First, and least importantly, I thought I'd add titles to the posts.
Next, something actually interesting. Yesterday marked my 3rd month of being a Peace Corps volunteer. (Even though I've been here almost 6 months, part of it was training.) 3 months down, 21 to go. Not that I'm counting down, because currently I'm not. I actually wanted to share with you how well things have been going. I have learned in my relatively short time here that it's a very up and down thing. There are good days, REALLY good days, and then days where you feel like you are not doing or contributing anything at all. This is just, as I've gathered from experience and other people's accounts, how it is. Either way, I wanted to share with you that right now it's going very well and I have very high hopes for the coming months.
Right now things are moving right along at the high school where I'm working. I currently work with 3 of 10 teachers, helping them plan lessons, modeling more effective ways to do activities and teach certain topics, and helping the teachers and the students with vocabulary and pronunciation. (Things like the fact that ass does mean donkey, but it will likely be misunderstood; or the fact that a generous woman and a bountiful woman are not the same even if the English/Spanish dictionary says so.) The collaboration with two of the teachers is going really well. They are taking some extra time to plan with me and are really trying to improve some of their activities and practices. There is one more teacher with whom the collaborative teaching has been a little more complicated, but I'm sure we'll get the hang of it. It's not that this person doesn't want to work with me, but I feel some reluctance to working with me that seems to mostly come from insecurity in teaching abilities and English proficiency. I understand this completely. It would be scary to let someone come in and look critically (meant in the most constructive sense of the word) at every part of your teaching, down to the prepositions that you use. So overall, the work in the school is going well.
I wanted to share with you a couple of the poems the 10th grade students wrote today. We are working on building our vocabulary by learning/reviewing 5 verbs every class. Each class we have a different activity to practice the verbs and today it was writing a poem. These were a couple of my favorites:
Apologizing is a beautiful action
Believe in forgiveness
because it is the only way to
avoid wars and conflicts.
Carry it in your heart forever.
-Eliecer
Avoid water contamination
because it is very important for the planet earth,
because many species could die
and we have to aid the planet.
Command the people to avoid contamination.
-Anon.
Ants in my pants...
Benevolence for my peace...
Bored by the human beings...
Answers that haven't been answered...
Cinder in the wind...
-Esteban
I was so impressed with these students. Mind you that these students give me a blank look when I ask them "How are you doing?". They just stare at me when I say "Now we are going to get in pairs." Last week when I was with them I asked them to look up words in the dictionary and they stared at me like I was from another planet. Not only did they not understand what I said, they didn't understand why on earth they would look something up. Usually they wait for the teacher to give them the answer or just give up and don't do the assignment. When they read their poems today they made me so proud. This was not my work, this was theirs. I am assisting them in learning English but today they were the ones really working. They took charge of their learning and got excited about English, and they made me excited about English too.
3/18/2011
3/10/2011
Today was basically a free day for my family. We didn't have school because there was a strike of public sector workers, which includes the teachers' union. That meant my host brothers and sister didn't have school, my host mom didn't have to teach and I didn't have to go to school because there were no teachers there for me to work with. This was nice for all of us, we went swimming. It was interesting though, because I talked to my host mom about the strike and why we didn't have school and the answers were pretty Tico.
According to my host mom, and some other teachers at the high school, the strike had to do with the government increasing taxes on educators' salaries. They also mentioned something about eliminating part-time teachers and raising the number of hours for full-time teachers from 40 to 44. Not everyone knew about this and when I asked if it was an issue, most said they hadn't heard about it. According to one teacher there is a two page list of complaints from the teachers' union, and that's what the strike is about. The only consistent answer I got when I asked about it was that it was something about receiving less money.
It turns out that it was a strike of all the public sector workers in the whole country over the new tax on their salaries. There isn't terribly good news reporting here, so that's all I've go so far. Oh, and that the march took up seven blocks.
What I found fascinating is that they canceled school for the day to go on strike, and presumably to the march in San José, but according to my host mom no one from our school went. I understand that you can go on strike and not go to the march, that's fine. The part that most confuses me is that they were on strike and they didn't really know why. Not that this doesn't happen in other parts of the world, but it's very much in line with the way things are here: we're not really sure why, but we get a day off...awesome.
According to my host mom, and some other teachers at the high school, the strike had to do with the government increasing taxes on educators' salaries. They also mentioned something about eliminating part-time teachers and raising the number of hours for full-time teachers from 40 to 44. Not everyone knew about this and when I asked if it was an issue, most said they hadn't heard about it. According to one teacher there is a two page list of complaints from the teachers' union, and that's what the strike is about. The only consistent answer I got when I asked about it was that it was something about receiving less money.
It turns out that it was a strike of all the public sector workers in the whole country over the new tax on their salaries. There isn't terribly good news reporting here, so that's all I've go so far. Oh, and that the march took up seven blocks.
What I found fascinating is that they canceled school for the day to go on strike, and presumably to the march in San José, but according to my host mom no one from our school went. I understand that you can go on strike and not go to the march, that's fine. The part that most confuses me is that they were on strike and they didn't really know why. Not that this doesn't happen in other parts of the world, but it's very much in line with the way things are here: we're not really sure why, but we get a day off...awesome.
