It’s still too early to fully absorb or process how this experience has changed me. I think, like Angela said, I'll be processing and absorbing this experience for years to come.

Molly and I just landed in the Atlanta airport and were COMPLETELY overwhelmed by the light, noise, and speed of everything. We wandered around overwhelmed in the food court and couldn’t figure out what to order or how – there were too many choices, too fast. Too many colors. Too many gringos!!

WHAT IS THIS PLACE?!?!

How did America become this way? Are there any other countries like America? Cause we are wayyyyy too frantic.

We just wanted to walk across the street and buy a banana for 10 cents.

I feel zillions of times more confident in my Spanish, now, for one thing. I know that I can get through almost any situation with confidence that I'm communicating effectively in Spanish (at least at a 5-year-old level), and I have improved on my vocab and grammar a whole lot. I realized this trip that I think our brains are processing language learning for a long time after we leave a situation, and even when we don't realize we're learning. I can communicate so much better now than I could last summer in Nicaragua, and I think there are several reasons for that -- one being that I was one of the more fluent members of the group here and therefore acted as translator a lot (so I HAD to be good at it, cause I was often the intermediator); one being that more time has passed and I've had more practice; one being the language school in San Jose; and one being that I do think our brains are always processing, processing, processing. Which gives me hope.

In terms of culture shock, and what I've learned from these people, this culture, this experience... gee whiz. It's a lot. I want to be surrounded by swarms of Latino children all day every day! I already am very sad that I know that won't happen.

And I am finding myself questioning the sort of world I'm set to prepare my American students for, even more. The purpose of educating Costa Rican children is a little bit different than the purpose for educating American children, at least in philosophy. It's a different world they are entering. The developing world is different from the developed world, and EVERYWHERE is different from America.

Not that I've ever been a really happy camper with the fast pace and cultural values of the US, but coming back from Costa Rica I just see so many different sides to our education system, and theirs, and what they're all here for... it's just so much to absorb. I am thinking even more about the purpose of education, and questioning myself and my assumptions.

I will probably post more on this later, but right now I am dog-tired and need to go to bed.

It is hard to comment on how Costa Rica's educational system is different from that in the United States without a perspective extremely biased by my personal experience.

I think that in general, the Costa Rican school system is more relaxed in terms of government standards (and especially in terms of standardized testing) than the United States school system. This has advantages and disadvantages... it can provide more creativity to individual teachers, but also may lead to less learning in classrooms headed by teachers who don't work as hard. I also think that teacher training may not be as stringent or multimodal in Costa Rica... which makes sense since Costa Rica is less developed, and people in general do not aspire to as advanced levels of education, as a rule (this also has tradeoffs, I believe... look at how the Bachelor's degree has taken the place of the high school diploma in terms of what level of education makes or breaks your chances of landing a decent job, here.) I think that our school systems, and governments, can learn from each other.

I believe that Escuela Serapio Lopez Fajardo, where I worked, is actually quite different from many, probably most, other schools in Costa Rica. We visited a public school in a very poor section of the capital city of San Jose during our week of language school, where I observed better-kept school grounds, more well-regulated classrooms, and more school pride and better behavior in these students and their teachers. They may have had fewer resources, but the tone of the school was more positive than that at ESLF.

I've been incredibly grateful for the things I've learned and experienced here. I think that what I've observed (and what I now have burned in my mind to process for the rest of my life) has been an irreplaceable example of what can happen when corrupt people are in power and continually use their power to harm others. And an exercise in trying to figure out what the heck we can do in this sort of situation -- as foreign visitors, as community members, as parents and teachers and students... I've learned a lot from some strong community members with vision, and I've also learned from negative examples. So much has gone on that I also know I'll be doing a lot of self- and group-reflection for years after this, probably.

Okay well... ESLF... the education system at this school is irrevocably tied with the community, the political system, and the actions of the administration. One thing that's been made perfectly clear to me by this experience is what power an administration can have. Administrators decide who is hired, who is punished (or not) for what reasons, and control the money and resources. They can set the entire tone for a school, and by association, for a community. Since kids can grow up with good adult role models, or they can grow up jaded. Or they can grow up seeing that bad things exist in the world, but that they're worth fighting.

Mostly I feel extremely proud of what we have accomplished here, in terms of teaching, relationships we've established, and the huge differences we've helped to make in the school grounds. Improving the surroundings of a school (especially one like ESLF and most Central American schools, where the indoors and outdoors are so seamlessly blended) can make such a humongous difference in school pride and just how you feel when you walk into your class every morning. I have witnessed teachers and students take ownership of the place they are learning, begin to take pride in it, and thereby improve their relationships to each other as well. And I know that this is, in part, because we were able to catalyze the school improvements. We painted a beautiful mural, we built a gorgeous play area with plants, we (tried to... long story) hung up swings (for about a day), we taught kids the alphabet and writing who were writing in hieroglyphics before. We moved the trash bin from the front of the school to a place where it's not the first thing you see and smell when you walk in the gate in the morning. We established a compost heap. We talked to reporters, and will be writing an op-ed piece once we are back in the States and away from the line of fire.

