Tables turn

There are little pockets of indigenous populations all around Costa Rica, including two reservations just out of the valley and down the highway and up the mountain from my town. Except for their darker skin, round faces and history of oppression, most indigenous people live just like every other rural-dwelling Tico. But there are still some families so purely indigenous that they rarely come down from their tucked-away rancheros in the mountains. These reclusive families are usually very poor, living off the land and nothing else. They are often shy and timid, unaccustomed to the revving motors and fast-talking city folk of the pueblos.

On Tuesday a senora from one of these families asked my host mom for a favor. She was so shy she barely raised her voice above a whisper in explaining that her 13-year-old daughter had just died and could my host mom please buy a casket for the child. The child had been vomiting and had a headache, and when her condition didn’t improve after a day or two, the parents got worried, put the girl on a horse and took her to the hospital. She died before they got there. Hannia, my host mom, jumped into action, first calling a morgue, then cold-calling everyone she could think of to raise the $350 to buy the box. When the money had all been pledged, my host dad drove an hour away to pick up the casket.

Hannia, of course, was a mess. The image of the terrified, grieving woman mustering the courage to ask for help, such heartbreaking help, was shocking. The thought of losing one of her three daughters also lingered in her mind. The girl was about to start high school.

So while I have been fundraising for navy blue socks and eraser tops, my host mom has been fundraising for a casket to bury a teenage girl, who one minute had an upset stomach and the next minute was dead. So quickly my community went from being the ones in need to the ones helping the needy. There is always someone with more and always someone with less. The balance of it all makes me feel better.

Just asking

Now that I can speak Spanish like a (semi-) pro, I find myself getting into all kinds of conversations about the American economy. No one ever comes right out and says it, but the overriding theme is that the USA has gone off and messed things up for everyone once again.

Obama, of course, is going to save us all (typed with tongue in cheek). In the meantime, my fellow Americans are getting laid off left and right, and others are in fear of facing the same fate. Not I, of course. People without jobs don’t usually get fired.

Yes, the economy is down on its luck right now, which means many of you are, too, and here I’m going to go right ahead and ask you for a little something anyway. The thing is I need a little help with school supplies for next year. Without a salary of my own, piling on the expenses of photocopying and teaching tools really stretches the monthly stipend.

Last year, a class at R.E. Baker Elementary School in Bentonville, Arkansas, collected supplies for my school. The supplies were a big help, but with 150 students using them day in and day out, they are almost gone. The last bit of purple glue has finally been dug out from all of the glue sticks. Most of the scissors have found their way into the pencil holders of needy students or the desk drawers of local teachers. The ink pens were all given away as prizes, and the notebooks were handed out to those students who were writing in microscopic print in order to conserve pages of the one ratty notebook allotted for their entire elementary school career.

Perhaps in your family, workplace or church group, you’d like to start a supply drive for the rowdy little kids of Potrero Grande Elementary School. I’d even make them practice their English by writing you thank-you notes.

This is what I need (and nothing more, please):

• Pencils
• Eraser tops for pencils
• Glue sticks
• Scissors
• Dry-erase markers
• Blank CDs
• Masking tape

For those of you for whom it is much easier to just write a check, let me tell you about the things I want but can’t afford. First of all, I want to buy a projector for the school. I want the kind that costs a few hundreds and that you hook up to a laptop or DVD player and display on a wall. The main reason I want the projector is for use in the classroom. I could design creative lessons around movie clips and PowerPoint presentations. Other teachers could do the same. The other reason I want it is to host movie nights once a week and charge the movie-going public a small fee, which I would use to pay for photocopies throughout the year. Oh, and I want to buy a classroom set of English/Spanish dictionaries.

If this option piques your interest, you can easily make a tax-deductible donation by sending a check with Jennifer Turner, Costa Rica in the memo line to:

World TeachCenter for International Development
Harvard University
79 John F. Kennedy St., Box 122
Cambridge MA 02138, USA

If a tax deduction isn’t all that important to you, avoid all the red tape and send checks straight to my front door:

Jennifer's Front Door
P.O. Box 309
DeWitt, AR 72042

Or, if neither school supplies nor cash are your style, maybe shopping for clothes is. There are a lot of poor kids at my school who are still wearing the hand-me-downs from their older siblings years after the older siblings have left the home for greener grass. It’s perpetually summer here, but because it’s winter where you are, I bet you could find some really cheap hot-weather clothes for my students. Next time you’re in Old Navy or Wal-Mart or Target, just breeze through the children’s section and look for any great deals.

And don’t worry about sizes. The students of Potrero Grande come in all shapes and forms and none are without need. Specifically, here’s a list:

• Navy blue socks
• White undershirts for boys
• White undershirts for girls
• Black leather shoes (boys and girls)
• Shorts for boys and girls
• Shirts of any kind for boys and girls

If you have any questions, just send me an e-mail at jturner114@gmail.com.

