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!