I've formed relationships with many remarkable people in my time here so far.

One thing I've thought a lot about is how different people's expectations and attitudes toward life here are... and I have thought a lot about what "better" means, in regards to education, work ethic, and lifestyle. There are so many differences between the systems that are in place here and the attitudes towards life versus those where I come from... and although there are definite advantages and disadvantages to both, I find it difficult to judge what is "better". For example, the pace of life here is much slower. And there is less structure. Pura vida -- pure life... people here take life slowly, don't worry so much about doing doing doing all the time. This translates into fewer checkmarks on a daily task list, but more time to talk with neighbors, sustain relationships, and just relax. It also translates into things not getting fixed, and less time in school, and a less-developed infrastructure. And, this is reciprocal. The systems aren't in place to facilitate a busy, super-efficient life pace, and in turn people don't worry as much about all the things we feel we need to accomplish in a day on U.S. time. Hard to tell what the better trade-off is... there is much less stress here, but it is sometimes hard to take the laxness in stride, as Americans who are used to things working smoothly and efficiently and conveniently. Also, at least at Escuela Serapio Lopez Fajardo, this means that some kids don't know the alphabet by grade 2... (although that particular example has much more to do with apathetic teachers and corrupt administration than a typification of Costa Rican culture in general). I think a balance can be struck between these two lifestyles. But I must admit that something is appealing to me about the idea that the world can work more on the basis of community relationships and slow enjoyment than on the basis of progress for progress' sake. Lots to chew over, there.

Right, so, this post is supposed to be about friendships I've made here. A significant topic!
People I admire and like here:
Saedy
Carmen
Freddy
Luz
Che and Jose
Tito
Keani and Zamira

It hasn't been difficult to form relationships here, as I talked about before... I've had some really good, deep conversations with Luz and Che in particular about matters pertaining to education, differences between life here versus what I know in the States... etc. Speaking Spanish helps a whole lot.
Keani, who is 5, has shown me her dance moves and WHEW can that 5 year old whip out some hip rolls. She's a better dancer than most grown Americans I know. I think Costa Rican babies come out of the womb knowing how to dance. I also spent 4 hours helping her learn to swim and carrying her around on my back in the pool and watching her play see-food with refried beans and learning some Eenie-Meenie-Meinee-Mo-esque Tican kids' games from her. Fun times, even though it was also exhausting for multiple reasons
(1 because she would be practically drowning if I looked away for 10 seconds while she was in the pool. pretty terrifying; 2 because her father was just stabbed completely randomly in the street about a week ago, and she kept saying things like "did you know my papi is dead? that means he's not coming back" and playing dead in the water, and things. it made my brain shut down a little, to watch her processing it. long story there, that i won't get into in this blog... but i was watching keani that afternoon to get her out of her house and away from my host family's grief for a bit, and to let her mom sleep a little. 5 year olds have a very different way of processing loss).

Zamira is Luz's other granddaughter, who I've played dominoes and talked with and spent time with along with Keani. The three of us went on walks to the bridge by Luz's house over the river with tilapia and egrets... and played by the water's edge and watched monkey families and talked. One thing that makes me proud here is that I can actually understand most kid-speak, now. I never had that talent or ability before, in Spanish! And it helps me out a lot, as a teacher.

Carmen (new president of the patronato -- the school board -- and mother to 2 students) and Saedy (Ella's pre-K teacher, the visionary behind the parquecito we are building for the school) are ridiculously strong women. Both extremely sharp, hardworking, and caring. Both defying a long history of school corruption and swindling, in the face of personal threats, to make sure their children and the community's children get the health, resources, and education they deserve.

Tito is one of the most generous young men I've ever met -- my host brother, he's given me rides anywhere I've needed to go this whole trip if he's found out I needed one, and makes sure I'm safe and talks to me about his life (while patiently tolerating my broken Spanish) and kids me like a little sister. Great, great guy.

Jose and Che I just admire so much for how loving and responsible they are... a host brother and sister, and parents to Nahyma, their 5-month old baby. Che is 21 and Jose is 26... very shiningly good people.

