Just Aroooound The River Beeeennndddd!

First of all, pictures are worth a thousand words....So here's a link to all of mine so far. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2713345305078.2125129.1000260093&type=1&l=f911e8c988

This weekend's adventure began at 5:30 Saturday morning with a taxi ride (from Alfredo) to Hotel Presidente, the nicest (and safest looking) hotel in downtown San Jose. This is where Exploradores Outdoors would pick us up for our adventure down the class III-IV rapids of Rio Pacuare, one of National Geographic's top 10 picks for best white water rivers in the world. After a 2 hours bus ride down the class V-VI bumps of the Limon Province roads, we reached the beginning and endpoint of our rafting adventure. There, they fed us a hearty and typical breakfast of rice, beans, eggs, fruit, yogurt, and granola before sending us on our way with some of the most interesting and rambunctious river guides I've had yet! Our guide was Roberto, a native Tico who was about our age and full of energy. He made our trip down the river even more fun as he sent us down rapids backwards or pushed/pulled us out of the raft whenever he felt like it! Even the other guides in the other boats were in on the tricks! The scenery was beautiful, and at one point we were out of our rafts, floating down the teal river squeezed between two walls of a rainforest mountain gorge with waterfalls flowing down both sides!!! Even the provided lunch was good, and it was SO worth every single penny. I'm actually looking into doing another one of this company's tours kayaking the inlets of Tortuguero National Park (Google it)!

After our wonderful whitewater rafting tour, we headed to the teeny-tiny Caribbean town of Cahuita. Rainforest-lined beaches are the perfect setting for this town of calypso, reggae, and rasta influences. Parque National Cahuita, which is known for it's expanse of protected coral reefs and wide variety of wildlife, is also located here.

We found a hostel for the night ($11 a person!) that was only 100m away from the beach and the entrance to the national park, granted we did share our little tree house bungalow with crabs, lizards, and a multitude of bugs. It was a cute little two story cottage tucked behind lots of palms and hybiscus bushes, with a queen bed downstairs and a queen and twin upstairs. It was nice enough for the night, and the extra inhabitants only added to the flavor. Little did we know the "flavor" was only going to get stronger when we would wake up to howler monkeys at 5am!!! Luckily, we had just woken up to our alarm, set to go watch the sunrise over the Caribbean in the east, but HAVE YOU EVER HEARD A HOWLER MONKEY??? They sound like a dinosaur roaring, or as Kelly says, the Earth's stomach growling! Here's a sound clip just in case you're curious!

http://www.naturesongs.com/howler1.wav

Nonetheless, the sunrise was beautiful, besides a few clouds. After watching the sunrise, we caught breakfast at a hole in the wall breakfast place that was decked out in Bob Marley and the colors of Rasta (red, yellow, black, and green). The people working were also wearing these colors, and the men all had dreadlocks and spoke Spanish with a Jamaican flair! 

After breakfast, we decided to walk down the sandy path through the national park's rainforest that also skirted the beach. It was beautiful walk, and we even saw some wildlife! We saw white throated Capuchin monkeys, about 7 of them, and even a tall, tall tree filled with lazy iguanas! There was a little raccoon too, and some leaf-cutter ants! We never spotted the howler monkeys, but we did hear them again! As we walked farther and farther along the coast, the clouds began getting darker and darker. But it was dry season, and everyone says it NEVER rains in the dry season. WRONG! I mean, I guess we were in the RAINforest! It wasn't long before the bottom fell out and we were and hour's hike down the path and away from our hostel! There was no hope, so we just hiked through the rain, soaked to the bone! It only added to the adventure though, and we didn't melt. I did however, barely have enough dry clothes to change into on account of the fact that I brought next to NOTHING this weekend out of robbery paranoia! 

And back in Escazu we are, ready to take on week 3 of our journey. Please check out my pictures on facebook so you can REALLY understand the excitement we found this weekend! Now on the make myself do that thing...what's it called...oh yeah....homework. 

