Monday morning I woke up early to make it to the language
school by 7:30, and walked downstairs to the smell of beans and eggs in the pan,
which we wrapped in tortillas for a yummy breakfast. Norma is so kind that she got up at like 6 to
make me breakfast, even though she had worked until 1 or 2 the night before!
Once at WAYRA Spanish Institute in Tamarindo (it’s two blocks from St. Paul’s by the Sea so Pedro drove me the 15 minutes on his way to work), they gave me a verbal and a written test to assess what level class to put me in. In the words of Petey from Remember the Titans, “I ain’t one to brag, Big Blue, but” they were very impressed with my Spanish and put me in the most advanced class being taught this week. It’s me and two Swiss girls (it seems a little odd, but the majority of the 25 students here are Swiss), and our teacher Maylin is from Heredia (and said in her opinion, it’s the most authentic and best place in Costa Rica)! Class (8AM-noon every day) alternates between conventional learning, when Maylin teaches us verb conjugation from the whiteboard, and informal chatting; we have endless Costa Rica-based questions for Maylin about travel destinations, how to get there, local customs, etc. She also gave us a very good overview of Costa Rican Spanish and the local slang. My favorite, which is now an inside joke with Pedro's family, is "es mantequilla," which translates literally to "it's butter," and is used in reference to something that doesn't matter at all. For instance, if you inform a Tico that he is fifteen minutes late to an appointment, he might say, "eh, es mantequilla." I say that in jest; I haven't encountered anything short of punctuality, but then again I haven't been running around setting up meeting times either. Anyway, our classroom was on the second floor and felt like a treehouse, because half of it was completely open and surrounded by palm trees! It was perfect for seeing wildlife – I saw lots of howler monkeys, lots of white-throated magpie jays, several iguanas, and a hummingbird!
Once at WAYRA Spanish Institute in Tamarindo (it’s two blocks from St. Paul’s by the Sea so Pedro drove me the 15 minutes on his way to work), they gave me a verbal and a written test to assess what level class to put me in. In the words of Petey from Remember the Titans, “I ain’t one to brag, Big Blue, but” they were very impressed with my Spanish and put me in the most advanced class being taught this week. It’s me and two Swiss girls (it seems a little odd, but the majority of the 25 students here are Swiss), and our teacher Maylin is from Heredia (and said in her opinion, it’s the most authentic and best place in Costa Rica)! Class (8AM-noon every day) alternates between conventional learning, when Maylin teaches us verb conjugation from the whiteboard, and informal chatting; we have endless Costa Rica-based questions for Maylin about travel destinations, how to get there, local customs, etc. She also gave us a very good overview of Costa Rican Spanish and the local slang. My favorite, which is now an inside joke with Pedro's family, is "es mantequilla," which translates literally to "it's butter," and is used in reference to something that doesn't matter at all. For instance, if you inform a Tico that he is fifteen minutes late to an appointment, he might say, "eh, es mantequilla." I say that in jest; I haven't encountered anything short of punctuality, but then again I haven't been running around setting up meeting times either. Anyway, our classroom was on the second floor and felt like a treehouse, because half of it was completely open and surrounded by palm trees! It was perfect for seeing wildlife – I saw lots of howler monkeys, lots of white-throated magpie jays, several iguanas, and a hummingbird!
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| My classroom! |
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| This is about what a typical person in Tamarindo looks like | . |
We have a twenty minute break every day at 10AM, so the first
day, still not knowing how my body would handle the local tap water (I have
since discovered that just as the guide books say, it is completely side
effect-free for Gringos), I walked two blocks to the nearest supermarket to
purchase a bottle of water – my first solo “adventure” in Costa Rica! It went fine, although the fact that I saw
more Gringos than Ticos (Costa Ricans) dampened the sense of adventure a little
- I now understand why its nickname is “Tamagringo.”
You know what they say about language schools: as the kitchen goes, so goes the school. And this
kitchen, in the hands of Sonia, is wonderful!