Freddy, I admire mostly from afar... he stood up at the school meeting to throw questions in the face of the school administration about money disappearing, fomenting some heated arguments through the whole assemblage. A role that earned him some disapproval, but that was desperately necessary to be taken on by someone... someone needed to start the drama, after 16 years of rule by a despicably corrupt administration and principal. Freddy is a very smart, philosophical man, and easily a community pillar, from my point of view.

Luz, my host mom, I've had countless great conversations with... going on long walks with her, sitting at meals (which she cooks amaaaazingly)... as well as trying the best I could to be a support when her daughter's husband was killed. It's an impossible thing to do. But she is so strong and supportive of her family. Good, beautiful woman.

Many good people here. And, boy are they needed. Especially in the face of the bad bad things some people here are capable of...

So, yes. Yep. There be it. Irie.

English language teaching at Escuela Serapio Lopez Fajardo.... whew.

Odalier is the normal English teacher here. He is benevolent and kind, but very passive, and it is hard to tell how much learning has been accomplished up until we got here. I've never watched him teach, but to hear him and Angela tell it he has a very hard time keeping control of a classroom (which I understand, it is difficult! more difficult at this school than in the schools I've taught in in the States)... and there are some large issues at the school that he is teaching in the face of. So, we stepped in and took over his classes the first week after San Jose, and had to pick up where he left off teaching the parts of the body.
Chris and I began by having kids form groups and make up songs about an assigned portion of the human body to remember the names (take a beat and put movements and words to it), but it soon became apparent that before anything like that we had to establish classroom policies and order. So, that was our next order of business.
I have found English teaching to be really fun, personally, in part since I get to switch back and forth between Spanish and English as I teach, and this helps me a whole lot with my own language learning, as well. Also, we're experts on English! So I feel like I'm able to teach the students, and they're able to teach me, in turn, as we translate and interact.

During our lesson on classroom routines and expectations, we asked the kids whether they thought learning English was important, and why. Especially in this tourism-driven economy, these kids will have a better chance of success if they are able to speak English (I have such mixed feelings about that fact personally, but it's the truth). They pretty much all answered that they really wanted to learn, and one girl worked so hard to avoid the word "gringos" in her answer... she said (in Spanish) "there are lots of people who come here who only speak English... and we need to be able to talk to them". I hadn't really thought too much about how "gringo" could be a slightly offensive term until then. But it can be! I call myself a gringa and expect to be called one, since, hey, my skin is a shining white flag in this Latin country. But it's not something I'm proud of, rather something that makes me embarrassed and self-conscious more often than not. It's a label I have to accept and embrace however I can, rather than something I wish to be seen as. Truthfully I'm glad that white people have this experience here, though, of being in the minority... since wherever we go we carry the invisible knapsack (racial privilege reference), but in America it is easy to ignore since Caucasians are the majority. Here our skin color is an obvious and separating defining feature that quite obviously leads to snap judgments on us every day, by every person we encounter. Both positive and negative snap judgments. This fact opens us to realizations of the sort of snap judgments we make every day, without even realizing it.
Race is a very different sort of issue here than in the States, but being here makes me think about it even more than I normally do. And I think that's good.

Right. English language teaching. The younger grade teachers (Molly, Britt, and Meaghan) are having to teach their kids the alphabet in English and Spanish, since there are many teachers here who apparently (and I am saying this after much personal observation as well as discussion and corroboration by teachers who work here who really care) haven't been diligent or caring enough to make sure their kids know the alphabet by second grade... errrrrrrrrrg.

So, yes. There is much to do. Mostly I want to see the community empowered, of their own accord, to lead their school well and in unity. The school-wide meeting yesterday showed very promising signs of this sort of parental community organizing... and I just hope that it will continue, and that parents will continue fighting for their kids and communicating well.
The most our group can do is contribute the skills we have in the time we are here, and hopefully leave the community with some gifts that will help them take ownership of their kids' education... but more than anything we can give, we are learning an incredible amount about the world and what life is, by being here and participating in the community.

I've been picking up Spanish so much more quickly than I expected to, I feel really excited about it! I mess up my grammar constantly, but pretty much I can understand and communicate anything I need to... especially if people are willing to talk slowly. I think that living with a host family has helped a lot with that, as did the week of Spanish language school at ICADS.

I feel like the language networks in our brains are like these overlapping worlds... sometimes when I am searching for a word in Spanish, I come up with the French. Or the Pig Latin (that did happen once. Actually the word I spoke was a French-Pig Latin hybrid). But the Spanish pathways are getting stronger, and sometimes I find myself being able to just spit it out rapid fire and I feel so proud and excited about it! Like I can actually communicate with people. It's an amazing feeling. I also think that one of the main reasons I'm able to do this now is that I've traveled in Central American countries several times before, so I've been immersed in the language for another 3-4 months of my life besides this one. And every time you immerse yourself, it becomes easier and you get more right, and you dig a deeper well of words to draw from, and you strengthen the rope you use to pull up the words you need (ha. analogy.)

