Discrimination

Over the past two weeks, I have taken the bus across the city back and forth to work each day. Because I have interacted with many different kinds of people while traveling by bus, I think I am experiencing Costa Rican life at a whole new level. The bus has everything from mothers nursing toddlers to drunk men who can barely balance, and every person on the bus has a different opinion about gringos... lucky for me, I'm a gringa, so I am experiencing firsthand the discrimination that minorities are given.

For example, I was sitting at the back of a rush-hour-traffic bus jam-packed with people, and a gringo got on to ask the driver if the bus went through San Francisco de Dos Ríos. The driver shook his head no and pointed to the bus stop indicating the gringo should wait there... but the interesting thing to me was that we were going to a pass right through the middle of San Francisco. The ticos on the bus started laughing that the driver had lied to the gringo... and there I'm sitting in the middle of the ticos knowing what was going on...

Gringos on the 6am buses aren't very common, so I get lots of stares and comments. I do my best to ignore the ugly words, but part of my personality is taking everything to heart, considering what others say. So because many things that are said are vulgar, I am turning them over in my mind and by the time I get to work, I have to re-focus myself that I'm no longer at the mercy of the bus occupants.

I have seen discrimination off of the bus as well. Yesterday, I was at the mall with some friends, and I went to order pizza at Pizza Hut in the food court. There was an offer for 3 slices of pizza for 2,000 colones, and that's a pretty good deal, so I ordered that. The lady put 2 slices of pizza on my tray and then walked away to do something else in the kitchen. I stood there for about 3 minutes before she came back out to the front. She looked at me as if she was annoyed that I was still there, and I asked, ''Wasn't it 3 slices?'' and she laughed at me as she gave me my third piece. Um, just because I'm gringo doesn't mean I can't count.

Discrimination has me thinking... how many times have I looked down on someone else because they don't know all the cultural cues or the language? Because somehow I feel like their people have offended my people in any way?

I asked a tica friend if ticos don't like gringos and she said that there's such a history of discrimination of gringos to other peoples around the world that the general attitude toward gringos is very negative. She said the problem with people is that we generalize that all people of that nationality must be the same in every way and so the assumption is that all gringos must be discriminatory towards latinos. She said that she's told her family about meeting me, that she met a gringa that was really nice and speaks Spanish well, and she said that her family seemed surprised that a gringa would want to be friends with her. She said I can't let these situations get me down, that I need to speak up against the discrimination when it happens, that I need to remember that I am a daughter of God, that I need to remember not everyone lives by the biblical morals I consider essential to life.

I think God's preparing me for something bigger than just being in an elementary classroom... maybe something more in social justice? Who knows! For now, I am experiencing the ins and outs of being a minority.

Tips for Commuting by Bus

1. Don´t sit in seats with standing room in front of them... unless you want to look at butts.

2. If your plan is to grade papers during the ride, don´t sit in any seats above or behind the back tire as this produces very shaky handwriting and students will be asking you to interpret your chicken-scratch.

3. Always ask the driver if he's passing by your routine stop. You never know when he might change his route.

4. In the event of pouring rain, take a deep breath before entering the bus... and don't exhale until you get off. Unless, of course, you like wet-dog smell.

5. Wash your hands immediately after exiting.

6. Rainboots are suggested for the 1.5 kilometer walk between bus stops on rainy days.

7. Don´t ever take a car ride for granted again.

Reading to 1st Grade

We read with our First Grade Buddies on Friday. Here's a peek at busy readers...

Giving Kids a Camera Can Be Dangerous...

...for your self esteem, for your idea of ''classroom management'', for your timetable of what needs to get done in the 2 minutes before the bell rings... etc. :) Here's what last week´s CameraLady captured of me in action...

 the thinking, slightly confused Miss Siscoe...

 the I'm-just-smiling-to-humor-you Miss Siscoe...

 the caught-in-the-headlights Miss Siscoe...

and the hair-flipping-out-again Miss Siscoe.

Hard Life Lessons

I think that when people living in the U.S. think of what it´s like to live in another country, they think of the exotic beaches, the beautiful handmade goods, beautiful weather and landscapes, the cheaper cost of living... but what they don´t think about is that you´re only real-life access to your family is via Internet, that you have to speak another language to navigate yourself (well, at least here you do), that there´s rainy days here for months at a time, that people try to cheat you out of money because foreigners (North Americans) are assumed to be richer, etc.

Something that´s been on my mind lately is thinking, ''Well, when I move back to the States, this _______________ won´t happen anymore.'' (I put a blank there because I fill that blank with many different things, like ''culture differences,'' ''language barriers,'' ''people charging me more for my groceries because I'm a foreigner,'' ''confrontation in friendships.'') However, I have to keep reminding myself that just because I return to the U.S. will not make those problems go away. In fact, it might make language barriers harder because then I´ll be interacting with the U.S. melting pot version of Spanish where everyone has their own accents and vocabularies according to what countries they are from... It might also make culture differences more difficult as I am the one who has changed a lot culturally in the last couple years and I will have to learn to communicate my differences in my beliefs based on the last two years of living-abroad experiences.

And I have to remind myself big-time that confrontation in friendship will probably never go away, no matter where I live. Sure, there will be moments when I have to speak up about something that's bothering me and moments when everything is fine. And my current living situation doesn't guarantee healthy and committed relationships...

Thank goodness, God's got all the details. He knows where I'll be in a year and how He'll be providing in a year. He also knows that I'm right here on my couch right now and how He'll provide for my needs today and tomorrow and the next day and the next... I'm so thankful that no matter where I live, He's got my back.

¿Cómo se llama?

Yesterday, I asked at the customer service desk at PriceMart (think Sam's Club) if they could call a taxi for me. The lady said sure and asked for my name. I told her ''Kathryn'' because that's just easier to explain in Spanish than ''Kate'' is. She wrote my name and my taxi number on a ticket and handed it to me to go wait outside. She spelled my name C-A-T-E-R-I-N-G... um, that´s a new one!

School from a 5th Grader´s Perspective

We just went through ''job training'' in 5th grade this week, so students are busily and purposefully going about their jobs. One job is new this year -- CameraMan. I am allowing students to use my old camera that I bought in 2004 to document our class memories. (We agreed on the consequences for breaking the camera is Saturday School.) I told them I would use the photos for a slide show of memories. :) What they didn´t know is that I would also be using the photos for newsletters and the blog! :)

Hiding from the camera at the class meeting.

Studying hard.

I often forget that students look ´´up´´ at me, that they don´t see on my eye level.

Reader´s Theater with puppets.

The photographer taking pictures of himself.

They give each other smiles for the camera that they wouldn´t give me :)

We are in process of doing an experiment with calcium... What would happen if we didn´t have any calcium in our bones? (Put an egg in vinegar for 2 or 3 days and the vinegar takes the calcium out of the egg shell... then the egg bounces :))

And the egg fizzing away.