Today one of my biggest fears came true. If you read my blog from yesterday, you have a little bit of an idea of how much I cannot stand to be late. I am terrified by the thought of my alarm clock not going off and me oversleeping. Well this morning, I woke up bright and early to the sound of all the neighborhood roosters crowing as usual (yes, that's a thing here), but decided I would go back to sleep until my alarm went off. Bad decision. I woke up feeling strangely well-rested (something that just doesn't happen on this trip with how busy we stay and how early we meet in the mornings), so I knew something was wrong. I looked down at my watch to see that it was 6:30! I have to be dressed to teach, up the mountain, in the bus with lesson plans ready by 6:45!! Yesterday I discovered that the walk to our meeting place alone is 20 minutes, so I hit the ground running. I threw on the first teacher-appropriate outfit I could find and scurried into the living room to find some shoes. Instead I found my mama tica who was insisting that she make me breakfast. "No, no, I'm fine. I don't have time. It's okay. Lo siento, lo siento." (Wow, the language barrier is quite annoying in situations like this) I was really wishing I knew more phrases about having like 10 minutes to get to a destination 20 minutes away at this point. Eventually I convinced her that fruit would be just fine ,but as she got out a full pineapple to start slicing, I grabbed an apple for the road and sprinted out the door. At this point only 12 minutes and the hill of all hills stood between me and the bus stop. The only vision running through my head as (I tried) to jog up the mountain was me arriving at the meeting point one or two minutes after the van had already pulled away. And with no phone or wifi, I wasn't sure what I would do in that situation quite frankly, so I just kept booking it up the mountain. (Wow, I hope I don't miss any turns... I should have paid more attention yesterday!) I knew I would be cutting it close, so I tried to ignore how heavy my backpack was and how unadjusted my lungs were to the 5,000 ft elevation. Somehow I made it with about 2 minutes to spare! And I don't think I've ever felt that relieved in my whole life. (I wasn't going to have to wander aimlessly around Costa Rica all day looking for my group, or return home to a host family who I couldn't communicate with.) Once I sat down on the bus with my apple, I was quite proud of the fact that I got up, dressed, and up the mountain (all by myself with no directions) in 14 minutes flat. That was quite possibly the best apple I ever ate and my friend Holly gave me some crackers her mama tica sent her with for snack (she's such a doll.)
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| The 1st- 3rd grade classroom |
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| Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes! |
After that adrenaline rush, I was more than ready to teach some kids English! We arrived for the first time at a one room school in Monteverde where we heard the students hadn't had any previous exposure to English yet, so we weren't quite sure what to expect. Thankfully, what we had heard wasn't quite true. Holly and I had a group of three little boys and they knew some very basic English, so we could work off of that. We worked on colors then transitioned into body parts by introducing the song Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. I had a really good experience teaching by just going with the flow. We went in with no specific expectations or detailed plans, but it all went really well! The students were used to having a lot of freedom without a lot of controlling supervision and rules, so we kind of let their knowledge and interests guide our lesson.
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