Week One: An incredible adventure!

May 17, 2010
Last night may have been the longest and most awkward night I’ve spent in my life. My host family habla no Ingles and me no habla Españal. One son speaks some English. A young man from Chicago, who has been studying Spanish in Costa Rica for 4 months is staying in another small connected apartment with his family for a few days. His mother is Latino and during her short visit with my family, translated some things about me. The son translated some things about his family. The papa was very frustrated with me, but the mama sat beside me and tried her best to communicate with me. At dinner, the father held up a plate: plato, fork: tenedor, cup: taza, etc. I felt like Helen Keller!

The common ground for my hostess and me is our grandchildren. Victoria’s granddaughter Sophia is two and, my grandson A.J. is duos anos. We also have sons, Arturo and Patrick, that are both 23.

Yesterday we took a multiple choice test on Spanish. I don’t have my score, but I realized that I was using strategies that students who don’t know use. I was skipping, picking up on one thing I knew and trying to apply that to everything, and purely guessing. It was frustrating, but I realized that I didn’t really care because I knew that I didn’t know it. I hadn’t experienced quite that feeling of no guilt or shame for not knowing and just guessing. Usually, I would feel embarrassed or ashamed that I hadn’t studied harder. I’ve always thought that’s what children should feel. Now I realize that if it is so far over their head, they can just be relaxed about the assessment. I will have to explore this more. I’m learning that my students may not have the same emotions about learning that I have, especially if they have experienced lots of failure or just always feel that their learning is over their head.

My oral exam was a total blank! I don’t think I have ever felt so empty in the brain!

On a more positive note, the students and Rich have been fantastico traveling companions. We have toured for the first three days and had bilingual guides. It was good to hear the content in English, but they were good at giving us the Spanish, also. We have a primary contact person that is staying with us throughout most of the trip. This is helpful. I have asked her to gradually shift to more Spanish or Spanglish and to gradually allow us to figure out things amongst ourselves.

May 20, 2010
In case you hear that Costa Rica had a 6.2 earthquate today, I want you to know that all is well. We could feel it. We were in the classroom and the table, then the walls, then the building shook. They say it is common --maybe once a month. The epicenter was near the Pacific, but deep in the earth. On Saturday we were in the area where a larger earthquake hit in January 2009 and saw the results of all of the mudslides. Yesterday we were able to climb up and look down into the crater of an active volcano. Today we experienced an earthquake. What great geography lessons!!!

We are having an incredible experience. Tuesday and today we were in a very poor school in Heredia and followed the English teacher to his classes. He let our students teach. Tuesday, I delivered letters from children in Wilmington and the students helped the Costa Rican children read the letters and write back in English. They played Simon Says in English and taught them the ABC song. They came prepared today with books to read in Spanish and English. We translated the books yesterday in Spanish class. Today, they let the children read the books to them in Spanish. Then they read the book in English and had the children read along. It was a great experience for both the children and our teachers. They then taught a math lesson where the children had to estimate how many jelly beans of each color were in a bag. Then they counted using the English numbers and color words and graphed. The principal and assistant principal came down to see and invited us to come back next year.

This afternoon we met a couple from one of the 7 indigenous tribes left in Costa Rica. They taught us how to carve masks, weave, and explained their culture and issues they face today. Tomorrow we are doing a service learning project for the Humanitarian Foundation and working in a Montessori School for very poor Honduran immigrants. The Spanish classes have been a challenge for all of us, but the biggest challenge has been our homestays. It is so difficult to not be able to communicate the way you'd like with people you grow to really care about. This feeling of alienation has been experienced by all (by design of the course), and they are already understanding what it is like to be an English Language Learner.

The group has bonded very well, and everyone has really put a lot of effort into the course, into trying to communicate, into adjusting to families that have much less than they do, and to keeping up with a grueling schedule. We leave home in the morning by 6 or 7 (some of the students were at the school this morning at 5:45 doing their homework--that's AM!). We never get home before 6 or 7 p.m. Then we/they have at least an hour or more of homework. They are all trying to spend at least an hour over dinner with the family to try to use their Spanish.

Although this is the rainy season, and we've seen lots of rain, we have yet had to walk to school in the rain. We walk about 20-25 min. each way everyday. We all walk together or in small groups so that all are safe after dark. It's been a great time to debrief and think about how to say things you want to communicate to your family.

Saturday we will leave at 5 am for a well-deserved day and a half at the beach where the jungle meets the sea. Our bilingual guides have been great at teaching about all of the fauna, flora, geography, and cultural aspects of everything we have seen, explaining in English with the Spanish vocabulary mixed in. The students all came with questions for a personal inquiry: Politics, the educational system, environmental education, volcanoes, and ecosystems. They had to read prior to coming to Costa Rica, and then learn as much as they can while they are here. You see them sitting in a coffee shop with a local talking and asking questions in Spanish, questioning the staff at the school, questioning the guides, checking out books in Spanish. It is truly an amazing experience. We have two and a half weeks left and MANY, many more experiences in store. Sunday we travel to Monteverde to meet a new host family who will definitely be less well off than our families here in Heredia.