Merry Christmas! Thanks again for everything!

Everything must belong somewhere

Big news: I completed my first year a couple of weeks ago. While it seems like a rather blogworthy event, I haven’t had time to write the celebration post it deserves. Between calculating grades and trying to decide what to do next year, I’ve had to put my final sigh of relief and moment of reflection off until now.

When I quit my real job last year to be a volunteer teacher in Costa Rica, I came up with three reasons why it was a good idea. I wanted out of journalism and thought teaching might be a suitable career to pursue but wanted to find out firsthand before shelling out money and time on a teacher-licensure program. I’d never traveled, much less lived, outside of the country and wanted to stop the growing feeling of regret before it got ugly. Also, I figured learning Spanish couldn’t be a bad skill to acquire no matter what career I eventually chose.

Turns out my rationalizations were valid. I can’t imagine returning to journalism. Looking back I know how ill-suited I am for that work. Thanks to the blogosphere, I can always fulfill my desire to write, and I don’t have to deal with editors, politicians, grieving/proud parents, annoying coworkers, overzealous talking heads, competing reporters or the newspaper-reading public.

It also turns out that I like teaching English. It’s not so much that I love working with children or that I have a real passion for education. Mostly I just love the English language and like imparting its intricacies to others, especially those who can use the language to give themselves a better life.

While my Spanish skills are still lingering somewhere around the intermediate level, I am finally able to speak and understand enough to make connections with people. I am starting to love this new lanuage, too, and find myself accosting any native speaker who is willing to listen with questions about its own intricacies.

So, I was right. Thanks to all of you who suppressed your eye-rolling and let me make a crazy decision to quit my job to work for nothing in a developing country. Thanks to all of you who donated money or wrote me letters or sent me care packages or came to visit or racked up outrageous phone bills listening to me go on and on about things impossible to explain.

I hope you’ll all keep reading next year, as I have yet again shrugged off the necessity of making a living and have extended my volunteer service through July. I'd like to say I'm doing it all for the kids, but really I'm doing it for myself, knowing that the kids will benefit, too. Sometime next year I will decide when to come back to the U.S. and whether to pursue the teacher-licensure program I am still trying to avoid.

I’ll be home from Dec. 22 to Jan. 13. It’s not nearly enough time, but I plan to make the most of it. Hope to see you then!

An Ode to Costa Rica

By Lisa Ofstedal, WorldTeach volunteer 2008

We left our lives last year
The Americas to roam.
Land here in a daze
Costa Rica, our new home.

Everything's so new here
I'm in over my head.
Que? Como? Repita please!
Think I'll go back to bed

Piropos left and right
As I walk down the street.
Psst, psst, Mamacita!
Thank you, that's so sweet.

Moto, horse, or pick-up bed
The ways to get around.
Where's the seatbelt? A helmet, at least?
Nah, we're safe and sound.

The kids, they are real cute
But they'll drive you to your limit.
FINISHED, Teacher, FINISHED FINISHED!
Just shut up a minute!

Regalame una cerveza
Imperial will do.
It tastes a lot like water
But at least it goes down smooth.

Pinto first for breakfast
Rice and beans for lunch.
What could be for dinner?
I think I have a hunch.

Our poor digestive systems
Never quite at ease.
If it ain't too fast, it's moving too slow
Pass the pepto, please.

A multicultural romance
As the months grow long.
"Should we go back to your place?"
"Well, I'll have to ask my mom."

Hitting up a baile
Our dance skills there to hone.
How about some CUMBIA!!
Merengue, reggaeton.

Costa Rica, you've done me good
This trip, it was a boon.
Now I have two happy homes
I'll not forget you soon.

Turkey Day

Thanksgiving was a raving success. We ate turkey and dressing and green beans and some kind of potato dish that was sweet, although not sweet potatoes. In the second photo you can see me in heaven, eating pumpkin pie. I was very thankful.

Volcanos

Almost finished

I only lack Indonesia, Antartica and a few other random islands here and there. The students are mad at me, though, because Costa Rica is so small. They'd had no idea. Teacher! But it's so small! Why?

Other than that, the map is a big hit. The kids are always crowded around it, getting their first glimpses of the world as a whole. I think they are impressed, not only that I painted the map but also that the world is so big.