PURA VIDA,

Jessica

Living The Good Life

Another week in Costa Rica...Ahhhhhhhh....... :) What a beautiful place to wake up to every morning! Especially when you're getting spoiled like we did this past weekend! Oky, our host mom, is a member of the Costa Rica Country Club here is Escazu, and MAN is it nice!!! I have never gone to a pool/place this nice, not even on vacation! There were even moms there wearing visors with white long sleeve shirts and white long pants and high heels that had their MAIDS there taking care of the kids while they sat under the umbrellas!!! So when i say it's high-falutin', it is. At least to me! There were 4 pools - a shallow pool for the babies, a waist deep pool for young children, a two level pool with a waterfall in between, and a 4 lane lap pool! I went up to order something to drink from the counter (which was probably a 4 star restaurant) and the waitress was so confused why I had come up there - the come take your order and serve you in your pool chair! I am SO not used to that! We laid around and soaked up as much sun as we wanted while we listened to the creek flowing behind us and the wind blowing through the banana palms. That was the life! 

Then, after the pool, we showered and decided to go to the MultiPlaza for dinner and exploring. We decided to eat at INKA, which was Peruvian food! It was SO fancy looking, and the food was AWESOME, but it was actually in our price range (CHEAP!). I had a dish that resembled fajitas, but instead of chicken or steak, the meat was shrimp and calamari. After dinner, we strolled the MultiPlaza, which is a huge three story mall. There, I bought a new bathing suit to replace one of my loves that got stolen, and we finished off the night with Italian ice cream.We were definitely living it up, multicultural style! Haha!

The second week of teaching has been good so far. I take over Morning Meeting this Thursday, and Spelling, Handwriting and Read Aloud next week on top of that! We also had to make a few changes to our schedule, so I will be teaching all by myself for the whole month of March! Exciting but nerve-racking. Today, I also committed to coaching the elementary volleyball team every Tuesday after school. It will be grades 1-5, and I'm guessing it will be coed since the school has both a men's and women's varsity team! Thankfully, being a counselor at Westminster Sports Camp has prepared me very well for this. Now that I'm all excited about teaching and coaching, I'm gonna have to find time to get motivated about doing my own school work on the side. BLEH. 

Speaking of not being motivated to do boring classwork for my own school...Looks like we're taking a weekend trip to raft the Rio Pacuare and explore a Caribbean beach! The plan is to go white water rafting on Saturday, spend Saturday night on the coast in Cahuita, Limon Province, and then spend Sunday on the white, sandy beaches of the Caribbean before coming home Sunday night. Should be a fun weekend! More details about that later though, time for me to go to bed! Those kids wear you out! :)

PURA VIDA, 

Jessica

Match Made In....Country Day School

Whew! We made it through week one! Surprisingly, even though I have been sick with a cold all week, I am not as tired as I had prepared myself to be. I was preparing for the worse - aka how tired I was after 3 days a week at OMS last semester! I've actually had a very enjoyable and almost relaxing week - for the first time since I started the teaching program, teaching has been everything I always thought it would be. Productive, engaging, entertaining, and rewarding, not stressful and time consuming like some teachers make it out to be. So many teachers in the US are so stressed out about their students meeting the national standards and testing high enough on the gajillion standardized tests they are given each year that they don't have time to enjoy teaching. They "don't have time for" science and social studies because they aren't tested, so why teach them when you can use that time to teach reading and math, the only two skills that are even going to be important in life apparently. In the US, I also feel like teachers have to be SO careful in their own classroom behavior. You have to be careful how you hug your students in the morning. You have to be careful how you record data and backup your teaching. You have to be careful to be "fair" to all of your students, which I learned in our staff meeting is pretty bogus. Not following me? Watch this YouTube on students with learning disabilities. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G9--hUQDwY&feature=related F.A.T. City does several awesome presentations like this about teaching students with learning disabilities, and we watched them all in professional development on Wednesday after school. It's really a whole different story, but I learned quite a bit from these videos and I think teachers/administrators/really, the-people-in-power-who-make-all-these-stupid-tests-and-rules in the U.S. could too! (Also, just sayin, there are some awesome teachers out there who overcome the sometimes restricting atmosphere and do a marvelous job with their students. I just think that education in the U.S. as a whole could use a little wake up call to see why a wholesome, not just high achieving, education is what is important.)

