Running Downhill

Los Gatos y Perros Peligrosos

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 16:38:56 -0400

Life, house sitting in Potrero, Costa Rica, is a rather hilarious experience. We have three quirky cats and a giant dog that we care for and they never stop fooling with us. We have Belinda, who was 9 weeks old when we met her and three or four months old now. She enjoys zigzagging in front of Andy while he goes up the stairs, falling asleep in my hair, and trying to suckle (yes, suckle) my earlobes. The operative word in that last sentence, in case you are concerned, is “trying”.

After that there is Pipa. Pipa is generally a chill cat. She enjoys getting petted, enjoys hunting outside, and is pretty easy BUT she has one strange traits. She loves being around toilets when you flush them. If she gets in before you close the door she will sit and watch you do your business and then, if you don’t hop of the toilet once you flus,h she will gentle bite you out of the way. Once she hears that flushing she needs to watch the water swirl.

Then, there is Sonreisa. Sonreisa was not my friend until I let him sleep in my room with me. Ever since the first time we did that he has become me shadow. When I go to lay down he will sprint past me and jump on the bed to wait for me right where I was about to sit. He still likes to mess with me though and it would be too easy if he was just “my little sucker”. When outside Sonreisa is an entirely different cat. He will not be caught and he will not go inside. Last week this mild botheration became a little more extreme when he raced past Andy when he was entering the property gate to real outdoors. This meant that he had nothing stopping him from becoming feral alligator food. Nelson (the Nicaraguan fellow who works on the property), Andy and I spent the night searching around for him. Well, clearly petrified the cat ended up climbing Nelson’s bike and leaping over the 6ft (?) cement fence! Needless to say he was locked inside for the entirety of the two days following this “adventure”.

also his tail is twice as long as any other tail should be

Lastly, is the dog. This dog is more like a miniature horse and his name is both Kandor and Alejndro Grande. He is an anatolian shephard. Most of the day he spends lounging on the porch barking at the stray cow or dog. Most of the time, minus the occasional whimpering, barking, or EXTREME loving (anything the size of a pony trying to love you can be deemed extreme) he is an easy dog. Unfortunately, he is not a fan of other dogs. This means that when we do our daily walk on the beach with him we must be on high alert for dogs at all times for fear that he will drag us across the sand, like he did with his owner, while he chases the poor creature down. While Kandor does get to eat fresh meat we don’t particularly want him eating the meat that fresh.

also he likes to squeeze under the bed (when he doesn’t sleep on it)

My thoughts go out to my brother Greg and his wife Laura that are coming to visit this Friday!! Also to my fabulous friend Rachel who may be teaching in Wilsonville soon :)

Photo

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 14:47:17 -0400

and then there's the advanced adult class :)

Thrilling Thursday

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 10:01:20 -0400

Yesterday was Thursday. For me that means a fun day for my kids and advanced classes for my adults. For the fun activity we made animal masks. My example mask was a bunny. My aid’s example was a cat. Not surprisingly every single kid made a cat mask. Well, except for the very young Leon that made two masks, one of which was suppose to be a lion (I love the fact Leon’s favorite animal is a lion) and the other was lined paper with squiggles and eyes cut out.

The adult classes were very exciting. I am starting to really get to know, and like, the people that show up to adult classes. This next week I’m even getting to learn a new way to fish with them. Fishing with a spool of wire and no rod is going to be a hilarious learning experience for me I think!!

Also for the adult classes, as per my request (begging?), we now have a lead teacher for the adult classes. This means that I can just show up and help without stressing over lesson plans for the adult students. The new teacher has two years of experience teaching adults English through Peace Corps in Pittsburgh, so to say that she is up to the task is an understatement.

After classes Diana (the new adult teacher) and I got a ride to a nearby beach by some friends and started walking Surfside towards home. As we are walking Diana asks; “Are those baby turtles?” I’ve been told that my beach doesn’t really ever get turtle nests but lo and behold in front of my eyes are tons of BABY TURTLES!!! We must have watched them for an hour as they worked their way out of the brush, where their nest was hidden, and then pushed their way down to the surf.

