Tortugero

We finally went on our first trip! Last weekend my housemate and I went to Tortugero on a turtle-spotting expedition. It was a fantastic trip. Not only did we get to go tool around some cool rain forest canals, we also saw tons of wildlife, had good accommodations, were accompanied by the tour organizer who was a self-proclaimed expert on everything, and visited with an odd assortment of traveling companions that seemed to be included for free in the tour. Some of our group included:
-the taciturn Swiss who was a civil engineer. He didn't really help to make the dinner conversation any less awkward than it already was.
-the pessimistic Brit who complained about everything, especially about the fact that people in this country did not know how to make a decent cup of tea.
-the honeymooning Israeli couple. The recent groom had a great command of English and added a lot of jokes to otherwise boring tour lectures.
-the drunk couple from Colorado. The wife was scared of everything!

But aside from the human oddities, the wildlife was great. The only thing we didn't see was a manatee. Of course, the turtles were the star of the show. They were huge! When I heard that the endangered green turtles were big, I was picturing something slightly larger than a serving platter. It came as a bit of shock then, when I saw turtles about four feet long and at least three feet wide. I'm pretty sure that these turtles could have squashed me flat if they'd really wanted to. We went on a night tour with a local guide to see the turtles and got to see several turtles digging nests, laying eggs, and then going back to the ocean. We weren't allowed to bring lights or cameras with us, but I did manage to take this picture of a baby turtle during the afternoon. We just happened to be walking down the beach and were near a spot where some eggs were hatching. It's hard to believe, but these little guys were flying down the beach. I think they covered about a hundred feet in under a minute!

Here are some of the other fun locals we got to see:

A sloth with its baby was just chilling beside the road. We pulled the whole van over so we could take advantage of the photo opp.

Can you tell what's looking at you?

A sign at our hotel (which as you can see, was right next to one of the canals). No big deal, right?

This is the "town" of Tortugero. It has one main street. The Tortugero area is really a bunch of islands surround by the ocean on one side and a network of canals on the others. The only way to reach this town is by an hour and a half boat ride, so it's a little weird to think that some people live their entire lives in this one secluded spot. Our local guide was a third generation member of one of the founding families. He said his grandfather had originally come to the area as a pirate who was looking to hunt turtles. Now all of the inhabitants are working to save the turtles since Tortugero has been turned into a national park and one of the only ways to bring in income is to be a guide for the tourists.

Overall, quite a fun trip. If any of you happen to be in Costa Rica between late August and early October, I would highly recommend it!

Independence Day

While most of us in California are familiar with El Dieciséis de Setiembre (Mexican Independence Day), most of us do not know--and formerly I was also part of this group--that Costa Rican Independence Day is on the fifteenth of September. However, I now count myself as having been one of its most enthusiastic celebrators. Lincoln School, wishing to instill patriotic spirit in all of its young children, declared an entire independence week of activities.

Guess who was put on the organizing committee for this week.

Ironically, in the group of seven organizers, three are gringas, and another three (with some overlap) are new teachers to Lincoln. You can guess how organized and gung-ho many of us felt about this. In the course of a week, we organized two assemblies, daily announcements, authentic music to be played fifteen minutes before school every day, and a lantern parade. One of my specific jobs was to teach my children some kind of poem about one of Costa Rica's national symbols. On the recommendation of the Spanish teacher I chose a poem about the yiguirro (with an umlaut over the u), the national bird. For those of you who don't know, the yiguirro is an ugly and ungainly type of brown robin. I let you judge the bird for yourself:
Anyways, I couldn't even say the word correctly, let alone lead the class in saying the poem. After my initial reading of it to the class, we had to have the discussion about the students not laughing at my accent because I don't laugh at theirs; we're all here to learn together, etc. etc. It was a very teachable moment. However, despite the language difficulties, my students not only learned the poem, but had it memorized for both assemblies. On assembly days, the students came in their "typico" outfits, and were really rather cute. Ask me to show you pictures when I come home; I'm not allowed to post them on the internet.

Luckily, we also had the actual 15th off from school. I celebrated by going to the local park and listening to some live music, before going downtown to San Jose in search of merrymaking. My housemate and I stumbled upon a parade, which mostly was made up of drum corps and flag-wavers with varying degrees of talent. However, I've always loved bands and drum corps, so I had a lot of fun. One of the best parts was seeing tons of kids wearing their typical outfits. It's neat seeing a custom that really is part of the local celebration, rather than something that's put on for tourists. But despite the fun, I think I'm pretty independenced out. I'm glad that I'll actually be able to get back to, oh yeah, TEACHING during these next few weeks.

This is a picture of my classroom all decked out to celebrate. The homeroom parents helped organize the collecting and putting up of the decorations. Sadly, most of the streamers fell down within the week...

My First First Day of School

Well, it really is official: I'm a teacher. In fact, I'm a teacher with and classroom and 23 students of my very own. This is of course, an important distinction to make because for many teachers in California (and some here at Lincoln, for that matter) this is not the case. Teacher, classroom, and students are no longer three items that can automatically be put into one group. But I digress. In the past two weeks, I've also started school and had my very first Parents Night. All in all, it's been a good--but very hectic--start of the school year. Here are before and after pictures of my classroom.

I'm not sure what the security guards thought of me as I trundled up to the gate with my classroom luggage, but it all started here. Of the four suitcases I brought, two were taken up with fun teaching things that I thought would help me get a leg up in the world.

Note the bare, stark look of things.

Now note the happy and welcoming atmosphere

that says, "hello small children and parents; this is a nice place and the room of caring, creative, and competent teacher."

I have to admit that I was almost ridiculously proud to see my name on the door.

And of course, a first day of school picture.

As I mentioned, I have 23 students in my class. Of the 23, I have four native English speakers who are officially classified as SSL (Spanish as a Second Language). One of these students started school a week after everyone else, so we've had fun doing some catch up there. The other students are a mix of four ADD students, one barely English proficient student, and a miscellaneous mix of huggy, affectionate children.

So far, the parents are almost as nice as their children. Parents Night was a little scary, but by putting in what felt like a million extra hours, I had a lovely, presentable classroom and an attractive powerpoint to show them. Since many of the parents speak less English than their children, I'm not sure how much actually got through of my well-spoken presentation, but oh well. Let's hope that the parents still like me by the time I have to brave Parent/teacher Conferences!

Victory!

The luggage has arrived! All of it, and in one piece. Thanks for the prayers!

Back Again

Traveling, I have heard, is supposed to be a "broadening" experience. Of course, no one ever says in which way you are supposed to stretch. It looks like my first few days in Costa Rica will be teaching me how to make do with very little. I knew I was tempting fate by taking down so much checked baggage; hoping to get all four pieces on time and in good condition was really rather optimistic. However, I didn't expect that I wouldn't get any. Luckily, I was not the only one to be missing bags. Based on the long, sleep-deprived line that queued outside of the Frontier office at 5:30 yesterday morning, there were quite a few of us that were less than pleased about being stranded without luggage. The best that the airline could do was to assure us that it would come soon and that they would deliver it to my house. Being the skeptic that I am, two doubts immediately came to mind: 1) Costa Rica doesn't use addresses in the same way we do, therefore leaving the exact location of this house a little vague, and 2) Costa Rican time is distinctly longer than California sense of time. By "soon," I'm hoping for sometime this week.

Nevertheless, I'm here in one piece and, after a good night's sleep, feeling in pretty good spirits. A little prayer about all (any!) of my bags getting here would be much appreciated, of course. At least I'll have a lot of time to recoup and take it easy until the bags arrive: nothing to unpack, either here or in my classroom!