Fun with fourth grade

El gatito

For real

stock photo

I’ve been reading a book called A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester. It’s about the history of earthquakes in North America, particularly one that devastated California in 1906. I’ve taken to reading the rather dull book every night before bed as a way to drug my mind into a deep sleep so as not to dwell on the uncertainty of my future plans. I finished the book Tuesday night with this passage,

“All that humans do, and everywhere that humans inhabit, is for the moment only – like the cherry blossoms in a Japanese springtime that are exquisite simply by virtue of their very impermanence. Geology … serves as an ever-present reminder of this – of the fragility of humankind, the evanescent nature of even our most impressive achievements… It is a reminder, too, that this consent is a privilege and one that may be snatched away suddenly, and without any warning at all.”

It was while pondering this notion that I drifted into sleep, where I stayed soundly until just past midnight when I awoke to a foreign sensation. My bed was rocking back and forth. I pulled myself out of bed and struggled to stay on my feet as the floor shifted to and fro underneath me. I heard my host sister shout, “Mami!” so I knew I wasn’t dreaming. I opened my door to find the whole family standing in their respective bedroom doorways looking utterly confused. “Oh my God,” my host sister said in English. The next morning all the talk at school was of el temblor. There had been a powerful earthquake in Panama near the Costa Rican border.

The earthquake gave me such a strange feeling, as if I was standing on the surface of the ocean, being bounced gently by consecutive waves. Even stranger, though, is the feeling that I dreamed the earthquake into reality. On Wednesday night as I worked my way into sleep, I tried pondering the notion of money piling up in my bank account, but so far nothing’s happened.

OJALÁ

Well, I've had a case of the bed bugs this week. After three fitful, itchy nights of sleep, my host family took my mattress outside to get some sun, and last night I slept like a baby. I didn't even lie awake pondering what I should do next.

I think I might have settled on a plan. But maybe not; you know me; I like to try my ideas on and wear them around awhile to see how they feel. So far, I've tried on Chile, South Korea and the United States, and none seem to fit just right. Now I'm mulling over Potrero Grande.

The director of my volunteer organization came for a visit on Wednesday. As we sat in my living room, she casually mentioned how bummed she was that she would have to cut four school from the program next year. To make a long story short, Potrero Grande might be one of those schools. It's too big, she says, and the water's bad. It's time they get a paid Costa Rican teacher. I think she's right. The school is too big, and they do need a full-time paid English teacher, but it's not going to happen for next year. Or it might not happen ever. The school's director is rather aloof when it comes to English.

And I'll be damned if I worked my butt off all year just to have the English program fizzle out. No sir. So I threatened that I just might stay and volunteer another year. That led to some negotiations with the WT director, who thinks she might be able to drum up a few more dollars for me. She says my school requires more work than any other school, going beyond the requirements of the volunteer contract. I'd still be short about a $1,000 for the year on living expenses, but if I could win the lottery or teach a few adult classes in the afternoons or on weekends, it just might work out. Oh, and I'd have to buy a new plane ticket.

If I did return next year, I'd move into a cabina, the closest thing my town has to an apartment. It's basically a hotel room with a kitchen sink, but it would be better than living in the house with my host family. They are great and all, but I just can't take another year of American rap blasting at all hours of the night and day. I don't like rap. Luckily my family owns the cabinas and would probably give me a good rate. And I could still eat a few meals with the family every week.

In January I would be able to help out with the new-volunteer orientation. I could take more Spanish lessons and meet the new batch of teachers, the people who would hopefully become my new friends. And just think about how much English my students would learn next year. Even in the two weeks since I completed the TEFL course, they've learned so much. With another whole year, the teaching opportunities would be endless.

Yes, I like the way this idea feels. I hope it works out.

Woo pig

One of my favorite things to do in Costa Rica is laugh at people’s T-shirts. There are thrift stores here full of used clothing from the United States. Kids, especially in rural areas like mine, are always wearing some gringo’s leftover clothes. One kid in my town has a Cub Scout shirt, patches and all. Adults also wear the used clothing, especially men who work in the fields, so I’ve accumulated quite a collection of funny sayings found on T-shirts and hats. Usually the sayings aren’t funny on their own, only on the body of someone who has absolutely no idea what the words on the shirt mean. Here are my favorites:

1. Embroidered on the chest of a polo shirt: TRAILER PARK EXTREME POLO TEAM

2. On a bright orange T-shirt, in big letters: Hey man, you got a hemi in that thing? OK, this one's just funny on it's own.

3. On a T-shirt, written beneath a row of fighter jets: Can Osama come out and play? Keep in mind Costa Rica doesn't have an army.