At one point a local fellow appeared out of nowhere and started aiding the turtles. Since he seemed pretty certain that it was okay for us to be helping them move in the right direction and get out of the dense brush they were in I started picking them up and moving them. That’s right folks, I got to hold a baby turtle!!! Then the local fellow went to the hole (nest) and dug it out to make sure no last turtles were stuck in there. I got to see the remains of their shells (wow are they soft!) and listen to this guy tell me his knowledge of turtles. He said that out of the hundred baby turtles that hatch only two will probably survive. One bit the dust right in front of me as some dogs came up and took him right in front of my eyes. I”m sure you are not surprised to hear that I spent the rest of my time with a sharp eye on the dogs down the beach to make sure it didn’t happen again.

Anyways, the moral of the story is, yesterday was awesome! I got to experience, as a part of my walk home from work, baby turtles making their first swim under the sun setting.

Omprakash Workshop Day 2

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 19:09:11 -0400

Day two of the Omprakash workshop was as interesting as the first. Through this day I learned about AGC, The academy for Global Citizenship, which is a school based in Chicago that does, what I imagine as the practical Thoreau’ean approach to giving kids hands on teaching, while meeting testing requirements and such. Then I learn about child protection from a leader for the organization Skip (based in Peru) and how, as an organization you should define problems, especially within a cultural setting, as well as learning how to set up a standard for what what problems to take on and how to deal with those problems. One sentence she said that I find very interesting is “any child, simply by the nature of being a child, is at risk”. Also I learned that in some countries people caught of molesting children can opt to be deported rather than be sent to jail! After that I was part of a really interesting forum about the good, the bad, and the ugly of working with volunteers and getting volunteers to be assets rather than hindrances to a non-profit. This forum made me realize how different non-profits can be. After that the final talk for me was by a fellow AM volunteer about how to promote successful volunteer abroad experiences. It was really interesting. Anyone that is interested in that sort of thing should look at the TEDtalk, The Danger of the single story.

Now while all this was fantastic for me the really exciting news is that Abriendo Mentes was on CNN today! CNN iReport Aventurero played a rather long piece about Abriendo Mentes and it was fantastic. I watched it at the local bar with some of the kids and the directors of Abriendo Mentes. It was really heart warming to see how much this clip meant to the kids and to the directors.

Lastly, it is a crazy small world! There is a fabulous lady Cynthia at the Omprakash workshop. She runs the non-profit Health Inc. in the Himalayas in India. She works with, and seems to know well, my uncle Ron from Canada. So, in summary, I just met a friend, who lives in India, of my uncle Ron, who is from Canada, while living in Costa Rica!

Omprakash Workshop

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 21:00:21 -0400

The first day of the Omprakash workshop just ended and I am writing while waiting to get interviewed for an Abriendo Mentes video. Omprakash is a wonderful organization that helps link up volunteers and sponsors with organizations. They also are how I ran into Abriendo Mentes initially. Wonderfully, Abriendo Mentes is lucky enough right now, to be able to host Omprakash’s first workshop of this kind. I am very lucky because I get to go to all of the workshop. Today, I learned about a lot of different things. The immediately useful are techniques for ice-breakers and team building in classroom as well as learning how to optimally set up a classroom environment. On the not immediately useful, but inspiring and someday useful, I learned about amazing groups of people and what they do.

The first speaker, the founder of Voluntario Global in Argentina (yes, she came to little ol’ Potrero from Argentina for this workshop. We even have people from India here!) talked about the challenges to creating a good, and successful, non-profit (http://www.voluntarioglobal.org/). She said that in the shanty towns of Argentina only 20% of kids move on to high school. Her organization does many things to work with this, but one way is by starting laundromats. With two washers and two dryers, donated from an oil company (I guess oil companies aren’t all bad) she found a way for high school students to work while going to school. The nearby hostels would get their laundry cleaned and kids who worked there would get work skills, money, and a flexible schedule. I would never have thought of such an ingenious way to empower a community.

From there we got in small groups. I learned a lot about how to be a better teacher in my small group. I don’t have a lot of flexibility of how I can use the space I way given to teach in but I now have some hope for making it a little more kinder/ pre-kinder friendly!

