Paisley Boots in Costa Rica: New Kid on the Block

I now have one week of life as a working woman under my belt!

So apparently as part of the science curriculum, I am supposed to teach one lesson on agriculture a week. Ummm… If there is to be an agriculture class, I need to be the student, not the teacher. The school has a garden, which I think is really neat. We also have a compost bin on the school grounds. There are two garbage cans in the lunch “room.” One for garbage-garbage and another for food garbage like the rind of the watermelon, or the skin of an orange.

Their extracurricular classes are PE, Yoga, Music, Cooking, and Organic Gardening. How cool is that to have a yoga class at school?!

School (and life) here in Costa Rica is a lot more laid back than it is in the United States. There is a dog that lives on the school grounds and she just wanders around! There are several mango trees at the school and mangos are in season right now. Kids will just pick one up that has fallen off the tree and eat it. Wash it first? Forget about it. One day this week the water wasn’t working at school, but when it is, their “water fountain” is a spicket attached to a pipe in the ground. I love it, I really do.

The school lunches are sooo good. And that is not sarcasm. I think American public schools need to take a few cooking lessons from our two cooks. We have a mid-morning snack at 9:40 and then we have lunch at 12:10. The snack is breakfast for most of the kids and usually consists of fruit of some variety and a bread of some sort. My favorite snack this week was the cheese empanadas. Mmmm. Lunches are HUGE and always have a side of beans and rice. Friday we had gallo pinto, scrambled eggs, cheese, and ½ of an avocado.

On Fridays classes end at 1:30 instead of 3:00, which I think is a great idea. After school I was just laying in a hammock, reading a magazine, and minding my own business when I heard all of this commotion in the trees around me. It was a monkey family! There were at least six of them and I watched them for a good 20 minutes or so. They were doing just what monkeys do, swinging from tree to tree! There were a few babies, too, and they were just darling. The momma monkey was carrying one of the babies on her back. I tried to take a picture but she was quite protective of her little one and did not like me staring at them.

one of the babies

helping himself to some fruit

On a side note, last night I babysat for a group of six kids from the school. I love how there are blonde-haired, blue-eyed children speaking fluent Spanish! These little kids don’t know what a unique and cultured life they are getting growing up in Costa Rica.

This morning I slept in until 7:30, and then followed one of the hiking trails. It led down to a river and a few small waterfalls. It was such a beautiful day, but with all the rain, the water was too muddy for a swim. So I hiked back up, and relaxed in the infinity pool that overlooks the ocean before the afternoon rains came.