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.

Up and down

Last weekend was great. My host mom actually pulled the dining table out from against the wall and gathered enough chairs and stools for all of us. We all sat around the table for lunch and celebrated Mother's Day together with rice and tuna and potato chips and Coke. It was the first time we've ever eaten together.

My mood dropped during the week, though, mostly because I didn't like the food my host mom gave me. Ugh. I can't wait to get the United States just so I can eat a familiar meal. Rice and beans are fine, but I can't handle any more fried hot dogs.

And everyone is just so loud. I am homesick for my own place, I guess.

I think I felt an earthquake this morning. I was lying in bed waiting for my alarm clock to go off when my bed rocked ever so slightly from side to side. What else could it have been?

There is a popular song on the radio right now with the chorus in English. It says, "I want to love you, love you, all of the time..."

Some kid in my town has the CD with the unedited version, which says, "I want to f!@# you, f*^@ you, all of the time..."

The kids are constantly dancing to it, and it horrifies me, but when I try to explain that the words are really bad, no one seems to care. Yesterday, a kid ran by me singing the chorus, then turned to me and said, "Teacher, que significa 'I want to f^%& you?'"

Algo muy feo.

Which reminds me. There's been a gringo moreno (black guy from the U.S.) living for three months in one of the little hotel rooms my family owns. My host mom said he's from Arkansas, but I find it hard to believe there would be two Arkansans living in Potrero Grande. He's been climbing a nearby mountain, I think, but when he's not climbing, he mostly keeps to himself in his room.

The other day my host mom came in and asked if I would go talk to the moreno because he told her he was afraid and was leaving Potrero Grande. She didn't understand his Spanish enough to know why he was afraid. I went over and talked to him and learned that he was afraid of a lynching, basically. I guess some locals had been taunting him with the word, "Nigger," and he was afraid one or two or three of them might eventually come after him with a machete or something. I can't say I blame him for leaving, although I doubt anyone would’ve really threatened him physically.

I tried to explain all of this to my host family -- about how much violence the "N" word carries with it, but there's just no way for them to understand. In a place where the most popular hip-hop artist goes by the stage name "Nigga," it's almost a lost cause.

So you guys are probably wanting a good story or something, but I got nothing. It's pretty much the same ol' same ol' around here. Rice and beans. Rice and beans. Rice and beans.

Today is Mother's Day, so I'm in Beunos Aires to buy a cake for my host mom.

The school year is flying by; there's only one trimester left. It seems like just yesterday that I stood in front of those kids for the first time, wondering how in the world I would ever learn all their names. Now look at us.

My fifth graders surprised me yesterday with a Mother's Day gift. It was a candy-filled coffee mug that says something in Spanish about what a wonderful mom I am. They even all signed a card. I can't wait to drink out of that mug years from now and think back on the little monsters. I wonder if they'll ever really speak English.

The biggest mistake I've made in the classroom this year is letting the kids speak Spanish to each other. It's just that when I first started, Spanish was nothing more than background noise to me. I hardly even noticed it. But now I see that the classroom would be much more affective, not to mention quieter, if the kids could only speak English. When they do speak English, I let them speak it as much as they want, which is starting to drive me crazy. "Teacher, what time is it?" Over and over and over.

My host family's car is still in the shop. Apparently it's going to cost $1,600 to fix it. Its absence has been nice, though, because my host dad hung a hammock in the empty carport. Now there are two hammocks outside in the shade, which is nice. Two is always better than one.

One of the friends with whom I went to the beach last weekend called the other day to say she is deathly ill with a specific food poisoning that comes from eating bad fish. The only fish she'd eaten was a fish burrito she and I shared at the beach. She called because her doctor asked her to warn me that I would surely be sick, too, but I haven't had so much as a stomachache. I guess the water in Potrero Grande is finally working to my advantage.

My house, for some reason, is now the place people come to pay their water bills. The other day I was sitting in the pulperia window when a guy came up to pay his bill. My host mom told him, "OK, but you're going to have to wait. I'm drinking coffee right now."

As she walked back to the kitchen, I, being the gringa that am, braced myself for the man's reaction. I assumed he'd puff his cheeks and roll his eyes and say something about not having all the time in the world to sit around waiting for people to drink their coffee. But instead, he just nodded his head, turned around and leaned easily against the counter. "Alright, no problem."

