Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Day 3
Back to normal today. I got to actually do quite a bit of teaching, which was fun. The highlight was finishing the powerpoint that I'd made about the California Gold Rush. It goes along with a story we're reading this week, so I've squeezed in a few extra social studies lessons about it. Students' biggest concern so far has been the havoc that the miners wreaked upon the environment. I wish I had a mining pan...
Day 2
Never fear, the lice did not get me...yet. I realize I'm posting this a day late, but we had a field trip yesterday and I was pretty tired when I got home. The Spanish teacher organized a trip to the Museo de Cultura Popular, which was actually a museum about Costa Rican traditions. It was kind of like the haciendas that we study in California. There was an old house with lots of traditional things in it, and the students got to make a traditional pastry. We then went and had lunch at a restaurant that had traditional food. It was pretty fun, and I would say it was ultimately successful. We didn't lose anyone, the kids got to run around all day, and I didn't have to be the responsible one for this trip, even though it's my takeover week. Of course, the students' attention span was pretty much shot by the time we came back at 1:00, so we spent the afternoon doing different kinds of reading (my students' favorite). I had secret fears that the students would never come off of their sugar high.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Takeover, take 2
Day 1: Lice outbreak. We're in for a good week!
Luckily, only one kid has it at this point, but of course, we couldn't get ahold of her mother and so the girl was in class all day. Cue foreboding music here...
Luckily, only one kid has it at this point, but of course, we couldn't get ahold of her mother and so the girl was in class all day. Cue foreboding music here...
Monday, April 5, 2010
Semana Santa
After some consideration, I’ve realized that almost all good books have some sort of suspenseful chapter. I guess my chapter has been our Semana Santa trip. Because the student teachers don’t get visas to come to Costa Rica, at some point during our first three months we have to flee the country for 72 hours. We decided to do our fleeing to Bocas del Toro in Panama, followed by a several day trip to Puerto Viejo, back in Costa Rica. Of course, two days before we’re scheduled to leave, we’re still trying to find places to stay and ways to get there. Luckily, this story has a happy ending, and as often happens in these types of adventure stories, everything turned out well. I will admit though, that when we left at six in the morning on our first day, I did still have my doubts.
This trip turned out to be exactly what I needed. Talk about an island paradise; Bocas del Toro was gorgeous! Bocas del Toro is actually several islands located on the Caribbean side of Panama. Our hostel wasn’t on the main island, so we had to take two water taxis to get there. This picture shows the main
town on our island. We, however, were around the other side of the island in what was scarily referred to as “el projecto.” When we heard this, we were afraid we’d booked ourselves some place in the ghetto. It was worth the trek though; our hostel turned out to be in the middle of the jungle, about five minutes from the beach. This beach was more idyllic than I thought could exist in real life. The sand was white and so soft that you would sink in up to your ankles as you walked. The water was slightly cool (however, by “cool,” I don’t mean like back home where you can stay in the water without a wetsuit on for about five minutes before hypothermia sets in. In this context, “cool” just means compared to other beaches we’ve been to. The water was still probably about 70 degrees) and a beautiful clear blue.
However, let’s go back a little. This is a picture of our border crossing into Panama. The border itself consists of a hut on
each side of the river where they stamp your passport, and this bridge. Although this picture does convey quite a bit of the actual experience, it might also help you to picture this bridge if you think of the Pismo pier, with several boards missing every few feet, and many of the boards not nailed down all the way. Add about 20 pounds for the bags we were carrying with us and you have a pretty decent idea of what our experience was like. Minus, of course, the multiple hours spent in the hot sun waiting to get our stamps, only to find out we needed to be in another line first and come back to the one we were in.
This picture is much happier and was taken on the day that we went snorkeling. We had the beach almost entirely to ourselves and got to spend the day snorkeling
and looking at cool fish. The coral wasn’t as colorful as I was hoping, but because the water was really shallow, we got to see the fish pretty up close and personal. It was a trek and a half to get there though. I kept waiting to hear the Indiana Jones theme song play, but apparently the sound effects crew had taken the day off. We hiked along the beach, through the ocean, over dead trees, through shoe-eating mud, and in a jungle of ensnaring vines. Although consistently the over-packer, I was nevertheless disappointed that I had neglected to bring my machete on this little jaunt.
All in all, this was a pretty fantastic week. I don’t know when, but Bocas is definitely somewhere I want to come back to sometime in the future. Anybody have any plans for next year’s spring break? :)
This trip turned out to be exactly what I needed. Talk about an island paradise; Bocas del Toro was gorgeous! Bocas del Toro is actually several islands located on the Caribbean side of Panama. Our hostel wasn’t on the main island, so we had to take two water taxis to get there. This picture shows the main
town on our island. We, however, were around the other side of the island in what was scarily referred to as “el projecto.” When we heard this, we were afraid we’d booked ourselves some place in the ghetto. It was worth the trek though; our hostel turned out to be in the middle of the jungle, about five minutes from the beach. This beach was more idyllic than I thought could exist in real life. The sand was white and so soft that you would sink in up to your ankles as you walked. The water was slightly cool (however, by “cool,” I don’t mean like back home where you can stay in the water without a wetsuit on for about five minutes before hypothermia sets in. In this context, “cool” just means compared to other beaches we’ve been to. The water was still probably about 70 degrees) and a beautiful clear blue.However, let’s go back a little. This is a picture of our border crossing into Panama. The border itself consists of a hut on
each side of the river where they stamp your passport, and this bridge. Although this picture does convey quite a bit of the actual experience, it might also help you to picture this bridge if you think of the Pismo pier, with several boards missing every few feet, and many of the boards not nailed down all the way. Add about 20 pounds for the bags we were carrying with us and you have a pretty decent idea of what our experience was like. Minus, of course, the multiple hours spent in the hot sun waiting to get our stamps, only to find out we needed to be in another line first and come back to the one we were in.This picture is much happier and was taken on the day that we went snorkeling. We had the beach almost entirely to ourselves and got to spend the day snorkeling
and looking at cool fish. The coral wasn’t as colorful as I was hoping, but because the water was really shallow, we got to see the fish pretty up close and personal. It was a trek and a half to get there though. I kept waiting to hear the Indiana Jones theme song play, but apparently the sound effects crew had taken the day off. We hiked along the beach, through the ocean, over dead trees, through shoe-eating mud, and in a jungle of ensnaring vines. Although consistently the over-packer, I was nevertheless disappointed that I had neglected to bring my machete on this little jaunt.All in all, this was a pretty fantastic week. I don’t know when, but Bocas is definitely somewhere I want to come back to sometime in the future. Anybody have any plans for next year’s spring break? :)
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Feliz Pascual!
Jesus Christ is risen, he is risen indeed! I have never seen people as happy about Easter as I have seen here. On Friday I stumbled upon a Good Friday procession. It involved hundreds of people, accompanied by centurion soldiers, an angel, drum corps, and band playing dirges, walking around about six blocks with statues of the body of Christ, Mary, and John (I think—I’m not very familiar with my saints. Maybe it was Peter?). Last night my housemates and I went for part of a three hour mass dedicated to Christ’s resurrection. It was beautiful; the liturgy readings started in the book of Genesis and traced God’s plan of salvation from the creation of the world through the stories of Abraham and Isaac and God bringing the people of Israel out of Egypt
I’m not sure exactly how we’ll be celebrating today. Apparently last night was more of an important liturgical day than today is. However, I think our day will probably include a large and delicious lunch, followed by going to mass with our señora. However all of you end up celebrating today, I hope everyone has a very happy Easter!
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