Then, we talked about the separate but interlaced missions of communications and development teams in an organizations. I am part of the communications team for Abriendo Mentes, so it was interesting to learn a little more about what the development team does separate and with communications. During this workshop, in particular, I learned about how many small, but successful, non-profits there are. Who would have thought that a very small team could successfully be leading volunteers to teach things like English and hockey in the Himalaya’s!?! (Health Inc. http://www.health-inc.org/people.html) Who would think that those same people would possibly have the time to consider problems like how should I promote my organization online during the 4 weeks out of the year that I am even around internet?!

Lastly, we went over team building with Petr. I am going to keep this short but the presentation was simply amazing. I learned new things about how to do team building well and, the equally important, how NOT to do team building. I really want to implement some of this information into the beginnings of my classes!!

I can’t believe I am getting to meet and learn from the founders of these amazing organizations!

On my mind today are these people who have inspired me. Also Allison and Trevor who are getting married very, very soon.

I can’t believe this is only getting to be a last note but YAY CANADA DAY! My brother shared this with me but I loved it enough that is should be shared here too; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhrUJRQhak

Busy Week

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:14:24 -0400

This week has been a particularly hectic one. I would have been surprised if it wasn’t as it is the last week of the session. For this week we made it a fun week filled with games and crafts. Not only that but it is a surprising number of volunteers last week. Rebecca, my Brasilito partner, will be leaving for home tomorrow morning which is crazy. Lastly, to make the week a little more crazy, Omprakash is having its non-profit conference in Potrero this year. Abriendo Mentes is lucky to be getting to host them this year and I am lucky to be getting to go to their classes next week!

Anyways, Brasilito classes and the fun week… it reminds me of a much smaller version of the last week at Raleigh park where school was like going to a festival of fun. I still remember Stevie’s dad doing Simon Says every year! I think that fun weeks, in a way, are much harder for the teacher than normal days. I don’t understand how teachers continually think of good activities for their kids to do! For this week it has been especially hard since the population for the second class has exploded. We have more kids than chairs in the classroom! For those of you that are curious, the chair problem will be fixed by the next session.

Today, our activities will be awesome relays, red light green light, spuds, and soccer. It’s going to be a “good, good day”.

I’d finish with my thoughts towards someone but I’m too nervous about having a successful advanced adults class to think hard about anything else!

Montezuma

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 09:03:39 -0400

This last weekend I went with 15 other volunteers to Montezuma. It was a great weekend. Among other things I saw my first anteater on the drive over. Apparently, they are very unique, sharing the order Pilosa with only sloths. They have crazy feet and are awesome.

Once we got to town Andy and I lucked out be choosing to stay with a new volunteer couple at a hotel instead of at the hostel with many of the other volunteers. It was ridiculously cheap, at 12.50 a person, we paid only 2.50 more than the hostel people and we had hot showers and a view of the ocean. I would recommend staying at Los Mangos to anyone. While I didn’t get to experience it, the other four people who stayed at the hotel went swimming and got to smell YlangYlang (I think that is how it is spelled) and have mangoes thrown at them from white faced monkeys.

While in Montezuma we did a variety of activities and a lot of good eating. For me, the best activity was hiking Cabo Blanco national forest. Not only did we see rare mammals and birds but we ended at the most beautiful beach I’ve seen to date. This beach happens to also be the home to the largest permanent population of pelicans in the Nicoya Peninsula.

All in all I saw three animals I’d never seen before, swam in the ocean (a lot), ate good food, and slept like the dead. As far as I am concerned it couldn’t have been better.

My thoughts right now are wrapped up in Brasilito as Rebecca and I finish our first session. I hope they come back next session!

Potluck night

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 23:47:43 -0400

Hey, I’m back!

First, the great news! We have officially had four adult classes in Brasilito (2 advanced and2 beginner). It is definitely a learning experience but fortunately I am surrounded by people who know a lot more than me about, well, everything. Go them!

Now, the good news! Today I went to a potluck with the knowledge that we were meeting a lady who was in a documentary and wanted us to watch it. It was about a group of women that went to Afghanistan and made a beauty school. I went dubious about my ability to connect with it since, let’s face it, I don’t spend much (any?) time on beauty things. I was wrong. I was very wrong. The video, titled “The Beauty Academy of Kabul” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439130/plotsummary) taught me a lot of new things about Afghan history and was really heart-warming. Very quickly I realized that starting something like a beauty school in a place like Afghanistan really can be instrumental to giving a community empowerment. If anyone chooses to see it, the person whose house we were in was Sheila.