4. On the hat of a very elderly man: Class of 2006

5. On the hat of teenager: I don’t have a drinking problem; my wife does.

6. On the T-shirt of the most popular boy in school: Treble Makers Choir Club

7. On the shirt of one of the most conservative, frumpy, sews-her-own-clothes mothers in my town: Heart Breaker Forever

8. On the T-shirt of a man on my bus: Rachel Tamaroff’s Bat Bitsmah

9. On the shirt of a middle-aged woman in line at the pharmacy, paired with a nice suit skirt and brown flats: Gold Digger

10. And my personal favorite:

Happy Birthday, Andreyna

Up next

If I weren’t so far away, we would do this face to face, maybe over dinner or on a long walk. But I’m here, and you’re there, so we’ll just have to do it this way. I am trying to figure out what to do next year. The thing is I am really, really ready to be home. I can hardly wait to see my family and sleep in my huge bed and eat a big, fat cheeseburger. I want to ride my bike and flush my toilet paper and talk to my grandmothers and hold my nephew and niece and catch up with my best friends. But those things should only take a month or so, so what do I do next?

Here are my options.

I could go to graduate school to become a certified ESL teacher in the United States. This would be great for my future. I’d always have a job, and it would be one that doesn’t require plane tickets, visa processing and learning new languages, etc. However, it would be expensive. And boring.

I could return to Costa Rica to teach English another year. I could stay in Potrero Grande another year, but that would mean volunteering again, which, by definition, doesn’t pay much. Or I could find a job teaching in another school, possibly a private school or language institute. However, most teaching jobs for English speakers are in the capital city of San Jose, and I hate San Jose. I’d love to find a job teaching in a school in the southern part of the country where I am now. I know the area and have strong contacts here. Living in Costa Rica another year would also let me learn more Spanish and spend more time at the beach. This is an expensive option but not a boring one.

I could move to a different Spanish-speaking country, maybe Chile or Argentina. But it’s difficult to find teaching jobs in South America without going there to look for them. I’d be able to learn more Spanish, though, and probably a better form of Spanish than the backwoods dialect I am picking up here. Also, I’d get to experience a new culture and know more of the world. Again, expensive but not boring.

I could move to Asia, maybe South Korea or Taiwan or Vietnam. This is where the money is. If I were to get a job in, let’s say, South Korea, my employer would buy my plane ticket, pay my rent, contribute money to a 401(k) equivalent and offer a great salary. But I would be living in Asia and wouldn’t be learning more Spanish. While it wouldn’t be boring, I don’t think it would be especially fun. Still, I could save a lot of cash and return after a year, and if the desire persists, I would have the money to travel to a more enticing place or pay for graduate school.

So you see my dilemma. Really my favorite option is to return to Costa Rica to teach another year. If I were writing the script, I would get a job at the new bilingual private school in Uvita and make enough money to fly home for a visit during the year. Unfortunately I’m not writing this script, so it seems I’ll either be living in Saigon or with my parents. Which is worse, do you think?

Paradise

Before I left for Costa Rica, I heard there was one place in the country a person just had to go - Manuel Antonio. I've been there twice before, and both times I left wondering what was so great about it.

Well, the second time I left, I was wondering if the hostel owners knew it was my visiting friends Dave and Linsley and I who used the hostel's entire supply of water flushing out the bungalow's sewage pipes. But that's for a different post.

For the past two weeks, I've been in Manuel Antonio taking a course to get my Teaching English as a Foreign Language certificate. While I'm still not very impressed with the town itelf, I did last weekend discover the national park.

Two friends of mine and I hired a guide to take us through the park and point out all the little critters and stuff. We'd just be walking along and the guide would squint into the forest and say, "Ah, here's something." When I tried to follow his gaze, all I could see was a bunch of trees.

Then he'd point his little telescope into the jungle and in the viewer would be a tiny little bat or a rainbow catapillar or the world's smallest humming bird or a crocodile eye peering up out of the water. My favorites were the sloths.

All of the pictures below were taken through the lense of the telescope. Are they called telescopes, or are telescopes only for looking at stars? I'm not sure.

It's a beautiful sound

I believe the bulk of the rain may be behind us now. We've had so much. I had been thinking all the rain was typical of Costa Rica in October, but according to the front page of the paper Friday, there hasn't be so much rain since 1944. Apparently it rained more in three days last week than it usually does in all of the month. Too much rain makes me sad. But on Friday, I woke up to blue skies. A lady at the bus stop commented to me that the season had changed. Later when I was outside walking with the baby, a high school student asked me if I was taking advantage of summer. Summer! Just like that. Yesterday we were in the dead of winter (77 degrees in my bedroom), and already today we are in summer. The seasons have been on my mind lately, so what else could I do but write a blog post about them. I forgot to post it while I was at the Internet Friday morning, so here it is, a little late but still timely.