I loved the Spanish language school at ICADS, and thought it was extremely valuable... about 4 hours per day of speaking Spanish conversationally, with some grammar and vocabulary practice thrown in as deemed necessary by the teacher. Great experience, and I was in a group with Angela and an awesome teacher and 2 funny older guys from Vancouver and London, which made it even better.

The other awesome thing about this is that it'll increase my confidence when we get back to the States, working with ELLs... really really excited for that.

We're alll picking it up fast, since we've been thrown right in.

Classrooms at Escuela Serapio Fajardo... and school dynamics in general... are VERY different than what I am accustomed to in the U.S. I think that how things are at ESF are also very different than they are in other parts of Costa Rica... I don't think that the whole school system is like what I am experiencing.

What I can say is that ESF is very disorganized, compared to what I am accustomed to. There is very little structure, and very few rules, and what rules there are are mostly implemented individually by classroom teachers... meaning that discipline, organization, learning, etc. differs very drastically by classroom. There also appear to be hushed-up things happening in the administration that make learning here even more difficult for the students here.

The classes that Chris and I have been teaching each have anywhere from about 25 to 35 kids, and we've had to adapt our teaching methods a lot to allow each class to learn. We have had to be extremely firm and structured, since the rest of the school day has very little structure in the majority of our classes. The fourth grade class is very large and loud, and we started Harry Wong-ing it on Friday (we spent the whole class going through expectations for behavior and procedures, and practicing following the rules). This helped a lot, and the kids got a kick out of our acting out how to follow the rules poorly versus follow them well (an idea from Meaghan, Britt, and Molly -- thanks, girls!).

I like that the kids are more free here at recess (I like that they can climb trees and play big games of soccer, I mean; many schools in the US have rules that sometimes prevent kids from getting all of their kinetic energy out, I believe), but I do not like how undisciplined many of the classes are. It can make it very hard to get a good lesson in, especially since some of our later classes have lunch (comedor) in the middle... So, Chris and I have 10 minutes at the beginning of class to teach, then 15-20 minutes of break while the kids go to lunch, then maybe 15-20 more minutes of class. There are breaks very often, and we are still trying to get the hang of when they are and what our teaching schedule is, since the schedule appears to change almost every day, sometimes with only about 10 minutes' notice.

I have a lot of hope that this school, Escuela Serapio Fajardo, will improve once some administrative problems are fixed... not necessarily in our short time here, but later, as parents and school board members and caring teachers fight for their kids' rights to a powerful education. The kids deserve it. And I do not think that the problems here are country-wide. We visited a poorer public school in San Jose where the classrooms were shipshape, very well-ordered and managed. And the school grounds were well-kept. Our group is going to be helping to improve the beauty the school grounds as well, which is a gift I hope to leave this school with when we have left.

At the moment I am in San Jose, lying upstairs in my own bedroom on one side of the city. I'm living in a neighborhood called Curribata, 2 doors down from Chris and within a 20-minute walk of our language school (ICADS) and most other students. We are studying Spanish for 4 hours every day in the mornings in intensive conversational language classes -- basically like 4 hours of talking with 3 other students (Angela and 2 older guys from Canada and London are in my group) and a Costa Rican teacher. It's actually great fun, and at the end of the morning I feel saturated and tired but more fluent, every day.

My host parents are 2 grandparents named Hilda and Jose. They are extremely Catholic... I am surrounded by little statues and saints and relics. I am also half-convinced there's a ghost living upstairs here, for various reasons... but I don't feel too concerned about it. It's interesting. I like Hilda and Jose very much. They have had many, many foreign students live with them before, and are very good at making patient conversation.

I have been adjusting to the different paces of life in different parts of the country... the first week was extra relaxed, even for Costa Rican standards, since it was Semana Santa (Holy Week) and everyone was off work and beached most every day. However, the pace and attitude towards life is very different in Nosara (where we will be living) than in San Jose, the city where we are now. Besides being a surfing town (which means the attitude of the citizens towards most things in life is how it sounds... pretty easy going) and in a rural area, Nosara is so small that most people know each other, at least by association... similar to St. Mary's. San Jose is a fairly big, fairly dangerous city... it is so busy, and the houses are more or less fortresses, they are locked up so securely... with jail-like fences and locks everywhere. The in-country adjustment from Holy Week in Nosara to Spanish class in San Jose has been interesting... and I think I will be very glad to be back in Nosara, as valuable as this Spanish class experience is proving to be.

I must go work on mi tarea! Hasta luego!