Lastly, for more good news (yep no bad news!), Andy and I are going to Montezuma this weekend with a large group of my AM compañeros. It should be a fun new experience.

Oh yeah and a frog got in our house two days ago. He’s a friend. Usually he lives under the light right out of our door.

The person I am keeping on my mind today is my old teacher, Don Clarke, he is an awesome guy. The longer I am here the more I realize that he is a big part of the reason that I am here. Thanks!

Catamaran Rides and Adult Classes

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 09:39:55 -0400

So a lot has happened over the last few weeks. First, Rachel visited and it was great. We went zip lining, horseback riding, inter-tubing, and riding in a catamaran. For me the catamaran ride was the best. It was so awesome actually that the next weekend I went again with Andy. Of course the second time I went for less than half the price of the time before since it was the weekend and they have a promotional for Abriendo Mentes people on the weekend. Thank you Lazy Lizard for the boat riding, fish catching, snorkeling, drinking, and eating day!

Currently, the really exciting thing in my life is that Abriendo Mentes is trying to start adult classes in Brasilito. Our days now consist of Rebecca and I (and now our new assistant, Gaby) teach pre-kinder to, tops, seventh grade. We have been hearing a lot of interest from local adults though and so, as long as we get enough people to sign up, we will be starting an advanced and a beginner course. We will even have textbooks!! While it is weird to be bringing new volunteers in to help teach these classes (Rebecca and I will be teaching advanced English while two other volunteers will be teaching beginners English) I know it is a good thing. Lord knows Rebecca and I have a hard enough time making good quality lesson plans for all of our other classes each day and the other two teachers are more than qualified! While the other organization that we are working with wants to wait until we get a certain number of adults signed up I am confident we will be able to start classes within the next few weeks. Hopefully in two weeks but we shall see!

My thoughts go out to the fabulous Talicia Savage, who just bought tickets to come visit me! We are going to have so much fun. Also to the octopus that I held. I’m sure he’s still confused…

Ooo and Greg and Laura Shula who are working on getting tickets to visit me. Speaking of Greg, everyone should keep him in their thoughts because he is defending his thesis in the near future and while he doesn’t need any luck I’m sure sending good vibes can only be a positive thing!

Bio-luminescence

Mon, 14 May 2012 20:58:00 -0400

This weekend I went swimming in the bio-luminescent ocean, twice. After the wonderful Saturday swim, complete with snorkeling goggles and a beautiful starlit sky, I decided I should go again on Sunday while the experience still felt wonderful and new. On Sunday, not only did I go with the Saturday crew of Judy (the landlord) and Andy (the lover), but we went with Nelson (the house guard from Nicaragua and generally awesome human being) and his brother, Alejandro. Nelson and Alejandro were nervous about swimming in the dark, since they don’t swim very well but since we stayed in shallow water and two girls were willing to brave the waters (and lord knows their pride wouldn’t allow them to let us go alone) they went and, I think, really enjoyed themselves. While we swam I asked whether anyone knew what caused the lights to go off. Judy, Andy and I had talked about the stuff we did know the day before, like the fact that the light is caused by the plankton in the water that reacts with a chemical reaction. We were curious for a simpler answer for why the water glowed. It seemed like it wasn’t just movement that caused the light to go off since the waves moving through the water didn’t cause perpetual light. These were the possible causes we thought of; friction, static electricity, or air (bubbles – but then why do lights still come when your hand has been underwater for a long time?). If any one has any ideas or knowledge please share! Needless to say, we had a great weekend.

Now, it is Monday and I’m finding that the happiness of the weekend, for me, is following through to the week days. I taught class today and went over members of family. Not only did I feel like I was able to maintain enthusiasm and energy in myself and the students through two classes but the positive nature (and more likely, the heavy rain outside) of these classes roped some mothers into sitting in on class and learning something themselves. Once again I was asked when Rebecca and I would be starting adult classes in Brasilito. I’m starting to think that maybe I’m up to the task of starting it myself. Regardless, I am going to bring up to Meradith that I would like to start a Tuesday, Thursday early afternoon class with Rebecca and see where it goes from there. She might think it is putting too much on our plate too soon and, if so, she might be right.