I think I understand the bright paints of the houses here now. It's an effort to break up the monotony of green. There is the pure green green of nature everywhere. One glance out the window and all there is green. Scan the horizon and you see nothing but green. Look to your left and two your right. Green, green, green. I used to say with wonder, "It's just so green!" Now I say the same line with something more like disgust. I am ready to be home for a while. I wish for the feeling of fall in Arkansas, the look and smell of it. And the colors! Unlike the enduring green of Costa Rica, the colors of fall in Arkansas come and go so quickly, there is no time to tire of them. I can almost feel the fall wind picking up, bringing with it relief from the heat of summer and a hint of the coming cold. Maybe it's the rain that has me in such a nostaligic state. We are in the thick of it now. It rains off and on all day and all night, and even when it's not raining, the air is heavy with moisture. Water stands in every depression and drips from every eave. Mud is everywhere, tracked in on the bottoms of our shoes, clinging to the cuffs of our jeans, smeared into the hand-woven rugs on the doorsteps. The white uniform shirts of the students are splattered ugly with brown, and their blue slacks stay rolled to the knees. The heels of our flip-flops sling mud onto to the backs of our legs. There is almost more mud than green. The rivers are roaring and brown these days, filling homes and wiping away bridges as they make their way to the sea. And all there is to look forward to is the coming dry season, in which the heat will be as oppressive as the current rain. Back home the seasons hang around just long enough to give a feeling of excited expectancy. And when they change, we feel reassured by their reliability. In winter, we listen for the birds of spring and are comforted by the sight of flowers blooming. In Spring we tire of the thunderstorms and rain showers and long for the opportunities brought by summer. But in summer, it gets so hot. Won't fall be here soon? And then it comes and goes, and we remark gleefully, as we do every year, on the cozy smell that comes when we turn on our heaters for the first time. We cook chili and hope for snow. But it's not long before we are again listening for the birds of spring and taking note of the first green spikes peaking up from the ground. Other than family and friends, and there for a spell, tuna sandwiches, I have not missed much about the United States. I know others have missed its politics, its department stores, it's accessibility, but I have been fine living without those things, happier even, although I am finding it hard to live without the four seasons of home.

Happy Autumn!

Along came mister alligator

When I was in Ciudad Cortez, we stopped in front of a house, and my friend yelled to a man on the front porch, "Can we see the alligators?" The man turned out to be crazy, I think, but we managed to get from his jibberish that, yes, we could see the alligators. We walked through the house and out the back door. There was a stinking little pond there with pairs of alligator eyes sticking up from the surface all around. I chose not to walk across the bridge.

Another view

I am sitting in the fanciest Internet café ever. It’s all sleek and black with widescreen monitors and ceiling fans. There was no school in all of the country on Wednesday or Thursday of this week, so while many of my gringo friends headed off to the beach, I squeezed into the extended cab of a pickup and headed to a town called Coronado.

I went to help the sister, Zaida, of one of my colleagues at school edit her thesis, which is in English and due in December. The women grew up on a farm on the Terrabá River just almost where the river rolls out into the sea. All of the brothers and sisters (I think there are six or seven of them) work during the week in other towns but return to the farm on weekends to visit, or in the case of my colleague Jeanette, live.

My experience there was more like what I expected from Costa Rica when I first came here. The people were genuinely nice and laid back and just having a great time. They joked and laughed, and because Zaida speaks English, she could translate most of it for me. We went kayaking on the river and it reminded me of being at home, as a teenager, at the bayou.

They have a pig farm and all the pig poop gets drained into a big plastic bag. From the plastic bag, the leftover pig farts run through a pipe to the house, where the gas is used to heat the stove. Every thing we ate for lunch yesterday was caught or gathered or grown on the farm. We had fish soup with coconut milk and rice, all cooked with gas collected from the pigs. It was one of the most delicious meals I’ve eaten in Costa Rica.

After lunch, Zaida and I went to work on her thesis. She was writing in her second language, so there were lots of problems. We weren’t even halfway through the 40-page report when she announced I’d just have to go to her house to spend the night.

This is one of the things that still catches me off guard here. There was no, "Hey would you mind spending the night at my house tonight? I’d be a big help." It’s just, "Looks like your coming to my house tonight. Go get your bags."

I talked myself out of being huffy about this and instead gathered my bags and jumped into the car. On the way to her house, she took me to a little pond where there were lots of alligators. So that was nice. When we got to her house, I forgot all about being almost huffy. Her two-story peach-colored house has walls that go all the way to the ceiling, bathrooms with sinks in them, big puffy couches, cable TV, and a spotless kitchen. It even has an aquarium! And hot water!

We finished the thesis and watched Maria Jose lose to the Panamanian on Latin American Idol. I was bummed, but then I took a hot shower and forgot all about it. I slept bug-free last night and woke up right on top of the world. This morning Zaida dropped me off at the bus station, and while I had a great time with her and her family, I was grateful to be alone again. I hopped on the bus and set out for Buenos Aires to do my regular Friday e-mail check.