Anywaaayyyyyy, the point of this entry is to say that this school is a perfect match for me. (So far at least, ask me again in 15 weeks haha.) I have always felt a little restricted in traditional school settings as an upcoming teacher, and I sometimes wondered "If this is what teaching is going to be like for the rest of my life, am I SURE SURE SURE I want to do this?!" Thankfully, (so far) teaching at the Country Day School is helping me remember why I was motivated to go into the teaching field. I haven't met a teacher here yet that is stuck in what Cohort C calls "survival mode" where they only give out worksheets all day or spend the entire day reprimanding their kids. Granted, these kids are VERY lucky to have good, involved parents and PLENTY of resources, so we generally don't have the same behavior issues that I have come across in some of my placements. None of the students are threatening each other or being physically violent...they just talk all the time and run around like maniacs like third graders are supposed to do! The important thing is though, the students are encouraged to be critical thinkers and life long learners, not just good test takers. Students are taught how to handle conflict, problem solve, work together, and challenge themselves...I think these traits are way more important than anyone being able to spit out a memorized multiplication table or make an educated, calculated guess on a test. Don't take this the wrong way, my students are still taught the traditional math and reading, but they are also taught spelling and handwriting and social studies and science and art and music!!! It's so refreshing to see kids who are excited about school and writing that their dream for the world is for everyone to be able to go to school. Positively refreshing and just what I've needed in internship.

What is also refreshing is how much I get to be outside everyday!! If there is AC here, no one uses it, and instead there is a constant breeze from outside blowing into the classrooms, cafeteria, bathrooms even! There are no hallways, so every time the kids go to "specials" (art, music, p.e. and computer), we get to walk outside! They have break/recess for 15 mins in the morning, and 30 mins recess before lunch, and if we don't have recess duty, we get an hour outside to eat lunch at any of the picnic tables on campus. I also get to lead/watch the math games every morning, which are held during math class and played outside in rotating groups. Oh and don't forget the many trips to the office and copier that let me squeeze a little more outside time into my day! Oh, you want me to run to the office to pick up supplies? Yes please.

I've also met some really awesome people here. First of all, my teacher is SO helpful to me as an intern. She helps me find  my way around campus and understand the way everything works. She explains everything about each student and their individual habits and need, and she asks for my input, which is very welcoming. We've even worked out a great way for me to start teaching. Not this coming week, but the next, I will take over all the little planning and teaching like handwriting, spelling, and the chapter book read aloud. Nothing much, but it lets me ease my way into teaching and planning while the students have time to get used to me actually teaching and being in charge before I actually am! Haha! Then, the week after, I will completely take over teaching math everyday (and planning for it). Two weeks later, Language Arts is all mine, and two weeks later, it's ALL mine and I teach for two whole weeks by myself. We will be starting a heritage project in social studies the week I take over, so I will teach that project all month. After the two weeks of full time teaching that I am required to do, I will give up language arts but I will keep doing the social studies project. Two weeks later is Semana Santa (spring break) and when we come back, I will give up social studies again as we will have finished our heritage project and we will be starting a new one. Two weeks later, I give up math, two weeks later I give up the rest and one week or so later is my last week!!! Sounds pretty good to me! I am so excited I actually fit here so well, but I am afraid I might get spoiled! :)

There are a few other teachers I definitely want to get to know too since a lot of them are actually doing what I want to do and teaching all over the world, somewhere different every few years or so, even with a family in tow! I NEED to figure out ALL the ins and outs of that type of lifestyle to I can start getting ready now! The students here are also great...I enjoy being in a classroom full of boys...there's NEVER a dull moment, and that's one reason I chose to teach. They also are so free-spirited and they love to just be kids, and the teachers let them be. Our class is full of life and energy, to say the least, and even the principal here is always smiling. Is this real? Haha the principal is really great too, you can tell he REALLY cares about his staff and students, and he genuinely wants what is best for everyone.

So after the first week of school, I am thrilled, even though I'm sick! (Side note, my teacher recommended some herbal tea especially for bad coughs, and it actually is curing me!) I was so nervous about coming because of all the unknowns, and now that I know that Oky is fabulous and that I like my school, I can breathe a sigh of relief (even though I'm paranoid of getting robbed all the time haha). Hopefully, I feel the same way in 15 more weeks! So far so good, and I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend, hopefully by a pool somewhere!

PURA VIDA,
Jessica

Adventures Take No TIme To Find Me

Let's just say I've had an interesting 4 days in Costa Rica. I was going to update my blog Sunday night after our weekend trip to Jaco (pronounced Haco), but once I tell you about my weekend, you will understand why I didn't. Let's start with Saturday though....

