In the beginning...

The past week has been a whirlwind of events!

I arrived in Costa Rica on Friday and was welcomed with open arms by my lovely Mamá Tica and her family.  It was so wonderful to see her again and to be in her home.  The whole family came over on Friday for a family dinner.  Unfortunately I had to leave Saturday afternoon to head to Montezuma, but we still had a great visit.  Lilliana (Mamá Tica) is part of a volunteer group doing beautification projects in Heredia so on Saturday we went to see one of the murals her group has been working on.  So pretty and it makes the park so much more welcoming than when I was there last year! 

The mural almost finished

WIth my Mamá Tica :)

I had a 6 hour trip to get to Montezuma where I am staying before I find a more permanent place of residence.  The trip consisted of a taxi ride, a bus, a ferry, another bus, and finally another taxi.  But I made it.  I don’t really know why I was worried about getting here because I’m a lot better off than I would have been if I didn’t know Spanish!

View from the ferry--see the rain in the distance

Yesterday (Monday) was my first day of work.  Craziness is the only way I know how to describe it.  Mainly because I’m jumping in when the students have already been in school for two months and I have had 2 different people teaching my classes before I graduated.  I have 11 6^th grade students, but this is going to be my toughest class because their language abilities are so varied.  I have 3 students who are native English speakers, 5 who only know Spanish, and the rest are somewhat in between depending on the subject. 

Thank goodness I know Spanish!  It’s far from perfect but I have to speak it in order to teach those with limited English. 

I have seven  5^th graders and I already love them!  Some of them are complete sweethearts, and even the one who I consider to be my class clown is so adorable that I think it will be hard to get too frustrated when he misbehaves. They are mostly all on the same level of English (limited) so it will be less difficult to keep them all on the same pace.

Within the first hour of school, I saw two iguanas—one was fairly large and was in the doorway of my classroom!  As I was beginning this blog entry, I heard some rustling behind me.  I thought someone was walking around outside but it continued.  I turned around to find this white-faced monkey in the tree right behind me!  I think it wanted the fresh mango I’m eating.

Yesterday my main objective was just to get to know my students, establish rules and expectations, and determine where my classes are in each subject.  Classes start at 7:30, which sounds terrible, but it’s really not.  It actually felt late to me because the sun rises so much earlier (around 5 am); however, the day seems really long because by the time I’ve already been in school 4 hours it’s only 11:30 and not even lunch time.  Man was I exhausted at the end of the day! 

Today, Tuesday, was a much smoother day than yesterday, although I showed up to the 6^th grade classroom to find the Spanish language subjects teacher in the room.  I knew I was to teach math, but I needed to be in the 5^th grade classroom.  I’ll probably be lost for a while and it doesn’t help that my schedule is different everyday.  Goodbye routines!

I also conquered the bus this morning.  I have about a 25-minute walk up and down hilly roads to get to the bus stop.  It had rained for a good hour or two or ten last night so the road was super muddy so I was slipping around. But I made it to the bus stop, got on the correct bus and made it to school on time for the staff meeting this morning.  I definitely won’t be needed the one pair of jeans that I brought here, especially if this is winter.  I don’t think in Celsius, but I know that it is quite hot and humid and Costa Rica and my hair aren’t going to have a very copacetic relationship.

Day three of my “grown-up job” begins tomorrow!

This is the sunrise I enjoyed while drinking my Tica coffee and  reading my devotional this morning!