We made it as far as Palmar Norte, the town I am in now. Just as we were pulling out to continue on our way, the bus veered smack into a car, and the waiting began. It was just a little crash, but the police had to come and measure whatever they measure in these situations, and the drivers had to blow into the machine to see if they were drunk, which the person sitting behind me said the bus driver probably was because he’d seen him drinking guaro last night. I didn’t stick around to find out. Ticos can wait forever, I know, but I can’t. So I got my money back and walked off in search of an Internet Café. And here I am. This afternoon I’ll go back to the bus station and try my luck again. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go to Buenos Aires and post pictures from Coronado.

The whole wide world

In hopes of contributing something to this town besides a southern accent, I've decided to paint a map of the world on a wall of the school. So far I've finished most of the grid and some of Russia. The other teachers at my school seem a little worried about how the map will turn out. I keep telling them to be patient, that it will all come together, but I'm not so sure myself. The world is just so big.

Recess in the rainy season

Work of art

Not so bad

What a day already. It started out all fine and good with the ever-soothing sounds of roosters crowing outside the window of my hotel room. Somehow the crow of a cock is less annoying than the sound of my host mom trying to keep the baby from crying.

"Mire, mire, un bicho. Donde esta el bicho?" over and over again, as loud as she can talk without actually screaming at the top of her lungs.

That's "Look, look, a bug. Where's the bug?"

I always know from underneath my T-shirt sheet (graciously left for me by some former volunteer) that the bug she speaks of is a cockroach. We have quite an infestation. And that's why I decided to sleep in a hotel in Buenos Aires last night. My host mom promised to fumigate my room.

A few years ago a cockroach crawled into the ear of a volunteer living in my house and wrapped its little serrated legs around the volunteer's eardrum. He had to take the bus six hours to a doctor in San Jose, all the while hearing the nasty little critter scratch graffiti into the wall of his ear.

But that's a different story that has very little to do with my current frustrations. Like I said already, everything started out swell. I watched two movies in English last night while enjoying a picnic dinner - prepackaged refried red beans in Lizano sauce, corn tortillas, three processed-cheese slices, two beers and a can of spicy-hot tomato juice.

I slept well in the spacious double bed, although the non-T-shirt-style sheet left something to be desired. By the way, did you know that the word "T-shirt" sounds an awful lot like the word "teacher"?

"What do you wear to sleep?"

"I wear teacher to sleep."

"No, no, no, you wear a T-shirt to sleep."

"Yeah, that's what I said."

Anyway, for breakfast, I went to my favorite bakery where they know to go ahead and fix me a coffee with milk, no sugar. I drank my coffee and ate my strawberry-filled pastry and skimmed the newspaper, not finding any news too horrible.

I went to the ATM to discover I’ve been paid and am not as dead broke as I thought. Then I ran some errands and finally made my way to the Internet café.

And this is where things got frustrating, but you know, for the life of me, I can’t remember what was so frustrating about it, other than it took more than an hour and a half to open my Gmail account. I was really fired up about it when I started this post, but after listing all the good things that have occurred this weekend – cockroach-free living, movies in English, beer, double bed, coffee and pastries, money – well, now it seems that other than the fact that the space bar sticks on this keyboard, I have nothing to complain about.

More Independence

Corina, Corina

The youngest member of the Potrero Grande cheerleading squad:

Baile Tipico

Here are my fifth graders competing in a regional talent competition. They didn't win, but they sure were cute.

Free day

Today is Sunday. A man just drove up on a four-wheeler and parked right in my line of sight. I've been lying around in the outside hammock all weekend reading The Poisonwood Bible for the third time. When the guy got off the four-wheeler, I saw that it has the name “The Ozark” emblazoned across the side, with little hilltops forming a logo above the name. If only the Ozarks really had just pulled right up to my front door!

Today is Independence Day. We had a parade this morning, which was actually very good. There were no floats or anything, just people marching and banging drums and whatnot, but it was festive. Apparently all the other teachers had decided to wear white shirts with red bandanas today, but no one ever told me, so I walked around in a brown - of all colors - shirt looking once again like the dufus gringa. Oh, well, I told myself, this isn't my country anyway. No need to be patriotic.

The cheerleaders also cheered in the parade. I had been wondering what they would be cheering for. For all I knew, the parade would end with a soccer match, and the girls would be rooting for one team or the other as cheerleaders usually do. But there was no game or teams or rooting for one or the other at all. The cheerleaders were cheering for - get this - peace!

Give me a V!
V!
Give me an I!
I!
Give mean a V!
V!
Give me an A!
A!
Give me an L!
L!
Give me an A!
A!
Give me a P!
P!
Give me an A!
A!
Give me a Z!
Z!

Three cheers for peace!!

What a strange concept.