We were up bright and early with the sun to attempt to brave the public bus system so we could take our first weekend trip to Playas Jaco to surf and soak up the sun. Our favorite new friend, Alfredo (yes, like the pasta) drove us in his taxi to the bus stop in central San Jose, a sketchy, sketchy place might I add. We bought our tickets for the 8:00am bus, and after a little breakfast and waiting, we were off. Success. For now.

After a two hour ride through the mountains we arrived at the beach. Playas Jaco is known for two things: surfing and prostitution. We were obviously there for the surfing/beach, but we knew we needed to be weary of our surroundings at night. We spent a wonderful day in the hot sun on the black sand just relaxing.

The waves were huge that day, maybe 6ft...we all had fun playing in the waves, even Kelly (who we sometimes refer to as Kejy, since "ll" is pronounced "j" in Spanish). Kejy, unfortunately, decided to frolic in the waves with his glasses on. Bad idea, Kejy. This is Kelly trying to read our lunch menu after he lost his glasses in the waves forever.

Fortunately, all turned out well and lunch beachside was awesome, and so were our margaritas!

After a great day on the beach, we decided to venture into town to find somewhere to stay. Yes, we went to Jaco with plans to wing to. We did well too I think. We found this hostel called Poseidon that had a vacancy, free breakfast, Wifi, pool, AC (which is super rare), and two double bed. The 5 of us, being broke college kids, crammed into one room and took advantage of all the ammenities! So worth the little extra money. We walked around town that night, picking up little nicknacks and souvenirs, and I even found a place to rent a surfboard for $10/24 hours! Dinner was good, and I got to bed early so I could hit the best surf at 6am!

6am arrived faster than I thought, but I got up and hit the beach! It was beautiful, and the guys at the surf shop were right - the waves were beautiful! Problem was, they were HUGE and I was a beginner!!! I attempted anyway, and ended up just getting pounded by the surf. Nonetheless, I had fun, and I was able to get up a few times after the surf died down a little. It's Tuesday, and I still can't raise my arms or use my triceps if that's any indication! Better get in shape for next time!

Noon came and it was time to pack up our stuff, turn in my board, catch some lunch and head for the bus station. We all kept saying how nice of a weekend we had had, with new friends on a relaxing beach.

WELP we jinxed ourselves. We boarded the 1:00pm bus back to San Jose that some nice man had helped us get on. The nice man turned up on the bus too, and he helped Kelly and I lift and stuff our backpacks into the overhead compartments above our seats. I sat down, turned to talk to Stephanie for less than 30 seconds, looked up to check on our bags and THEY WERE GONE!!! The "nice man" turned out to be the sneakiest thief I have ever heard of in my life. Obviously he practices a lot and pays off the bus drivers so he can somehow Houdini our huge, noisy backpacks out of the bus, against the flow of passengers boarding the bus and without the bus drivers seeing him. Unlikely. Luckily I noticed very quickly before the bus pulled out, and I scrambled to get off. In broken Spanish, I tried to explain, but the bus workers just sent us to file a police report. Unfortunately however, Mr. Nice Man Thief Guy probably pays off the cops too. Regardless, Stephanie helped us file a report, but we are obviously still waiting for new. The only valuables in my bag were my iPhone and cords, and Kelly only lost his camera and U.S. phone, but I lost a lot of favorite things in that backpack....I have slept with "grannie doll" basically since I was born, and she happened to be in the bag too. Grannie Doll got kidnapped! :( :( :( I was (and am still) VERY upset about that. I hope Mr. Nice Man Theif FELT SO BAD when he opened my bad and saw poor little Granny Doll that he decided to get a real job and quit stealing. Then at least my bad luck wasn't in vain......

Anywho, Stephanie, Kelly, and I took a taxi back Sunday night, and we were exhausted. Hence the reason I didn't update....Now you get it. Note to self, literally keep your hands on your things. Your eyes will fail you.