I’m going to go now and prepare for the week long visit on Thursday from my fabulous friend Rachel B. and then go swimming in the pool.

In my thoughts today is the Mecklam family, who is preparing for a wedding. A wedding that I just bought tickets to fly to in July.

An assortment of photos - more on FB

Sun, 13 May 2012 13:45:28 -0400

This little girl LOVED my camera

Belinda - one of the house cats

where I take the bus from every day

body part exercise

where I work - im that last building

where I live

Kandor - the house dog

An assortment of photos - more on FB

Kinder classes in Brasilito

Wed, 09 May 2012 16:00:37 -0400

So, I wanted to start of this blog by saying: “Today Rebecca and I started teaching an official Kinder class” but then I realized that requires a telepathic ability to know about my life here. Let me start off then by saying that Rebecca is my fellow teaching in Brasilito. It’s just the two of us and, if I dare say so, we rock. I do dare by the way. We rock. Every Monday for Abriendo Mentes all the volunteers meet and talk about plans for the week to follow. This Monday we were asked if we would like to start teaching an official kindergarten/ prekindergarten class at the regular school starting on Wednesday. Little did Rebecca and I know what we were getting into when we said yes. From confusion about when class started, to a lack of time to prepare for the new class, to not knowing where, exactly, we were going we had a hard time getting our ducks in a row. Fortunately, as always, Brasilito is kind to us. We showed up and found out that everything we thought would happen was wrong but that it was okay because the classes regular teacher would be there to help and they were accommodating. By the way when I say us being wrong I mean Rebecca and I had guessed we would have 3 students and instead we had 19! After teaching the kids apple and finishing class in flying colors (the kids loved us and I think both of us are re-enthused for our lives teaching here) we left class and got some 10:00 pina coladas (we deserved them dammit!) and went home. From there this day only got more surprising. I found out my landlord had lost her keys while walking the dog on the beach so I helped her look for, and find them, and then we went for a swim in the ocean. While I have always known I am more of a river person than an ocean person when it comes to waking up and breathing the fresh air there is nothing better than a float in the ocean. Now I am home and writing this post. I definitely have a lot more to talk about and I really want to post pictures in the near future but life in this part of Costa Rica, for me, is much more busy so it may be awhile. Needless to say, next time I return there will be pictures of giant and muy pequeno creatures, bio-luminescence, and a couple of happy people. My thoughts go out to my wonderful middle brother, Greg, who just bought tickets to visit me here and my glorious oldest brother, Andrew, who I pretend I am when I teach since he is the best kids person I know (maybe because he is a giant kid… you decide!). Oh and lastly my thoughts go to Andy’s family who is traveling and hopefully drinking good drinks, doing good things, and thinking good thoughts. Hopefully mostly doing the good drinks thing though…

The latest new home in CR

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:09:31 -0400

Today, Andy and I move to our new place. We are both excited to be leaving a situation where we feel bullied by our landlord (I hear that I should feel lucky that this is the first time I’ve ever had anything but trust in my landlord), and nervous about our new home. We will be house-sitting for what looks like a fabulous lady named Judith Lipton. She has to return to the states to take care of life’s difficulties and doesn’t want her animals to become de-socialized. As you know, or should at this point, this is a good match for me as I am a freak when it comes to my love for furry creatures. I am nervous because this is the home she hopes to retire to and she has never rented (I’m relatively certain) before. I believe it will work out though, and lord knows I want it to. The house is three stories, with the top floor being closed off, since it is her room and I’d rather not have to deal with it. The second floor being the kitchen and living room and the bottom floor being our bedroom. If you didn’t know we live on the top floor of our apartment currently so first floor and no stair/hill walking up action is a good thing. Also there is a pool and a friendly guard Nelson on the property along with the giant Anatolian shepherd (Alejandro grande) and the four cats (one of which, Belinda, is just past newly born kitten sized). The last two giant perks of this place are that we are one house away from being directly on the beach and I am now only a 10 minute walk away from Abriendo Mentes (rather than the hour right now). While it will be sad to leave the assortment of misfit toys that we know, and love, in Flamingo it will be great (awesome, fabulous, amazing, terrific) to get to know my fellow AM people better.

