Yo entiendo mas!

Aaaand another photo that Kim Loosa gave me -- the four Sojourn chicas on top of the mountains!

I am understanding more and more Spanish. Gracias a Dios!!! I have been working hard with my tutor to learn an endless list of verbs (more than 200) and it's amazing what a difference it is making in my understanding. Today at church, a gringa named Bonnie introduced herself to my tica mom, Blanca, and explained that she is a student at the Instituto. Bonnie had an assignment to ask some questions of a tica, so she began her questions. Blanca told Bonnie that I was also learning Spanish, but I don't think Bonnie understood her... I explained to Bonnie (in Spanish still) that I live with Blanca's family and I am a teacher at the Institute, but Bonnie gave me a blank look and nodded her head (ha, my own default mechanism also -- to smile and nod when I have no idea what's going on)... so then I said in English, "I am a gringa too." Blanca was laughing and Bonnie was still looking at me blankly. ... did she really think I was tica?? ha, that would be a nice switch, because to ticos, I am obviously gringa. ha, it's always an adventure in both languages!

I cut Tricia's hair on Friday afternoon... photos to come :)

Kim, Tricia, and I hung out last night and literally talked for like 4 hours straight. It is so good to have good friends here! We have our differences, but we are so thankful that we enjoy each other's company... if we didn't, this experience would be miserable and lonely!

Please pray for my students. These past couple weeks have been rough and I am often losing my patience... In talking with Mr. Reilly, the principal, he said that February and March are often the hardest months of teaching because there are no breaks and it is becoming warmer throughout the dry season. The students are becoming irritable with each other... Maybe it's time for another encouragement conference with them? ha, that worked in November when we were having similar problems. I think another part of the problems is that because I have such a small class now, each child's issues are magnified to me... Instead of focusing on many issues, I am focusing on just a few major problems ... but I feel way in over my head right now with what the students need. Pray for wisdom for me in how I handle the situations tomorrow.

Life is Very Full and Very Good

Here's the crazy group that hiked the mountain Sunday. Thanks, Brendan, for the photo.


So Kim V. is officially the producer of a play at Sojourn... and I am officially the Set and Costumes Designer! The right side of my brain says "Wow this will be so much fun!" and the left side says "What are you thinking?" Ha, it's going to be a lot of work... but the good news is that it's totally in my artistic creative nature to do something like this. We just had auditions today, and I am sketching the stage scenes and brainstorming what we need. Another adventure...

Life in 4th grade is challenging. An impatient attitude, an apathetic attitude, an attitude of stuffing anger, and an I-need-attention attitude have been my challenge lately. I mean, I know they're making their choices in how they want to behave and interact with the other students, but it's so difficult to warn and lecture and encourage and reflect and there's not much progress.

But positives include we've started a Geometry Unit -- a vacation from Multiplication and Division. We play Simon Says to get the vocabulary in our brains. "Simon says be an obtuse angle. Simon says be a vertex. Simon says be a line segment."... and on it goes. They seem to enjoy it and kinesthetic methods of learning never hurt anyone (there's a teacher word for you :)).

I have 2 hours of Spanish tutoring tomorrow and I need to study! and so many other things to do... but I'm loving life. :)

Landscape Beauty

Some of the crazy hikers climbing the cross. I decided against climbing, but I definitely enjoyed the view of the mountains and city.

Much of the path was steep and loose dirt... like this photo.

Practicing my still life photography. :)

And again.

The city and mountains in the distance.

and again :)

This photo reminds me of how foreign a country I live in. Ha, you would never see these in Illinois!

The enormous city seeming itsy bitsy from the mountain.

and again :)

and the lovely ladies of Sojourn. I can't live without them!

Tres Cruzes

I climbed a mountain today. We had heard of the Three Crosses at the top of a mountain that overlooks San Jose, and so a group of students from the Institute decided to climb it today. I now have these photos as evidence that I survived the steep hike and my camera is still intact. Que bueno.

An Assignment

Mimi, the secretary and go-to woman at Sojourn, let me borrow a new game today. She also gave me an assignment... to teach it to my tico family in Spanish. I am looking for any opportunities I can get to practice Spanish, so this was a good idea...

I got home, carrying the game (the box is rather large), and Judit took notice and asked what it was. I told her (half joking :)) that I had brought it home to teach her, and she said, "Bueno! Despues cena!" Sweet, that wasn't hard. So after dinner, we all sat down and I taught them Mimi's version of the game. I quickly realized that the directions in the game did not match up with what she had taught me during our "very important" meeting today, ha.

Tomorrow, I will teach the game to my students... this time in English.

Sojourn is collecting school supplies for another school in need in this area, and the 4th grade was assigned to collect 55 boxes of crayons. The class that collects their items first gets a pizza or ice cream party... Yesterday we had 37 boxes... and then Gaby brought in more than 30 more boxes this morning!! Needless to say, the whole class was jumping up and down, super excited about a party... but the 5th grade may have beat us because they took their supplies to the office 5 minutes before us. The 4th graders were a little depressed about this prospect today...

New Word Today: Migrana

Anybody know how to make the "~" symbol? "Migrana" has an "~" over the n... but I don't know how to make it.


A high school student's mom passed away from cancer this weekend, so in order to show support, all the secondary and specials teachers went to the funeral today. It's a big Latin America custom to show support when a student's parent dies. But elementary still had school, and without the specials teachers, there was no EFL, no MEP, no Spanish classes. That translates to mean I had my students from 7:30 to 1pm straight with no breaks. NO BREAKS. Kind of like mothering, I suppose. It was a good day though as we actually had sufficient time for reading groups. Aaah, the luxury, imagine that.


But by the time I made it home, I had a migraine. No fun. I got home at 3 and went straight to bed, woke up at 5, went to the kitchen and burst into tears when Blanca asked me if I was okay. All I could think to say was in English, the Spanish just wasn't working at all, so I just said "My head hurts!!" and Blanca thought I was crying because I was homesick or something. I was holding my head between my hands because it hurt so bad... I probably looked really high or something, ha. So then it turned into a big production... Judit went to the pharmacy to get medicine for me and Blanca was on the phone trying to get a hold of the family doctor and ManRi was sitting at the table getting really hungry for dinner. My head hurt so bad, and I was half laughing, half crying at all this commotion -- of course all in Spanish.


All in a day's work.

Birthday Parties and Spanish Lessons

Today we had a birthday party for one of my tica students. Birthday celebrations at schools in the States often consist of bringing in a treat for everyone... you know, like cupcakes or Twinkies. Costa Rica has a totally different definition of a birthday party. The parents today brought in balloons (you know, the ones that you can make into swords and weiner dogs), tattoos, yoyos, bouncy balls, and of course, chocolate cake. Woooooooo we were hyper there for the last 10 minutes of school. Controlled chaos, you could say. It was quite the adventure as we rocked the Spanglish, ha.


I had my second Spanish lesson today with a tutor, and I have lots of verbs to memorize for Thursday. Que bueno! This is so what I wanted last semester, and I am glad to have goals to work toward in Spanish... and the accountability of a teacher is that much more motivating. Buuuut... now I need to get to work!