On an upside, Monday was our first day at CDS. Nothing much exciting that day, just good ole teachers' meetings and workshops. No kids that day, but I did get to meet my teacher, Mrs. Calderon, who seems to be a perfect fit for me. She has high expectations for the kids but she is laid back and tried to teach the kids to be independent, which is super important. I also met the Principal, Mr. Large, who also seems very helpful and genuine. A spattering of other teachers introduced themselves to me, and so far, it seems like this place is PERFECT for me!!! I have so much in common, specifically life goals and teaching philosophies, with the other teachers!

Today, the excitement (aka the kids) came in full speed. I have 17 kids, 12 boys and 5 girls. One of the girls is new, and the other girls in the class are excited to have another of their own! All of these kids speak English and Spanish, and about half speak a third language. Almost all of them are of mixed heritage and decent, with mom and dad from two different countries that speak two different languages! They will even switch between Spanish and English in one sentence! Amazing! It's also really perplexing to see an Asian kid speak PERFECT Spanish, accent and all!!  I can't wait to not only teach these kids, but learn from them as well! We shared about what we did for Christmas, and while all of them told stories of the foreign countries they visited, all I could think of was that I got to sleep late! Hahaha! The kids were all welcoming of course, and we had a good first day! Lots of learning for me! I look forward to the rest of the week!

I think tonight's dinner was good for my soul. Let's just talk about how awesome my host mom is really quick. Her name is Oky, and she speaks broken English, but she tries, and she LOVES having us in her house. I have somehow come down with a cold, and she takes such good care of me! She has made me some kind of hot lemonade concoction for the past three nights for my cough, she rubs some kind of cold remedy cream on my back before bed, and even though she wishes I would dry my hair before bed, I don't, so she says I better sleep with my head under the covers all the way to keep warm! All in Spanglish of course. She also has started sitting with us at dinner, which I love, because for 64, she is as lively as can be. She always wears bright red lipstick, and her jet black hair is always slicked back into a bun. She is always smiling, and she loves to cook for us! Her cooking is fabulous too! She says next week, she will teach me. I wish you could hear her accent and the way she talks. When she found out I lost Grannie Doll, she says "Oh sweetie, donn wuhrry, I talk weeth Gahd and I know shee cahming bahck. I know eet, dun wuhrry." SO SWEET. And tonight, she told us how she learned an American curse word, and that alone was one of the funniest conversations yet. She also tried to explain to us the word "joking" but she kept pronouncing it "chunky" or "junky" or "yoking" and we were all laughing so hard we couldn't breathe!! :) Oky has a LOT of stories, and I love to hear them all, even when they're all in Spanish. I do pretty well understanding, especially with help from the rest of the crew. Oky also has "muchos amigas" and she will tell you that a lot too. :) She is a very good foreign mommy. Trust me, there will be more Oky stories to come!!

For now, it is time for bed. I have to get up for school bright and early, with the sun and the AMAZING WEATHER!!! I will post pictures to facebook soon, so be on the lookout! Here is the most current link:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2713345305078.2125129.1000260093&type=1&l=f911e8c988

Like I said, adventure has found me fast. And I like it. (Except for the theft part).

PURA VIDA, 

Jessica

I MADE IT!!

I have way too many things I want to tell everyone about it's not even funny. I might develop carpel tunnel syndrome just from this one entry...

I finally arrived in San Jose last night around 8pm after a good flight sitting next to some good people. Both guys were my age, both down here (seperately) just for the adventure. Neither knew much about how long they were staying or what they'd be doing, so they were pretty laid back. One of the guys even frequented the annual Rainbow Gatherings. Google it. Trust me. Anyway, once I landed a nice man in a creepy van took Kelly and I to our new home to meet our new mommy. By now, I was exhausted after only getting two hours of sleep the night before, going to the beach on my 6 hour layover in Ft. Lauderdale, and not being able to sleep on the plane didn't help.

I was greeted very warmly by Oky, my host mom, and Lauren, another student teacher staying here. Lauren was excited to be able to speak English to someone since Oky pretty much speaks only the basics, so she helped us answer some of our questions. Yes, we have a maid that comes every day and does our laundry every so often. Yes, she knows where a bank is. Yes, there is another girl, Erica, here too from University of Alabama that came here with Lauren.