The Independence Day events started yesterday morning, with a school assembly at 9 a.m. The kids got to skip mass, but they had to put their school uniforms on and stand in single-file line according to grade and height and listen to some boooooring (then again, how would I know? I don't understand a word anyone says) explanation of Costa Rican independence.

Someone asked me what we Americans from the United States do to celebrate our independence. We sure don't have school assemblies on Sunday mornings. Mostly there are beer and bodies of water involved. That or we don't do much of anything. I was always working on the Fourth of July.

Last night every town, big and small, in Costa Rica, marched with lanterns. I think they called them faroles, not sure, but the kids made them out of cardboard boxes and plastic, colored paper. Some were painted to look like houses or churches; others were just symmetrical designs or nothing at all. I didn't have one, because, I of course, had no idea why the little cardboard houses were piling up in the classrooms, and no one bothered to tell me I should make one of my own so as to march with it with the whole rest of the country on the night before the anniversary of independence. Once again, not my country, not my tradition, not my fault.

There was another school assembly just before the lantern display, which was mostly the kids mumbling along to the recording of the national anthem that blasted, way too loud, from the speaker of the town's ambulance, which is an old four-by-four SUV with lights -- and speakers apparently -- planted on top.

The lantern march culminated with a talent show that, in my honest opinion, was one big disaster. The first act was fine. The fifth graders danced a traditional dance in their colorful, billowy skirts and embroidered lace tops. But then the kindergartners got up there in their adorable little outfits and the whole auditorium was on their feet for a better look. By the time the third group started, the place was a riot and I went home.

Graciously there were two chopped up fish -- eyes and mouths and tails and scales and all -- sitting on a cutting board in my kitchen just waiting to be thrown into the frying pan. All that celebrating had made me hungry. Viva la paz!

Keeper of the trees

During a backyard photo shoot, the results of which you will see in the next couple of posts, I noticed this guy staring down at me. Yikes!

Strange Fruit

Just look at all this fruit right in my backyard. We've got yellow pipas and green pipas -- the local cure for hangovers. We've got enough oranges, in two trees, to keep me full of fresh-squeezed juice three meals a day. We've got papayas, which I really don't care for but are said to be a good cure for constipation, so I eat them every so often. And we've got cacao, which grows off the trunk of the tree, like deflated balloons the day after a birthday party. Not to mention the plantain tree that happened to not be bearing fruit during this particular photo shoot and the avocado tree that gave me all those delicous avocados a few months back.

Time

Time is flying. I've only got three months left of teaching, minus the two weeks of classes I'll miss while I'm getting my Teaching English as a Foreign Language certificate. A few weeks ago, when I was homesick, three months seemed like an eternity, but now it seems like not nearly enough time. I still have lots to teach these kids, and there's the Internet cafe to set up, world map to paint on the wall of the school, and so much Spanish left to learn. How can three months possibly be enough?

It won't be, but I guess there’s no use in panicking. When I first started teaching, I sort of hated the kids. They were always tugging at me and and blabbing away in a language I couldn't understand. Now I can barely stand the thought of leaving them.

They grow and change so fast, and I want to be around to see more of it. Of course, some are moving more slowly than others. Cristofer still cries when I ask him to copy pictures from the board to his notebook. He tears holes in the paper with all the furious erasing and re-erasing he does before melting into a fountain of tears at his desk. Kendal still spontaneously jumps up from his desk during class to wrap his little arms around my waist in a loving but disruptive hug. Yesterday Jean Carlos (pronounced Yan-Carlos, or Yanka, for short) spit casually onto the floor beside his desk.

Others are too smart for first grade. Keilor now rushes ahead and shouts out in perfect English the words to the songs I sing before I get a chance to sing them. I'll still be singing, "Teasing Mister Alligator...." and he'll already be wagging his finger and saying tauntingly, "Can't catch me."

And where I used to lead the alphabet with hand motions, Leo now says the letters before I do, so I just follow along with the rest of the class. The other day on the bus, when I didn't understand what Carlitos was saying in Spanish and asked him to repeat it, he said, "Casi llegamos a mi house," swapping in the English word to make it easier for me to follow.

Just imagine what they'll be like with a few more years of English classes. I hate to think I won't be around to see it.

Ready. OK.

My school has a cheerleading squad now made up of a few girls from each grade. A sixth-grader leads the practices, and they have been working hard all week, along with a group of marchers and flag bearers, in preparation for a big Independence Day celebration tomorrow and Monday.

The cheerleaders have been practicing with pom poms made out of shredded newspaper, but yesterday I helped a mom cut white plastic sacks into strips for more professional-looking ones. I remember one embarrassing year when I was a cheerleader and how we ordered pom poms from a cheerleading catalogue. They were big and fluffy, and we kept them in laundry bags decorated with puff paint. These girls wouldn't even know what to think about that.