Sonia cooks us “casados” for lunch every day for $5. A casado is the traditional meal in Costa
Rica, which consists (approximately) of rice, beans, vegetables, (frequently fried plantains), a small salad, and meat. Perhaps out
of consideration for all the foreigners, who are probably tired of beans and
rice at every meal, Sonia gives us extra veggies instead of beans, and uses
lots of garlic!!! Lunch also includes
her homemade jugo (juice) de tamarindo, which is a local fruit. In Costa Rica they drink all kinds of
juice. In Pedro’s house, we have a
different type of juice every day, sometimes homemade. Cantaloupe, orange & carrot, pineapple, grape,
guanábana (kind of like coconut), Jamaica (kind of like cranberry), and there
are more to come! If you’re counting the
number of juices I’ve listed, and realized there are more juices listed than
the number of days I’ve been here, it’s because there is a lot of work to do
between getting the text written and actually posting it on the blog –
uploading photos and videos from camera to computer, editing them, deciding
which ones to use, and formatting them among the text. So I added in the juices we’ve had since
Friday…
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| Fútbol |
In the afternoon, I usually hang out for a couple of hours
after lunch, mostly writing this blog, but also exploring Tamarindo and the beach, doing research in different surf shops and adventure agencies,
etc. I love practicing my Spanish with
the local shopkeepers, and it feels surprisingly comfortable. The one thing I still can’t do is understand when
people speak very rapidly (sometimes I fear that spoken language might be going out of style by the way people talk). There are all
kinds of adventures offered, from zipline canopy tours to guided ATV tours
through the forest and beach, to deep sea fishing, to "free dodgeball" tours where you walk around under palm trees because after all, if you can dodge a coconut, you can dodge anything!, etc., and I’m trying to
figure out which ones would be the most fun when I return to Tamarindo with
Caroline and/or my family! I'm thinking free dodgeball is out for Caroline, because we have to protect her noggin, but might knock some sense into Dad... Anyway, at 3
or 4 in the afternoon I walk through Tamarindo to the main avenue, where Pedro
always picks me up when he drops Norma off for work. Then at home the kids and Pedro and I usually
play soccer in their yard or go swimming in the neighborhood pool before
dinner, which Pedro usually cooks. And by
that point, I am wiped out - by 7:30 every night, I’m ready for bed. I don’t know if it’s because of how hard my
brain is working every day (even though it doesn’t feel that difficult), or
because I’m still getting accustomed to the local water or germs, or what, but
it’s bad. I don’t feel like doing
anything. So I sure have been getting plenty of
sleep!
For you St. Paul’s people, I got to meet some of the
parishioners of St. Paul’s by the Sea yesterday (Thursday). Pedro had a meeting with two American women
who don’t speak fluent Spanish, so he asked me to come along just in case he
needed help (he didn’t). Haley is from
Richmond and is here with her husband and kids for one year, and Stephanie, who
owns the best (only?) American BBQ restaurant in town, has been here for two and a half
years with her family! How
adventurous! Anyway, they are Pedro’s
equivalent of a vestry for now, so he wanted to bounce some ideas off them (I
get the feeling that in addition to having excellent judgment, they are both
the kind of people who know how to make things happen).
First we talked about organizing some sort of event that
might help spread our name to the local community, and decided on a cleanup of
the park right next to the church on February 9th. The
park is popular with parents and children but is inundated with trash, hence
the cleanup. Our next order of business
was publicity for the church. It was
obvious that Pedro has put a lot of time and effort into researching the most
cost-effective ways to get the name out.
He first showed us a list of the five most important places he thinks we
should put up signs, and then told us exactly how much they’re going to cost
($70) because he has already spoken with the best sign person in town
(Stephanie has used the same company for signs for her BBQ place. And no, Dad, he's not deaf just because he's good at signs). They will be metal signs that hang on a post, maybe something like the one to the right. Our second order of business was to
discuss placing ads in the two most widely circulated local expat
periodicals. Finally, at Pedro’s
request, Haley agreed to act as the church’s treasurer, and Stephanie as the
secretary. St. Paul’s by the Sea is
lucky to have such dedicated parishioners as these two!
Amazing John!!! Great first couple days!!!
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