The house is BEAUTIFUL, something I would pick up and put somewhere in Tampa for myself in 10 more years. The whole length of the house to the east is glass and windows, and although there is no air conditioning, so far there has been a nice breeze that blows through the slats in the windows. The sun shines through into the living rooms all morning, and there is a nice view of the whole backyard, lime tree included!! In the late afternoon when it is hot, the sun is on the west side of the house so sitting in the living room is very comfortable and relaxing. Oky is also super sweet, and we manage to communicate using our limited understanding of the other's language and the even more limited usage of it. All the other students know about as much Spanish as me, so between the 4 of us living here now, we piece it together!

My room is very comfortable, about the size of my room at home, with a bookshelf, small dresser, bedside table, and twin bed. It also has a closet with tons of shelves, and I have my own bathroom! I can open the slats in my window too for a nice breeze, and since my room is on the west side of the house, it is warmer in the afternoon and it has a view of the front patio, other houses, and the tippy tops of the high, pointed, green mountains.

After a good night's sleep, Oky cooked us a very typical Costa Rican breakfast this morning called pinto gallo, or literally "rooster spots." Of course, I loved it...it was black beans and rice with a fried egg, and when you mix it together it looks spotted, like a rooster's feathers. We also had fresh bread, homemade juice (I think) and a banana. Fresh fruit here is bountiful, which I know I'm going to get used to REAL fast! :)

Today, Erica, Lauren, Kelly, and I decided to explore the city after breakfast, and we wanted to find our school too. We met Erica halfway between her house and our house at a bank, so I got some colones while we were there. Then, walking all uphill, we trekked to Erica's house, which is right down the street from our school. Today was very sunny and warm, with a perfectly cool breeze, but walking uphill gets hot after a while!

After a little water break at Erica's, we walked over to Country Day School. From the moment we walked through the gated campus, we all began to get excited about teaching there! The school is built into the natural landscape, with plenty of open air spaces. Each grade has their own hallway, which is more like a little common outside area, with each classroom door opening to the outside. Small group reading tables and cubbies occupy the cement walkway outside the classrooms, and my hall even had a sink outside! There is a big playground with a beautiful view of the valley, and there's even a stream that runs next to the campus. Flowers and trees were everywhere, and everyone was so friendly! I definitely felt a lot more excited and comfortable about teaching there after our little visit.

Next stop, lunch at a seemingly dumpy restaurant that actually turned out to be very pretty and laid back. I of course loved my lunch of fajitas and ironically, french fries, and the others tried ceviche and chalupas or something. It was all open air but closed in like a regular building if that makes sense. I could get used to feeling like I'm outside all the time too!!!

Eventful day, and now we're back at the house, where we received our fourth roommate, Stephanie, who's from UGA. Oky will be home soon to make our dinner and I am EXCITED for that! :) Also, a weekend beach trip to Jaco (on the Pacific coast, google it!) is in the works, so maybe I'll be surfing my heart out by noon tomorrow!

Pura Vida,
Jessica

The Countdown Begins!

T-5 days until my departure for Costa Rica and I am scurrying around trying to get everything done!!! Haircut, paperwork, picking up supplies, cleaning out my room, to mention a few. I am also trying to get as much socializing in as possible between now and Thursday morning. Outlook for that is good. :)

I heard back from my classroom teacher finally!! I will be teaching 3rd grade at Country Day School (www.cds.edu.cr) in case you forgot. My teacher is from Wisconsin originally, but after she did her student teaching/internship in Costa Rica, she never came back. She married a local and has two little girls and sounds very happy! Her class is made up of 16 students - 4 girls and 12 boys!!! Not to mention that only 3 students are native English speakers, and another 3 are English language learners! That means that 3 students' first language is English, 3 are learning English, and 10 are bi- or tri-lingual!!! SO COOL! This will definitely be interesting.........especially since I think I want to go to grad school and teach English to speakers of other languages.......and since I'm hoping to pick up as much Spanish as possible while I'm there....YAY!!!

The classroom also has a Smartboard, which is like an iPad for a chalkboard for my non-education people out there. It also sounds like the class goes on a field trip and participates in hands-on activities and games. My teacher says that although there is a vast majority of boys in the class, the girls have enough attitude so that the boys don't completely rule the classroom! I am excited to see the dynamic of this class for sure!

I have to get back to getting my work done, and I will be packing all day Wednesday. Any suggestion on off-the-wall things not to forget? I also need to figure out how to get into Panama......

Pura Vida,
Jessica