Also if your are looking for a little more of an idea on who our landlord at this new place is she and her husband, David Barash, have published a ton of books. I find the wide variety in topics to be both hilarious and fabulous and maybe you will too!

Anyways, my best to everyone and my thoughts go out to the wonderful Kari Boyce Scott, whose birthday is tomorrow. Thank you for putting up with my family and being a great wife to my brother.

Also I’m going to try to write some more useful/thoughtful articles on here for my own practice so if that buggers you please tell me. Currently I’m thinking this I’ll do this because doing so will help me grow and learn new things while helping the blog feel less like a vessel to let people know about my life without having to talk to them.

First week of Brasilito

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 23:22:07 -0400

This has been a very busy weekend so I am re-purposing a post that I’m working on for AM for this. I plan on writing another post soon since it has been a crazy busy week (read intercambios, water snakes, Brasilito, moving drama, and wonderful people popping out of nowhere)

This week Meradith, Becca and I wandered into our first week of English classes in Brasilito. We had no idea what to expect. First, none of us had ever taught in Brasilito. Becca and I, as new volunteers, hadn’t even the slightest clue of what a brand new class in a brand new location should look like. Second, we weren’t even sure if any kids were going to show up since we’d had communication issues figuring out when to begin classes. Of course, everything went better than we could have expected. Our first day started the week slowly, with just three kids showing up for class. Classes almost doubled every following day. On Wednesday, we had what looked like a pretty full class and everyone was excited to participate.

Two girls seem especially thrilled about English class. The first is a 7th grader named Marsiel. Since AM doesn’t have 7th grade classes she wasn’t sure she could come and we found her quietly standing by the door to the class on our second day. Once invited in, she quickly latched onto our lessons and now is coming to every class (yesterday, she went to two classes in a row!). With the feel of Brasilito classes still being molded and changed every day it is thrilling for me to have kids that are coming of their own volition rather than being dragged to class by their parents. I would say that I wonder whether I would have been that motivated in 7th grade, but I’m relatively certain that I wouldn’t have been!

The other girl, who seems to be excited to show up for as many classes as possible, is Melissa. She is one of the three kids in our first class and seems to be a big part of why our classes are growing so fast each day. The first day she brought one friend with her and the next day she came with around five more. Hopefully, as her friends talk, we’ll get a few more boys. Currently, we are have no boys in our classes, although the occasional boy peeks in before running off.

All in all, Brasilito is still growing and changing quickly. I suspect that once the next week passes even this blog post will be outdated. So far, everyone, students and teachers alike, seem thrilled about the way classes are going and are hoping for more fun days like Wednesday, when we went over numbers!

Tico lessons

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:04:00 -0400

Yesterday, I met a fellow who drove one of my fellow Abriendo Mentes people, the escape dog, and I back to Potrero from the beach we had walked to. That walk to the beach in and of itself is a story but not the one I’m writing here. This guy that drove us spoke very good English so we got chatting and I brought up that Tico’s, in general, live longer than people from the states. His response was interesting to me. He said that is because in Costa Rica they don’t worry about the future and they only worry about themselves. He said that his mother was dead and that was because she worried. She worried about him, his siblings, his dad, and their future. He thought that was a bad thing. In the end, he said, the only thing that sticks around is you and so that is what you have to worry about. I was really taken aback by this response because he clearly loved his mother but he seemed to think she had done wrong. I have always grown up being taught that putting effort into others is what is truly rewarding. I have found that to be true. I do think though that he has a point in making sure to keep yourself happy. He said that for himself he makes sure to keep himself happy by racing horses. I think my new goal for this trip is to find that one consistent thing I can make sure to do every week that makes me happy or happier.

Anyways a word to the wise, if a dog gets out and decides to follow you don’t assume that the dog will 1. part ways when you get into the town and 2. stop and go home when he’s tired. Coco the dog, you are a sweet creature and I’m happy you didn’t hurt yourself.

Last but not least my thoughts go out to my fabulous Aunt Carol who I keep thinking of out here while surrounded by horses and dogs. I hope you are doing wonderfully!