Can you even imagine?

And here are a few pictures I took this week. Check out Marcela´s wrist. Ouch! I couldn’t really understand her Spanish when she explained what happened, but I did catch vidrio, which means glass. Also, my second-graders are learning food vocabulary. This is Brayan with his name in Arkansas rice.

Easy going

I've been to the beach. Again. I know; life's tough. I met up with some friends on the 6 a.m. bus out of my town yesterday, and we hopped buses until we made it to the ocean. We watched surfers and talked all day. We were all asleep by 9 p.m., and I got up early this morning to catch a bus back to my town.

Next Friday is Mother's Day here, a holiday right up there with Christmas in this country. We don't have school that day, and I plan to stay in my town all weekend to celebrate the mothers I know there. I'll probably be bored by Saturday, though, and will likely come out for some Internet time.

Everything is still going fine here, but I'm looking more and more forward to coming home at the end of the year. My bouts of homesickness are getting more frequent. Still, I'm happy as can be. Wish I had more to tell, but I don't.

Until I do, feliz Dia De La Madre.

Wallpaper

Free falling

In Costa Rica, the people don't ask, "How did you sleep?" but "How did you wake up?" And on Wednesday, I woke up especially well.

I bounced into the kitchen and gave my host family a hearty "Buenos Dias," which was returned with the suggestion that I take the day off to go on a little trip with them. No classes? Okay!

So, my host sister, Liliana, her baby, Andreina, and I loaded into the back of my host dad's SUV, which used to be an ambulance but is now a miniature school bus. My host dad, Millo, was taking two guys up the mountain to a no-man's-land place called Tres Colinas. The men were going there to install solar panels, and Liliana, Andreina and I were going along just for the ride.

My host mom packed me a lunch of rice and beans, gave us a bag of local bananas and sent us on our way with sweatshirts and a blanket for the baby. I thought to myself as we bounced up the rocky mountain road that Millo's car sure was tough. I'd not once seen it break down or even sputter.

I hate it when I speak too soon. We had almost made it to Tres Colinas when steam starting pouring out from under the hood. We'd overheated, and despite all of my host mom's preparations, we didn't have a drop of water.

I started up the mountain, and my host dad went down it, while Liliana stayed in the car with the baby. One of the guys we were transporting walked up the mountain with me and eventually got a signal on his cell phone. A rubber-booted man from Tres Colinas arrived within 30 minutes with two big jugs of water.

But my host dad was long gone down the mountain, so we tried starting the car without him. The motor wouldn't even turn over. All we got was that annoying click click click. The solar-panel guys put their solar-panel gear in the rubber-boots guy's car and headed up the mountain with him.

Liliana and the baby and I just waited in the car until finally we spotted Millo coming with help. On a horse. The horse belonged to a Tico name Kenneth, of all names, who lives alone in a sparse little house on the side of the mountain.

With me in the driver seat working the breaks and steering wheel, we managed to get the dead former ambulance turned around and heading in a down-the-mountain direction. Then we climbed in and rolled down. We stopped off at Kenneth's house to use the bathroom (which was not the kind with actual plumbing) and have our lunch. It was beautiful on the side of that mountain.

Eventually, with the help of a tractor that passed by, and later a truck that passed by, we made it back home.

I don't know what ever happed to the solar-panel people. They may still be stuck on top of that mountain. I'm sure the whole thing was a real inconvenience for them, but for me it was a great adventure. And because I never got to see Tres Colinas, my host family promises they will take me again some day.

It's never too early

If there is a national pastime among women in Costa Rica, especially in the rural parts, I think it is sweeping the floor. Or maybe gossiping, but that's women everywhere, so we'll say it's sweeping.

From the youngest daughter to the oldest woman, it seems at least one female in every household has a broom in her hand at all times during the day. Just this morning, I was sweeping my bedroom (for the first time in many, many days) when my host sister Liliana walked by and cheered, "Eso, Jennifer!"

Liliana's the same host sister who swept the beach that time, remember? And she's the same one who brought her eight-month-old daughter a very special gift this week.