3/06/2011
Today was just a great day all around. It was really nice to have, since I left school on Friday shaking my head and wondering how exactly I'm going to do my work. The teachers are very cooperative as of late, but every time I'm in a classroom it takes me all of five seconds to realize why I'm here and feel overwhelmed at the amount of work it is going to take to "improve English teaching". I know it'll all be OK, and I'll start seeing results at some point that will make it worth it, but we're still at the beginning. But, back to how today was great.
This morning my host brother and I and a few friends from town went on a mountain bike ride. There wasn't actually a lot of riding seeing as we stopped at one of the guy's brother's house and that took the majority of our time, but we still got out early and rode through the lush green forest that is a national park. Then my whole family had lunch together and headed to a birthday party. Later I went out for a long run since today I started training for a 40k North Face race that I'm doing in July. 8+ miles, 60 degrees, a podcast on the iPod, over-cast but not raining, beautiful sunset as I came home, and a light breeze. I looked around at one point and asked myself if there was really anything better. When I got home, we ate a little dinner and sat down to watch Elf. It was a great family movie and popcorn with condensed milk made it even better. (Sounds weird, but it's really good. You should give it a try.)
This morning my host brother and I and a few friends from town went on a mountain bike ride. There wasn't actually a lot of riding seeing as we stopped at one of the guy's brother's house and that took the majority of our time, but we still got out early and rode through the lush green forest that is a national park. Then my whole family had lunch together and headed to a birthday party. Later I went out for a long run since today I started training for a 40k North Face race that I'm doing in July. 8+ miles, 60 degrees, a podcast on the iPod, over-cast but not raining, beautiful sunset as I came home, and a light breeze. I looked around at one point and asked myself if there was really anything better. When I got home, we ate a little dinner and sat down to watch Elf. It was a great family movie and popcorn with condensed milk made it even better. (Sounds weird, but it's really good. You should give it a try.)
3/03/2011
Since I've been here I haven't felt really homesick. A little here and there, but usually if I go out for a run and look around at how beautiful it is I feel a lot better. Endorphins do wonders I tell you. Even though things are good and I don't miss home too much, there are certainly things I miss. These are the top three I've been missing lately.
1. Skiing
2. Happy Hour
3. Dinner Parties
Ok, so I'm sure you're looking at this and thinking, 'Of all the things to miss...dinner parties? Really?' Well, here's the thing. There are a few things I miss that go without saying: My family, my friends, Moxi, my parent's cooking. Those of course are unnumbered and precede any list of things I ever say I miss, but after all of that come these things. If you put this little list together you can create a really perfect day. Getting up early in the morning to hit the slopes (preferably with a little fresh powder on top of a well-groomed solid pack base), skiing all day, finishing up the day with a little happy hour in the lodge and heading home to freshen up and head out to a dinner party with good friends. How great does that sound? Perfect day, in my opinion.
Don't you think for a second that I'm complaining about getting up to a sun shiny day, sipping coffee while looking out on at lush green hills and palm trees, going out for a run, lunching on a little rice and beans, then relaxing with a book on the porch. Because I'm not. It's just that the grass is always greener...on another continent. I can't count how many winter days I spent in Boise/Spokane looking out at the gray winter day and wishing I could be on a somewhere with palm trees. Now I've got palm trees and I want to be back in freezing temperatures, covered in gor-tex. Oh, man.
None of that changes the fact that I can't wait for a ski day and some good food, drinks and company at the end of it. Don't worry, I'm very content here, but I do miss all of you and I promise to throw a first-rate party when I see you again.
1. Skiing
2. Happy Hour
3. Dinner Parties
Ok, so I'm sure you're looking at this and thinking, 'Of all the things to miss...dinner parties? Really?' Well, here's the thing. There are a few things I miss that go without saying: My family, my friends, Moxi, my parent's cooking. Those of course are unnumbered and precede any list of things I ever say I miss, but after all of that come these things. If you put this little list together you can create a really perfect day. Getting up early in the morning to hit the slopes (preferably with a little fresh powder on top of a well-groomed solid pack base), skiing all day, finishing up the day with a little happy hour in the lodge and heading home to freshen up and head out to a dinner party with good friends. How great does that sound? Perfect day, in my opinion.
Don't you think for a second that I'm complaining about getting up to a sun shiny day, sipping coffee while looking out on at lush green hills and palm trees, going out for a run, lunching on a little rice and beans, then relaxing with a book on the porch. Because I'm not. It's just that the grass is always greener...on another continent. I can't count how many winter days I spent in Boise/Spokane looking out at the gray winter day and wishing I could be on a somewhere with palm trees. Now I've got palm trees and I want to be back in freezing temperatures, covered in gor-tex. Oh, man.
None of that changes the fact that I can't wait for a ski day and some good food, drinks and company at the end of it. Don't worry, I'm very content here, but I do miss all of you and I promise to throw a first-rate party when I see you again.
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