Another
week has passed and I still continue to wonder where the time is going. Before
I know it I will be on my flight home. Crazy how fast time flies! This past
week consisted of working in the Kindergarten classroom, attending our host
sibling’s Christmas concert and exploring the city of Cartago. Below I have
included a review of the events from the past week (11/25-12/1):
Monday: Work
today was a little different than usual because only the teachers were at the
school with the exception of the kindergarten/preschool class. The teachers
have an entire week of in-service. For this reason, I worked in the Kindergarten
classroom today and I will work with this class for the remainder of the week.
I learned a lot about Kindergarten here in Costa Rica today. First, the
classroom consists of students ranging in age from 4.5 years to 5.5 or 6 years
old. There are students that are in “transition” meaning that theses students
are on the verge of moving from the preschool/kindergarten classroom to 1st
grade. However, the other half of the class is in the preschool/kindergarten
classroom. The teacher in this classroom is given the task to teach to all age
levels, learning abilities, etc. Second, the kids in this classroom are much
crazier than the students in the upper grade levels. I entered the room and it
was a bit chaotic. The students were yelling and running, etc. For the most
part, the teacher has control, but things got out of hand every once in awhile.
There is definitely a noticeable difference in behavior between these students
and the students in the English class where I have been working. Today in class
a girl named Brithany had her birthday. Her mom brought in cake, ice cream,
candy, and games for the kids to play. The students first ate papaya (a native
fruit) and ice cream. Then they played musical chairs and ate candy for prizes
afterwards; next, the students gave the little girl her gifts (only a select
few students brought presents). Finally, the students ate cake and drank juice.
This was very messy as the students spilled cake all over the floor and they
were very loud and rowdy due to all of the sugar. This party was similar to a
birthday party that you would have with your kid’s friends on a Saturday, but
it was in the classroom. After all was said and done, Brithany’s mom, grandma,
and I all cleaned up the classroom. We swept the floor, cleaned up the garbage,
and mopped. It was a very eventful and fun day in the Kindergarten class.
Tuesday: Another
irregular day today consisted of helping Lui with making a spreadsheet of names
of students with the days of the week, cleaning up plates of the teachers from
other schools and aiding the kindergarten teacher with various in class
activities. There are an abundance of teachers at the school this week because
teachers from other schools are coming to our school in order to have various
meetings. They were all very impressed that I knew Spanish and could talk with
them. Some of the teachers kindly offered to have me stay in their house if I
ever come back to visit Costa Rica…I may add that this was just minutes after
they had just met me. This is a perfect example of the unique culture of Costa
Rica and the hospitality and kindness of each person here!!
Wednesday: I
worked all day with the Kindergarten class once again. Today I observed the
activities that the teacher was doing with the kids when I arrived. She sang
songs with actions to get some energy out of the kids. Then, the kids had
breakfast. The process of eating breakfast is quite lengthy. First, the
students washed their hands in the bathroom, and then they ate their main dish
(today was gallo pinto), drank their juice, and ate their fruit. After everyone
was done with breakfast each student brushed his or her teeth. It was
interesting to me that this is not the first time that I have seen both
students and teachers brush their teeth after eating. I think this is a
cultural thing as the Costa Ricans only go to the dentist for a cleaning at the
most once a year. As the class continued, I taught a select few students how to
play dominoes today. The students loved this game and of course it is a
privilege to play with me so they each wanted to play. It was very fun to be
able to talk one on one and teach a select few students.
