This
week began the third week of my internship! It is crazy how fast the time is
flying by. After this week, I will be halfway done with my internship and only
have 3 short weeks left in Costa Rica. The week ended with a fun adventure to
Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica. Below is my past week in
review (11/18-11/24):
Monday: This week the students at
the school have exams. So, I worked with Nathalia (the English teacher) as
normal; however, rather than being in
the classroom teaching the students, I watched over and entertained the
students that were exempt from exams today.
Tuesday: The
students had exams once again today. So, I helped with “coro” or choir for a
majority of the morning. We practiced the Christmas Songs for their upcoming
concert during choir.
Wednesday: I
arrived at school and helped with choir again. Today the kids made up actions
to go with the Jingle Bell Rock song. I am excited to see them preform their
Christmas songs for the concert. They are so cute! After choir I worked with
the English teacher giving exams. I found out today that one of the teachers is
sick. I am not sure what the school is going to do because normally if a
teacher cannot come to work for a day or two then classes for those grades are
just cancelled. They do not have substitute
teachers in Costa Rica, so we will see what happens.
An incident occurred today
in the 1st grade classroom that allowed me the chance to see how
behavior problems are handled here in Costa Rica. A little boy in the classroom
has recently been causing problems in the classroom and hitting students. Many
students say that he is a bully and some sort of action needs to take place. He
once again was acting out in class and I kept being told that this little boy
was hitting students. The English teacher was then informed and she filled out
paperwork in some sort of “behavior book”. I am not sure if all students have
this type of book or if only this boy does, but the way that Nathalia decided
to handle the situation is as follows. She went to talk to the principal about
the situation. The principal then came into the classroom and called the child
to her office. He went and talked to the principal about what happened. Then he
came back to the classroom and the teacher left to talk to the principal once
again. Once she came back from the principal’s office, she asked everyone in
the class who had been hit or bullied by this little boy to raise their hand (keep
in mind the child was in the room while all of this was happening). Nearly all
of the class raised their hand. The teacher then proceeded to ask each student
who was raising their hand what happened between them and the boy who had been
taken to the principal’s office. This very quickly turned into an argument
between students. The child who had been accused of bullying and the other
students were defending their position and their story. It was crazy! After
observing what had just happened, I now knew how not to handle a problem in the
classroom. It was a very good experience and a great time for me to just sit
back and observe what was going on and how I would handle things in my own classroom.
Thursday: I
didn’t have to work today because the students only had class as in class I mean
their last exams for less than 2 hours. Tara didn’t have to work either today
so we took a little adventure to the Harley Davidson store in Escazu to get her
dad a t-shirt for Christmas. After this mini-adventure, we came back to Maximo
and had class for an hour in the afternoon. Once class was done, Tara, Kayla,
and I all talked and decided that we wanted to go to Puerto Viejo this weekend.
We quickly discussed the details of the weekend and made plans to leave
tomorrow for the Caribbean.
Friday: Kayla,
Tara and I woke up at the crack of dawn to get to Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean
side of Costa Rica at mid-day today. Our mom called a cab for us at 5:10ish.
The cab came and we were driven to the bus station. There we bought our tickets
for the bus ride and boarded the bus. The bus left around 6 o’clock this
morning and arrived in Puerto Viejo around 11. It was so weird getting
somewhere so early in the day and having half a day to enjoy the beautiful
beach. Once we arrived in Puerto Viejo we walked to our hostel (Rocking J’s)
where we would be staying for the next two nights. We decided to stay in
hammocks in the hostel that cost us $7 a night. We put our stuff in the lockers
that we received and left to explore the beaches around the area. The water was
incredibly warm and calm. The water was almost like bath water and it was so
clear that you could see everything in the water. The beach directly outside of
our hostel was full of coral so I wore my Keens the entire time. We saw sea
urchins, little fish, snails, hermit crabs, and much more! Then, we walked to a
hole that we saw in the coral. At the bottom of this hole it was all sandy. We
decided to jump into the hole where we were swimming with mini Dory fish and little
striped fish. It was really cool!! Afterwards, we walked to a beach where it
was all sandy. We met two girls who were seven and nine. They both lived in
Puerto Viejo and they were really cute and nice. After we spent time at the
beach, we showered and walked around the town to find a place to eat. We
ultimately decided on a cheap pizza place where they were selling a slice of
pizza for 1000 colones. We decided that tomorrow night we would have a nice
dinner out at a restaurant called Chile Rojo that one of the girls we made
friends with on the beach suggested.
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| Rocking J's - Our hostel for the weekend |
Saturday: Today I skyped with my mom and we went over my
application for a summer internship through Junior Senior Scholars. I am really
hoping that I am accepted for this position because I think it would be an
awesome experience. Afterward skyping, we all got dressed to go to the beach.
We walked about 2 kilometers to a beach nearby that was completely sand and
super nice. We walked along the beach and found shells, sea urchin shells, and
pieces of sand dollars. We were intrigued and wanted to find whole sand
dollars, however this was short lived and we ended up just going in the ocean.
It was a nice relaxing day at the beach and I had tons of fun. We then came
back and ate lunch, then we went to the beach where we were at yesterday and
met our two little girls who we made friends with yesterday. After spending some
time there, we came back to the hostel to shower and then go to a nice dinner
at Chile Rojo. I ate coconut-crusted sea bass with a special kind of banana
sauce on the top. It was very good!! I would definitely go back to that
restaurant again.
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| The Beautiful Caribbean |
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| Our bed...or should I say hammock :) |
I only have three short
weeks left here in Costa Rica! My time is going by incredibly fast and I can’t
believe it is nearing the 15-week mark of my total time in this wonderful
country. Check back soon for another update. Thanks for reading!
~Kailey
