Okay, so life is crazy right now. That's my classic one-liner these days :). But no really, life is crazy.
I moved from San Francisco de Dos Ríos to Santa Ana this week. It's like an automatic upgrade in social class here as I went from a barred apartment to a gated community complete with guards, expensive cars, no bars on windows, and open-door policy between neighbors. Quite the change! I don't have Internet or phone though, so I'm instead enjoying the big bed and TV and full wall of mirrors in my bedroom :).
There has been a lot of flooding here on the west side of the city due to the rainy season, so in the last 24 hours, there have been multiple landslides that have killed several people and cut the water pipes coming into the city. Schools were cancelled today, so I worked at school for a while, then hitched a ride back to ''my condo'' (hitched a ride with another Lighthouse staff member, of course :)), took a nap, and now I'm mooching off a neighbor's Internet :). Sweet deal.
So instead of snow days, we have landslide days :).
I am hopefully going to the beach this weekend still as the Sojourn senior girls asked me to chaperone their senior trip. I'll post photos as soon as I can! :)
11.04.2010
10.28.2010
Old People Day
This week is ''Homecoming Week'' kind of as we have random dress-up days every day... So today was Old People/Baby Day. In other words, students dressed as an elderly person or as a baby. I had 7 old people, 1 baby, and 2 I wasn´t sure what they were :)
He said his mustache smelled funny and that he fought in World War II when he was a youngster.
Wow! Her hair was awesome :)
Our only baby
He claimed he was an old person, but I told him he looked an awful lot like a skater/emo kid from our 5th grade class...
Her hair is naturally really dark brown so she loaded that baby powder into her hair for this effect!
She had stage makeup for wrinkles and old stockings :)
His cane was too short... He said that added to his ''humpback''.
She confessed at lunch that she just wanted to wear pajamas... that she wasn´t really an old person or baby.
He was so proud to have a real cane. At one point in the day, he told me he was thinking ''about the good ol´ days!'' When you're in 5th grade, does that mean when you were a toddler? :)
Wacky Outfit Day
Here´s 5th grade, rocking Wacky Outfit Day. I played it ''safe'' with my outfit and one kid commented that my outfit just looked like what I wear everyday, lol.
In my peripheral vision, I thought she was raising her hand! :) She used curlers and a headband to get her hair like this.
Looking serious.
love all these crazy colors and patterns...
He was very creative to dress himself upside down!
And the classic photo of a photo :)
10.25.2010
Typical Day During the Rainy Season
progression from sunny mornings to cloudy afternoons to rainy evenings
8:15 a.m.
8:56 a.m.
10:15 a.m.
2:29 p.m.
5:03 p.m.
10.24.2010
Proof!
Here's proof that there really is a man who drives a green station wagon who comes to the park on the weekends to read his paper and sit with his dogs. I think he might be gringo but it's hard to tell...
Graffiti Questions
1. How do you spell ''graffiti''? One T? Two Ts?
2. Is graffiti legal in Costa Rica?
3. Can I borrow your brick wall to try out my new-found desire to graffiti something?
4. What do these graffiti paintings mean?
2. Is graffiti legal in Costa Rica?
3. Can I borrow your brick wall to try out my new-found desire to graffiti something?
4. What do these graffiti paintings mean?
Graffiti courtesy of the park across the street :)
10.21.2010
Characters on the Bus
Setting: Bus, Tuesday afternoon
Character #1: elderly gentleman, gray 5 o'clock shadow, hunched by the window, bag on the aisle seat, body language non-approachable
My State of Mind: tired after 7 hours of children + 3 more hours of evening homework, hungry, 95% in my own thoughts, 5% of my thoughts being aware of my surroundings
As I walked down the bus aisle, the man moved his bag for me to be able to sit down. When I sat, I said a polite, "Gracias," and then I took out a book and began reading in my comfortable English world. Two minutes pass and his cell phone in his right pocket rings, so he reaches for it and accidentally elbows me in the ribs. "Disculpa," he says (Sorry!), and I say, "Tranquilo" (Don't worry about it.). He tells me I speak really good Spanish, although I have spoken a grand total of 2 words. He asks me where I'm from. "Cheeeekago," I say. He says (the whole convo in Spaneeeesh) he lived in NYC for 20 years and that when he moved there at age 18 the Twin Towers were only 4 stories tall and were in construction. He said that on September 11, 2001, his job in Manhattan sent him to Wall Street for the morning, and he felt what he thought was an earthquake tremor, but was really the first airplane crashing into a Tower. He ran outside and saw the second plane crash. He said he was so afraid to think that people hated the U.S. so much to want to do something like the attacks that he left the States within a month and has never gone back.
WOW. I had goosebumps to think he had experienced Sept. 11 so closely and it wasn't even his home country.
___________________________________________________________________
Setting: Bus, Thursday afternoon
Character #2: BIG lady, small purse
My State of Mind: tired after 7 hours of children, grading papers, 5% of my thoughts being aware of my surroundings
I was sitting on the window side of the bus and this lady sat down and squashed me against the window. I continued to attempt grading papers, but I couldn't really move enough to even write. I asked her what time it was. She told me 4pm. She asked me if I was a teacher, nodding toward the pile of student work I was balancing on my lap. I said yes. She said that instead of trying to write on the papers in the jerky bus, I should print sticker labels and then just stick the stickers on the papers as comments and grades. I actually considered the idea until I realized sticker labels are quite expensive here.