Thursday: This
morning was the start to a very long day as I would be out and about all day. I
also missed my family more than usual today because today is Thanksgiving and
this is the first time that I won’t be able to spend it with my family. While
eating breakfast this morning, I found the Thanksgiving Day parade channel on
T.V. here, but I wasn’t able to watch it because I had to go to work. I arrived
to work and was in the Kindergarten class again. However, today in class was a
little different because only three students showed up to class. It rained all
day and the kids/their moms didn’t want to come to school in the rain so the
majority of the students just stayed home for the day. I played with the three
students who showed up to class and talked with the teacher. I learned today
while talking with the teacher that in order to be a preschool teacher here you
have to go to school for 6 years at a university! The teacher that I have been
with this week told me that she wants to take me to her house in Alajuela and
show me around the town as well. She wants to take me on the train, to the
market, and around her home and town. She offered to take me today, but I have
class this afternoon and then a Thanksgiving dinner later at night so I
couldn’t do it today! However, I hope that it works out soon. I think this is
super kind of her to do and I can’t wait for it to happen! She also offered to
have me sleepover at her house one night. We will see if this happens, but I
told her I would just have to let my Mama Tica know if I was going to stay at
her house. After work, I went to Maximo to use the Internet before class. I
then had class as normal. After class, I FaceTimed with my family before they
ate Thanksgiving dinner. It was great to be able to see all of them, but it
also made me wish that I could be home. However, I am glad that they are
providing us with a Thanksgiving dinner here at a local restaurant. Once I was
done talking to my family, Tara, Kayla and I headed home to see if we could
connect with our family because our mom’s sister (who lived in the U.S. for 8
years) is having a Thanksgiving dinner and we were invited to go with our
family to the dinner. Sadly, it didn’t workout to go to our family’s
Thanksgiving dinner because our Thanksgiving dinner through the school
interfered. We ate at a local restaurant in Zapote called Taos. We had salad,
turkey with gravy, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans with bacon, and pumpkin
pie. I also had a strawberry smoothie with my dinner. It was delicious and I
was stuffed afterwards as always on Thanksgiving. Although I missed being with
my family and participating in the traditional Thanksgiving meal that we
normally have, it was nice to have such a great group of friends to spend
Thanksgiving with in Costa Rica. Before dinner, we all went around the table
and shared what we were thankful for. I thought this was a very cool thing to
do as we all have so much to be thankful for both here in Costa Rica and in the
United States.
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| The Group at Thanksgiving Dinner :) |
Friday: I helped
with the choir practice for their big Christmas concerts next week as the
Kindergarten class didn’t have class today. After choir class, Luigina told me
that only the Kindergarten has class next week so I will help them on Monday.
On Wednesday afternoon, I am going to go with Luigina and the choir to one of
their Christmas concerts as a chaperone. It is in the afternoon and I am really
looking forward to going with them. The Kindergarten teacher brought up the
idea of me going to her house and having her show me around Alajuela again. She
told Luigina today that she really likes me and that we get along well. She called
me her “reina” today when I showed up to work. She is so so so sweet and I
already know I am going to miss her! Kayla, Tara and I went to Valeria and
Alonso’s Christmas concert tonight at 5pm. We showed up a little early to the
concert because we had to wait in line to get a stamp on our arm and our
tickets checked. Waiting in the line was definitely a little bit of a culture
shock because the people in Costa Rica have no sense of personal space and all
wait in line extremely close to one another. Once we were stamped and our
tickets were checked we went and sat in our seats. I sat next to our host mom’s
mom (our grandma). She shared with me that she lived in North Carolina for 3
years and worked at a Tico Restaurant there. She now works in San José at a
restaurant where she works tiring hours of 5am to 7pm or later. She is the cook
there and loves to cook but says that it is very tiring. After talking for a
very long time we began to question when the concert was going to start. It
turns out that the concert started at 5pm and la hora tica. The concert didn’t
actually start until 5:40pm. Valeria preformed the song “We Wish You A Merry
Christmas” and Alonso starred in a short Christmas play. Both performances were
very cute. Valeria wore a white shirt, jeans, a Santa Hat, and make up that her
mom did for her! Alonso wore a suit and a tall top hat similar to that of
Abraham Lincoln. It was very cool to see what a Christmas concert here is like.
No one in the audience was paying attention and if they are it is because their
child is preforming and they are standing up taking a video while blocking the
view for everyone else in the audience. There was a break in the show where we
went to eat bakery items and soda that our mom bought for us. The show ended
around 7:30 that night. We went home and watched TV while we waited for our
family to get home and have dinner.
