30 minutes go by and I start thinking about an escape plan. I could hop the fence between my house and my neighbor’s house and leave out of their front yard. But, I was wearing a skirt and I would have to explain my situation to a stranger and my family should be coming home any time now. So I sat. And another 30 minutes passed and I was getting cold and I was coming to terms with the fact that I really need to take action. Just as I was about to start yelling for my neighbor, a friend of Dona Luz’s drove up and tells me that everyone is at Ruth’s house and what am I doing just sitting outside. I explain to her the situation and she starts cracking up. Not just a chuckle or even a laugh, but a full out belly laugh. She would have been rolling on the floor if she wasn’t in a car. Once she regained a smidgen of composure she said she would go back to the house and tell someone to release me.

About five minutes later Raquel and Angelo walk up, laughing, and let me out of the cage that I had been stuck in for more than an hour. It was absurd and all the while I kept thinking what a great story this is for my blog, but a horrible situation in real life.

This Friday I find out where I am living for the next two years and I am beyond excited and anxious to know. I cannot wait to google it and ask people about it and find out what type of schools I will be working in! We all go to a country club with a pool and we find out in the morning and they hang all day. So exciting.

And Saturday to Sunday all the trainees are going to Manuel Antonio, a beach on the Pacific Coast, that is supposed to be one of the best.

I was going to wait until these events were over to blog because I know I will want to, but good thing I didn’t! This sucker is loooong.

I miss everyone a ton and love you all times a million.

Annie