I wish I hadn't been such a horrible cheerleader; I might be able to teach these girls how to cheer. They hop and tumble around in the most pitiful disarray I've ever seen. I can't wait to see them in the parade with their homemade red-and-white gingham dresses and caps and the plastic-bag pom poms. I wish I had a video camera.

Karaoke and Cumbia

Flori, the cook at my school wants to move to Spain. She wants to leave her two teenage children at home with her brother so she can go off and make more money. She asked me today if I knew how much a plane ticket would cost to Madrid. Of course, I had no idea, but I looked it up on the Internet. At least a thousand bucks. I don't think she'll go. I hope she doesn't go. I don't think a mother should leave her children like that, even if she is doing it for them, so they can have a better future. Then again, maybe she should go, so they can have a better future. I don't know.

Flori and three others from my school -- Alejandra, Felix and Karen -- invited me to go out with them last night. We all (including Luis, the 9-year-old son of Alejandra) piled into Alejandra's Geo Tracker and bounced our way more than an hour up a rocky, narrow road to some bar way out in the middle of the nowhere. She kept saying that it was a great place to go even if it was a bit out of the way. I wasn't so sure. We just kept going and going and going, and my body was starting to hurt from all the bouncing. Finally we pulled up to some bar that looked pretty much like all the other bars we had passed along the way, only it had a swimming pool. The swimming pool didn't have any water in it, but still it was a swimming pool. We were the only ones there (because we were the only ones anywhere for miles), so we got free reign over karaoke, but alas, there was only one song in English – My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion. I sang it.

It turned out to be a really fun night, and the ride home didn't seem nearly as long as the ride there. The most exciting part was that my colleagues called me Jennifer instead of Teacher, like I'm a real person. That was nice. And I learned to dance Cumbia finally. Flori, the one who wants to go to Spain, was patient and taught me, and pretty soon we were Cumbia-ing all over the dance floor. I wasn't very good at it, but it was fun.

Yum

Today is Kids' Day in Costa Rica, so after filling myself with celebratory cake and fried chicken, I skipped out on afternoon parties to come to Buenos Aires. I had to make some photocopies, mail a wedding gift and give you a quick ayote update.

Last night my host mom finally cut the black, rotting, fly-covered end of the ayote that's been sitting uncovered on the kitchen counter for a couple of weeks and tossed it into a bucket in the yard. She took the remaining good parts of the ayote, cut them up and cooked them on the stove.


It was so delicious I asked for seconds for the first time all year. Ayote is even better than pumpkin. I just wanted you to know. And to all you kids out there, happy day.

Trick or treat

A couple of weeks ago, my host mom asked me if I'd ever eaten such a thing as the long, orange gourd sitting on the kitchen counter. I looked at it and said, no, not unless I've eaten it here without knowing it. She said, no, she'd never made it for me but that she thought it tasted a little like a vegetable we have in the United States.

"Poo...poo....pooomkin?"

Pumpkin!

Pumpkin is my favorite food. I love carving them at my birthday parties, and I love pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread and pumpkin soup and pumpkin rolls and roasted pumpkin seeds, and pumpkin ice cream, even pureed pumpkin right out of the can.

Finally, one day last week, my host mom cut into the squash called ayote and brought a piece of it to my bedroom to see if I agreed that the inside looks like pumpkin. It's bright orange with flat, white seeds mixed into stringy-looking stuff. Just like pumpkin. My mouth was watering.

She threw chunks of it - skin, seeds and all - into a pot of think, brown, sticky, boiling sugar-cane juice (grown and processed just down the road from my house). After it all simmered together for a while, she put some on a plate for me to try. I could hardly wait for the pumpkiny goodness to hit my tongue.

It was pretty gross. I couldn't even taste the ayote for all the sugar cane. I felt like I needed to pretend to like it, though, after all the fuss I made with taking pictures and all.

There's still three-quarters of the ayote sitting on the kitchen table, which will either sit there until the fruit flies carry it off, or, even worse, until she cooks more. I would ask her if I can cook something with it, something more pumpkin-like, but as you know, my attempts at cooking in Costa Rica haven't gone well so far.

1, 2, 3, English!

Maybe I've posted this picture before, but it's my very favorite picture of my students. These second-graders are yelling "House!" as they pose in front of the house on the school grounds. They did the same with "Playground!", "Lunch room!", "Classroom!", "Office!", "Bathroom!" and "School!" Then I printed out the pictures and used them as flashcards. Now when it's time for lunch, I say, "Let's go to the lunch room," and they actually know what I'm talking about.

Pile

Back on Mother's Day, I tried to make my host mom a cake. It didn't work.

So cute

This is Cristofer. He's my smallest, most immature student in the school. In this picture, he has just said, "Teacher, I'm hungry." It makes me so proud.