Saturday: Two
weeks left in Costa Rica!! Where does the time go? I am ready to go home, but I
am ready to enjoy these next two weeks as well. Today Kayla, Tara, and I went
to Cartago to see the Basilica and the Ruins. We took a bus early in the
morning to be able to spend the day there, hoping that we would miss the rain
as it usually comes in the afternoon. We walked around the town for a bit because
we didn’t know where we were going. However, we then were able to find the
ruins after a little while because Tara had previously lived in Cartago for two
weeks a couple years ago. We walked to the ruins. The ruins are from various
attempts to build a temple to honor the apostle Santiago of Costa Rica but were
destroyed multiple times due to earthquakes in the area. The ruins now lie in
this place and serve as a beautiful garden and monument.
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| A photo in the ruins in Cartago |
After the ruins we walked to the Basilica. Here we saw
multiple spouts of holy water that people were bathing in and taking water
from. It was quite the site to see and amazing to witness. We then walked
around to a separate room at the back of the Basilica to see a room where there
were multiple displays containing charms that people had hung up to symbolize
that a “milagro” or miracle had taken place in their life. This was truly
moving to see how many miracles have been displayed in this room and to witness
the amazing power of God. Also in this room there was a statue of “La Negrita”
siting on a rock. The tale of this statue is as follows:
La Negrita (the Black Virgen) is a small (less than 1m
tall), probably indigenous, representation of the Virgin Mary, found on this
spot on August 2, 1635 by a native woman. As the story goes, when she tried to
take the statuette with her, it miraculously reappeared back where she’d found
it. Twice. So the townspeople built a shrine around her. Each August 2, on the
anniversary of the statuette’s miraculous discovery, pilgrims from every corner
of the country (and beyond) walk the 22km from San José to the basilica. Many
of the penitents complete the last few hundred meters of the pilgrimage on
their knees. (story taken from the Lonely Planet)
We saw this site first hand. Although it wasn’t actually
August 2nd for the day of the pilgrimage, there were multiple people
in the Basilica who were crawling on their knees to make their way up to the
alter to offer prayers. It was quite a sight to see and once again demonstrated
to me the sheer power of God. I saw a women who could barely make the journey
to the alter on her knees because she was in so much pain and had to stop every
other pew for a break. However, by the power of God she was able to make it to
the alter to offer her prayer. Truly amazing!! There was also a baptism
happening in the Basilica with multiple families and baby dressed in beautiful
white gowns. I haven’t mentioned the beauty of the Basilica yet, but the detail
and artwork in the Basilica was absolutely stunning.
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| Holy Water at the Basilica |
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| La Negrita |
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| Just one of the many displays of the charms from miracles that have been preformed!! |
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| People in the Basilica crawling on their knees to offer their prayers at the alter |
After we were done at the Basilica, we headed back to the
bus station to catch the bus back to San Pedro where we hung out at Maximo for
a little bit before we went to the mall to watch The Hunger Games: Catching
Fire at the movie theatre. The movie is called Los Juegos de Hambre En Llamas
in Spanish. We bought our tickets for 1700 colones or a little under $4. It was
quite a deal considering how expensive it is to see a movie in the United
States. We also bought caramel popcorn that the theatre sells for $4 as well. I
bought a movie ticket and popcorn for less than the cost of a ticket at home.
It was interesting to buy our tickets because the movie theatre here has
assigned seats to we had to pick which section and what seat all three of us
wanted to sit in. Surprisingly, the movie started on time and there were
commercials as usual but they started at 2pm like scheduled. The movie was in
English with Spanish a subtitles, which was easy for us to understand! The
movie was wonderful and extremely well directed! I would go see it again! I
can’t wait for the next movies to come out! After the movies, we went home to
eat dinner and hangout with our family. We talked with our mom for a long time
after dinner and bonded with her.
Sunday: Today Kayla,
Tara and I slept in, ate breakfast, went on a run and then got ready for our
day. We spent that day at Maximo to use the Internet and catch up on
assignments that are due for the next week.
Thank you for continually following my journeys in Costa
Rica. Check back soon for the next post soon!
~Kailey
