Thanksgiving

¡Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias!  Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Even though it´s been five years since I was last in the US for Thanksgiving, I still like to honour the holiday by having a feast and giving thanks for all the people, places and things in my life.   I feel like this is a good place for me to put this so that everyone I mention can read it.

Most importantly I am thankful for my parents and the rest of my family for always supporting me and caring for me, even if I live far away.  Without all of you I would not be who I am today, and I certainly would not be where I am today.  For this I will always be grateful.

Secondly I am thankful for my education and all the opportunities it has brought me throughout my life.  Were I not fortunate enough to be able to go to school without incurring debts I would not have the liberty to work abroad over these last few years.  I am also thankful for everyone who has taught me over there years, whether formally or informally, especially those who taught me Spanish, because that was the biggest obstacle to achieving the life style that I have today.

As always I am thankful for my friends all around the world who are always there for me, even if I don´t know where they all live anymore.  I will always cherish the unique bonds I have with each of my friends.

I am also thankful for my job and the opportunity to come live here in Monteverde, because it is allowing me to work full-time and still explore a new country and a new culture.

También les quiero agradecer a mis compañeras de casa, compañeras en la escuela y mis estudiantes porque sin vosotros no podría vivir tan lejos de mi familia.  Os quiero mucho y os agradezco muchísimo porque me apoyan.

Costa Rica vs. Spain en la vida de Fishy

I can´t believe how much my life has changed in the last year, or even the last few months.

A few months ago, I lived in Granada, Spain.  I taught English to 3 year olds - 6th grade as the assistant to the English teacher.  There were 25 kids in each of my 8 classes (5th grade was the only class I didn´t work with).  All of my co-workers spoke Spanish as their first language, and only a few could converse in English.  The ones that could were the English teachers, and wrote English very well, but had rarely had a chance to practice speaking.  Almost none of the students could converse in English when we started.  My school was named after an important woman in Spanish history.  Our school was directly controlled by the government.  They decided how many hours a week of each subject was taught, they prohibited differentiated lessons, gave the school options of 3 text books that could be used for each subject, chose the school´s budget AND how it was spent.  They even chose which teachers taught in which schools and which cities.  The school couldn´t even hire the people they wanted to!  I was contracted to work 12 hours a week, but opted to work 20 hours in the school and I taught about 5 hours a week of private lessons to earn me some extra cash to travel.  My co-workers were contracted full-time at 25 hours a week.  School was 9-2 M-F with a 30 min recess and 15 minute breakfast break for everyone.  And my commute to school was a mile walk to the bus, then a 30 minute bus to the school that was 3 towns away.  But at least I met another bunch of teachers from the other schools on that bus and we´d go out once a week for a drink and a tapa after school.

Outside of school, well I lived in a decent sized city.  Granada is home to about 250,000 people, plus 80,000 students, 10,000 of which are internationals, mostly from Europe and the US.  Granada had a busy nightlife, and my street was right in the middle of it.  I would go out for tapas (cheap drinks with free food) at least 4 times a week because it was almost as cheap as cooking for myself.  I would go to an intercambio to practice English and Spanish with other people. I would also eat Kebabs (aka Schwarmas) a couple times a week, and I think that they are my favourite food.  A night out with friends would usually consist of a kebab around 11 or 12, and or tapas from 9-12.  Then to a different bar for drinks until 2, then a club til they close at 6 (I often would go home before the club and call friends from the states thanks to the 6hr time difference).  After the club closed we´d get churros for breakfast and head to bed around 8am and I´d wake up by 1130.

I lived in a small flat with 2 roommates who were filthy and I didn´t get along with.  Rent was 200Euros a month, (about $260) which wasn´t bad, because we had internet and I was making about 1000E a month with my private classes added in. 

In Costa Rica...

I live in Monteverde, o mejor dicho, I live in the district of Cerro Plano, which is largley Tico.  I live in a nice house (I often compare it to a cabin) with 2 of my co-workers.  We get a long very well and all help clean and cook.  We each pay $100 a month for rent.  Our neighbors are our landlords and the parents of some of our students.  We rarely go out for dinner, and if we do it´s usually a pot luck at another co-worker´s house.  I regularly cook and bake for the 3 of us and bring the left over baked goods to friends. If we go out “late” I would still be in bed by midnight.  Sometimes I´ll babysit for our friends.  Their 6 year-old is one of our best friends here.  On the weekends I can sometimes sleep in until 730, but I am usually awake between 5 and 530.

