Friday, June 19, 2009

Almost a month in

Well, I've almost made it to the 1 month marker in my service. All is well so far. There seems to be so much to do right now. Next week I'll be helping to plan for the student groups who will be staying a week each (there are 2 of them, one from the states and the other from Canada). This means I need to think of a lot of fun activities to occupy them in the afternoon after they work on projects around the town and eat lunch. I'm also teaching English classes to the Kindergarten, the primary school. Theres about 4-5 kids in the Kindergarten and my class is basically I play with them and tell them different English words for various things (and become exhausted after they all decide they are going to misbehave in various ways at the same time), the primary school kids are much better and its a lot more fun. I have 30 minutes a piece with each group (1st-3rd graders, 15 of them and 4th-6th graders, 14 of these). We do lots of games (some I need to tone down unless I want the parents killing me for ruining their uniforms) and I even give tests! Overall its been quite fun, although I know for sure now I never want to be a teacher.

In the community, I'm still going on house visits. I'm going to try to do many of these next week, since there are fewer meetings this coming week. Of course, this also means I have to call people and talk Spanish on the phone. I was brave enough one night this week to answer the phone (actually twice, but the first time was my friend Georgina). Its strange to think how important actually seeing someone's mouth more is in understanding what they are saying. Although, here in Costa Rica, even if you just set up a time to visit you'll probably end up having lunch or at least cafecita with a snack.

As always I hope all is well with my friends and family. Pura Vida!

Friday, June 5, 2009

Its offical

I´m all settled in to my new home. I´m not going to type much here because the keyboard at this internet cafe is awkward (too bad theres no word in Spanish for awkward). I´ll give you a brief update and later upload an actual blog.

Next week I´ll be starting my English classes with all the kids in the primary school, so that should take up most of my Tuesdays and Thursdays. I´ve already attended some meetings and some project ideas are floating around, including a panadaria (bakery) and a biodigestor. I´m starting to remember peoples names but still have to ask 2 or more times what people´s names are which causes quite a bit of vergüenza. Anyways, I think my Spanish is getting better, or at least people are understanding that they need to speak slowly and are getting used to my bad grammer. Hope all is well in the States and will follow up with a better blog entry and news on how my first class went.