Today I taught my 1st students; the administrators at Amistad University, where I'm volunteering. 3 of them let me practice teach and all 3 were at different ability levels, which made it complicated. The youngest girl appeared to have never learned more than the most basic English before (I guess I was surprised because she works for a company that regularly has to communicate in English). The hardest part wasn't any of those things, however...the hardest part is that there were no teaching materials, and I pretty much had to make the lesson up.
I'm also learning Spanish, along with the other volunteers here, who have turned out to be 6 German girls and 1 Brit, who is only 17. The classes are great because the teachers speak very little English, we get to be immersed in the language for a few hours ;) In spite having taken only the odd Spanish class, I've been bumped to intermediate, mostly because Spanish is so similar to Italian, the language I was quasi-fluent in, once upon a time...
Barrio Jesus does not have a lot going on. There is the 'main square' with the church and elementary school...there are a couple places to grub by Amistad...there is one pub, one newscounter/grocery store and 1 other cafe/restaurant within walking distance. The streets, just to review, have no lines or sidewalks and every walk to school feels like an exercise in survival training, as the cars whiz past and you have to leap over the huge and very deep, mucho pericoloso gutters.
However, the saving grace for me so far is the fact that I have host brothers, although they make me feel a millions years old. All of them speak English, the youngest somehow is the worst at it.in spite of workings for Amistad...and 'cousin Mike' speaks like a native American. On night 2, he, my 2 youngest host brothers and another cousin Chris took me out to play 'spot the tranny'. Then we hung out in a casino in Heredia for several hours. I get the feeling there is not a lot to do here. At any rate, Kate (the English girl) and I are supposed to take a bus into Heredia tomorrow and do a bit of shopping and walking about. Our Spanish is still shit so we'll see how we get on ;) More on that later.
Monday 15 November 2010
Wednesday 10 November 2010
Day 1
Last night I arrived in the San Jose airport, with virtually no knowledge of Spanish, to meet a man known to me only as Marco. I was greeted by a sea of similar-looking, brown-haired people, all of them shorter than me. No worries, I'll just yell out Marco. Someone will turn around.
After waiting on the airport curb for 15 minutes, Marco and a rather cute, obviously gay assistant turned up to grab me and the airport's other sore thumb, Marie, a blond German girl here for a month.
In the car, we discovered that we were both here for a month to volunteer, that we both wanted to try surfing, and that she was 4 years younger than me. Damn, I knew I should have done this trip sooner.
At any rate, I'm doing it now. Marco spoke English but his assistant did not, therefore we heard only bits and pieces about Costa Rica as we drove along, most of which I've already forgotten. What struck me right away though, was how much less civilized Costa Rica looks than I expected it to. As we left San Jose and drove out past Heredia to the Barrio Jesus (I know, I live in a Barrio!) we passed long stretches of roads, paved but with no discernable sidewalk, lines and huge, precarious-looking gutters lining them.
The rooves on the houses were by and large tin, occasionally red-tiled...and outside the houses (none over 2 stories except the church) was pretty much...dirt. Really, I have had no image of Costa Rica in my mind til now except jungle. There could have been no toilets and I wouldn't have been surprised.
We arrived at my host family's house after about an hour and I met mother, father and my 3 new brothers, all but one of whom is younger than me (I'm only 25, Goddammit!). The dad is very shy and the mom miles less friendly than everybody else, who seemed to take my arrival in stride. Apparently, I also have host cousins, one I've already met. He's 18 and speaks perfect English because his dad is American.
Oh well I'm headed off to my first Spanish class now (we get a free week of them!) so I'll write more later on....
After waiting on the airport curb for 15 minutes, Marco and a rather cute, obviously gay assistant turned up to grab me and the airport's other sore thumb, Marie, a blond German girl here for a month.
In the car, we discovered that we were both here for a month to volunteer, that we both wanted to try surfing, and that she was 4 years younger than me. Damn, I knew I should have done this trip sooner.
At any rate, I'm doing it now. Marco spoke English but his assistant did not, therefore we heard only bits and pieces about Costa Rica as we drove along, most of which I've already forgotten. What struck me right away though, was how much less civilized Costa Rica looks than I expected it to. As we left San Jose and drove out past Heredia to the Barrio Jesus (I know, I live in a Barrio!) we passed long stretches of roads, paved but with no discernable sidewalk, lines and huge, precarious-looking gutters lining them.
The rooves on the houses were by and large tin, occasionally red-tiled...and outside the houses (none over 2 stories except the church) was pretty much...dirt. Really, I have had no image of Costa Rica in my mind til now except jungle. There could have been no toilets and I wouldn't have been surprised.
We arrived at my host family's house after about an hour and I met mother, father and my 3 new brothers, all but one of whom is younger than me (I'm only 25, Goddammit!). The dad is very shy and the mom miles less friendly than everybody else, who seemed to take my arrival in stride. Apparently, I also have host cousins, one I've already met. He's 18 and speaks perfect English because his dad is American.
Oh well I'm headed off to my first Spanish class now (we get a free week of them!) so I'll write more later on....
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