____________________________________________________________________
Setting: Bus, Tuesday morning 5:45am
Character #3: Idiana, light green eyes, stares at me like she has a million questions for me
My State of Mind: barely waking up, praying about the upcoming day, 5% of my thoughts being aware of my surroundings
Idiana chased me down while we were running across the street to catch the bus. She asked me if I thought the motorcycles would stop for us and I said I didn't know but the bus was not going to wait long so we should run faster! Apparently running together was a bonding experience because she stared at me the whole first bus ride (from barrio los sauces to downtown San Jose). When we got off the bus in downtown, she asked where I was going and I said to the Coca Cola bus station. Her stop was just a block before that, she said, so we walked together. She took me a "new route" that I had never been before and I didn't feel very safe in as there were a lot more homeless people sleeping and waking up in the street... some only half-clothed or obviously high/drunk on something. Idiana didn't seem to mind the homeless though as she told me her life story, that she was here in Costa Rica because there was little work in Nicaragua, that her son is 12 and in 5th grade, that she just wants the best for her son. We parted ways at La Iglesia Merced and her light green eyes full of questions stayed on my mind for my second bus ride.
________________________________________________________
Setting: Bus, 5:30am
Character #4: man with freshly shaven face, black hair, dark skin, dark eyes, laborer's clothes
My State of Mind: barely waking up, reading my Bible, 5% of my thoughts being aware of my surroundings
I ask him what time it is, he asks me if the Bible says it's okay for him to marry his sister. Um, no sir, it doesn't. He asks my own personal opinion about brother/sister marriages and I tell him I think of the serious problems their children could have. He's not convinced. I tell him I can't change his mind about it, that he's the one who asked my opinion so I just gave my opinion. He knows the Bible well and asks a few more questions.
I've seen him on the bus a few more times, but I have avoided him. A combo of experience and other's advice tells me that men wanting to talk about the Bible with gringas on the bus usually don't have good intentions.
__________________________________________________
In other words, riding the bus is very... interesting. educating. mind-boggling at moments.
Character #1: elderly gentleman, gray 5 o'clock shadow, hunched by the window, bag on the aisle seat, body language non-approachable
My State of Mind: tired after 7 hours of children + 3 more hours of evening homework, hungry, 95% in my own thoughts, 5% of my thoughts being aware of my surroundings
As I walked down the bus aisle, the man moved his bag for me to be able to sit down. When I sat, I said a polite, "Gracias," and then I took out a book and began reading in my comfortable English world. Two minutes pass and his cell phone in his right pocket rings, so he reaches for it and accidentally elbows me in the ribs. "Disculpa," he says (Sorry!), and I say, "Tranquilo" (Don't worry about it.). He tells me I speak really good Spanish, although I have spoken a grand total of 2 words. He asks me where I'm from. "Cheeeekago," I say. He says (the whole convo in Spaneeeesh) he lived in NYC for 20 years and that when he moved there at age 18 the Twin Towers were only 4 stories tall and were in construction. He said that on September 11, 2001, his job in Manhattan sent him to Wall Street for the morning, and he felt what he thought was an earthquake tremor, but was really the first airplane crashing into a Tower. He ran outside and saw the second plane crash. He said he was so afraid to think that people hated the U.S. so much to want to do something like the attacks that he left the States within a month and has never gone back.
WOW. I had goosebumps to think he had experienced Sept. 11 so closely and it wasn't even his home country.
___________________________________________________________________
Setting: Bus, Thursday afternoon
Character #2: BIG lady, small purse
My State of Mind: tired after 7 hours of children, grading papers, 5% of my thoughts being aware of my surroundings
I was sitting on the window side of the bus and this lady sat down and squashed me against the window. I continued to attempt grading papers, but I couldn't really move enough to even write. I asked her what time it was. She told me 4pm. She asked me if I was a teacher, nodding toward the pile of student work I was balancing on my lap. I said yes. She said that instead of trying to write on the papers in the jerky bus, I should print sticker labels and then just stick the stickers on the papers as comments and grades. I actually considered the idea until I realized sticker labels are quite expensive here.
____________________________________________________________________
Setting: Bus, Tuesday morning 5:45am
Character #3: Idiana, light green eyes, stares at me like she has a million questions for me
My State of Mind: barely waking up, praying about the upcoming day, 5% of my thoughts being aware of my surroundings
Idiana chased me down while we were running across the street to catch the bus. She asked me if I thought the motorcycles would stop for us and I said I didn't know but the bus was not going to wait long so we should run faster! Apparently running together was a bonding experience because she stared at me the whole first bus ride (from barrio los sauces to downtown San Jose). When we got off the bus in downtown, she asked where I was going and I said to the Coca Cola bus station. Her stop was just a block before that, she said, so we walked together. She took me a "new route" that I had never been before and I didn't feel very safe in as there were a lot more homeless people sleeping and waking up in the street... some only half-clothed or obviously high/drunk on something. Idiana didn't seem to mind the homeless though as she told me her life story, that she was here in Costa Rica because there was little work in Nicaragua, that her son is 12 and in 5th grade, that she just wants the best for her son. We parted ways at La Iglesia Merced and her light green eyes full of questions stayed on my mind for my second bus ride.
________________________________________________________
Setting: Bus, 5:30am
Character #4: man with freshly shaven face, black hair, dark skin, dark eyes, laborer's clothes
My State of Mind: barely waking up, reading my Bible, 5% of my thoughts being aware of my surroundings
I ask him what time it is, he asks me if the Bible says it's okay for him to marry his sister. Um, no sir, it doesn't. He asks my own personal opinion about brother/sister marriages and I tell him I think of the serious problems their children could have. He's not convinced. I tell him I can't change his mind about it, that he's the one who asked my opinion so I just gave my opinion. He knows the Bible well and asks a few more questions.
I've seen him on the bus a few more times, but I have avoided him. A combo of experience and other's advice tells me that men wanting to talk about the Bible with gringas on the bus usually don't have good intentions.
__________________________________________________
In other words, riding the bus is very... interesting. educating. mind-boggling at moments.
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