At school, we are contracted to be there from 730-400 Monday - Friday.  Our students are in school from 8-250 on M-Th and 8-1220 on Friday.  I get paid 350,000 colones / month before taxes, so about 289,000 colones (about $600)  after Costa Rican taxes are paid.  This year I teach 5th graders reading, writing, spelling and math in English.  As well as 6th grade math.  Most of my co-workers are bilingual (English-Spanish).  One is bilingual (English-French) and some Hindi, Korean and Mandarin is also spoken.  The teachers who are not bilingual (or want to improve their 2nd language) receive free classes Mondays and Tuesdays after school either by the Spanish as a 2nd Language teacher or the 6th grade teacher.  The students receive most of their education in English from kinder (3-4 year olds) on, so by the time they get to 5th grade with me, the ones who have been here speak English well.  Our school is very different from any other school I´ve worked at or attended because of our unique situation.  We are a private school in the cloud forest of Costa Rica.  Our school was designed originally by parents   Our school has 2 official names and 1 name that everyone class it.  Officially we are the Cloud Forest School in English and the Centro de educación Creativa in Spanish.  That translates to the school of creative education.  And locally everyone calls it La Creativa. We don´t really use text books, except as occasional resources to see that we´re teaching everything the public schools get, and to give the students the vocabulary in Spanish.  The education we provide is aimed to be holistic and to teach the whole student, not just their academic needs.  Students receive Special Ed for emotional, behavioural and academic issues.  We also provide ESL (English as a 2nd Language) and ESI (Spanish as a 2nd Language) for any students who need it.  Our school is mostly tico, but has a couple gringos (international kids from the US and UK) in most classes.  And unlike last year we are not required to teach religion in school.

The best part about the school is that we are right in the cloud forest.  One important part of campus is the fact that we are spread out with most buildings only having 2 classes in them and the primary and secondary schools being separated by the meadow where kids play basketball and fútbol.  But our campus is much more than the classrooms, offices and recess areas.  We also have a composting building, 2 green houses, an organic garden, 2 kiosks, and miles of trails through the forest.  We can see a lot of wild life on the campus, enough so that people pay to take tours on campus at night.  I often see hummingbirds outside my class window, coatis outside the office.  One of the trails is called the Monkey Palace because you can usually find monkeys all over.  But the only time I´ve been I only saw my monkey students.

--- one addition I forgot to put in, thanks to Chelsea for reminding me, ---
My commute this year is also significantly shorter, only a 10 minute walk straight up hill this year.

Trip to Puntarenas

Puntarenas FC "Sharks" Stadium

On Sunday the 6th of November I took the 6am bus to Puntarenas so that I could watch the last match of the season.  Once I got there I learned that the games had all been postponed due to landslides throughout the country, so I was not able to watch the game, but I got to walk around Puntarenas.

Catedral de Puntarenas

Puntarenas is a port city on the Gulf of Nicoya (Western Side of Costa Rica). Puntarenas is the capital of the province of the same name, which is the province in which I live.  It is one of the 2 cities where I´m told I shouldn´t drink the water, but has some unique things about it.  It is surrounded by towns known for their beautiful beaches, but Puntarenas´s beaches aren´t that impressive because they are in the city. 

But Puntarenas is only a 3hr bus ride away.  And it only costs 1235 colones (about $2.40) each way.  The bus comes back around 2pm, so you can spend about 5hrs on the beach for under $5!

Also, Puntarenas is known for a dessert called a churchill, named after Winston Churchill.  A Churchill is a snow cone with powered milk, fruit and condensed milk on top.  My co-workers say you haven´t been to Puntarenas if you haven´t had a churchill.  The story is that Winston Churchill came to Puntarenas and was providing support and aid for the area.  He ordered a dessert and so the community decided to name it after him.

A fun weekend

I finally hung my hammock in front of the house.  

Paulina is modeling the hammock

Diego climbing the strangler fig, from the inside

Our Saturday started off rather slowly.  For the first time ever none of us went to the feria (farmer´s market) so later on in the weekend Paulina and I had to go to the Mega Super and get our groceries.  It was nice because it´s much closer to home, but the market offers about the same prices and more organic food and a chance to see people from town including the parents of out students, but this weekend we opted out.

So later on Saturday I went to the Friends School (the Quaker school in the zone) to play frisbee.

After frisbee, around 2pm I went to Cybil and Soraya´s new house, which is named, "the villa" which is beautiful and has been compared to drug lord´s housing in Colombia.  They have a beautiful view with statues, ponds and two fire places, one inside, one out.  It was nice to finally see their new house, and nice to celebrate Cybil´s birthday.

From there we all went to Maté Caña, one of the four bars in town, to listen to Jesse, the 6th grade teacher play on his guitar.

On Sunday our friend Diego came over and we hiked the strangler fig tree by school.  The tree I´m guessing is about 100 feet high and we climbed up from the inside.  The way strangler fig trees grow is that they attach to another tree, somewhere above the ground and they start growing vines up and down and eventually invade and take over the original tree.  After a while the other tree is eroded, or something of that sort, leaving a hollow opening in the middle.  Sometimes, like with this tree you are able to climb.


In the evening we decided to make tres leches, which is one of my favourite Costa Rican dishes.