Potrero School

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:30:06 -0400

This is the beginning of my second week working with Abriendo Mentes. I was supposed to start Brasilito this week but life conspired against that so I have another week in Potrero. I think that may actually work out in my favor. Last week there was a gap year group that came to volunteer (meaning more volunteers that kids in some classes!) and we did testing to see whether the kids had improved. While both of these facts meant a fun, less-stress week they also meant I didn’t really get to see what a real “day in the life of a AM volunteer” is. This week there will be significantly less volunteers than kids in Potrero and they will be doing real lesson. In fact next week I will probably be teaching these very lessons to the kids! I am excited to get to know the girls working here a little better and acquire some new teaching skills while in Potrero.

Abriendo Mentes seems to have a pretty relaxed classroom set-up. Students arrive in the afternoon and then begin their classes with set repeated lesson of “what day is it?”, “what day was it yesterday?” and “what day is it tomorrow?”. From there new topics are brought up like letters in the alphabet, numbers, and body parts. These topics seem to be repeated regardless of age and only change in their difficulty. From some kids they learn how to say “mouth” and for others they learn words like “small intestine”. After that it is the end of class.

It has been interesting to learn about the niche that Abriendo Mentes fills. Apparently for kids up to 6th grade they only have school 3 days a week for 3 hours a day. After 6th grade everything changes and becomes more difficult if you choose to stay with school. Also teachers regularly strike and kids regularly skip. For the average kid (6th grade and under), apparently, they get around 85 days of schooling a year! During one of the teacher strikes is when Abriendo Mentes came into fruition. Some locals asked the founders if they could teach their kids. Since they had the time they agreed. From there more kids asked to join, a local restaurant offered up some space (which later would be replaced with the towns public center) and they ended up three years later where they are now. It seems like even that is changing every second. Currently, they are trying to start a micro-business for the women here, making and selling bags. I hope to help figure out a more sustainable addition to this idea by figuring out how to make baskets with dried palm fronds. If you have any suggestions they would be appreciated! Also Abriendo Mentes is trying to grow its name and so would love people liking their facebook page. This week they are running a promotional thing that if they get 430 shares of the facebook page by 4:30 on friday(?) that one of the people who shared will get a free shirt. I know most of you don’t care about the shirt but you’d be awesome if you’d like the abriendo mentes page anyways (http://www.facebook.com/Abriendomentes). Also it will give you a bit of a better idea of what the group does if you care to know.

This week will be particularly exciting because AM is doing a field trip for the kids to Conchal beach where people will be helping them do a science project. Don’t ask me what exactly they will be doing for the project but it is with science-minded people, it is by Brasilito where I will be spending my time teaching, and so, clearly, I am going. Here’s to the possibility of me meeting some good old fashioned science nerds this week!

Also, with last week being tumultuous with our internet and us figuring out transportation for Flamingo we missed some awesome opportunities to get to know our fellow gringos last week. They had two potlucks and we didn’t make either of them! Fortunately they are having another potluck tonight and I’ll be darned if I miss it! I think both Andy and I are excited to get to know some people that we will see again on a regular basis rather than making single day friends and then parting ways. They all seem like amazing people so we’re excited!

Anyways, I hope this message meets you all well and my thoughts go out to my parents who are training for a hiking tour abroad. Don’t kill yourselves and have fun!

The dried seahorse was so cool that all of my thoughts on...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:27:57 -0400

taking pictures so Andy and I can...

make buttons for their site

yay seahorses!

The dried seahorse was so cool that all of my thoughts on leaving the thing where it belongs disappeared. I blame it on the encroaching tide, my excitement, and wanting to get home. I still think it is the smart thing to do and I plan on putting it back by the ocean.

As for the pictures I recently learned that some people don’t know that if you click on the photo it will be enlarged. From there you can scroll through photos with the arrow buttons and see things a little better.

Much love to everyone back home!

Photo

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:06:13 -0400

my walk to work in the morning

where I've been teaching

the main office

because it is hilarious

view from where I teach

the kids seeing if they can jump as...

far as a jaguar

Photo

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:44:38 -0400

1st lazy weekend fun

also our last weekend

oh packing engenuity

our trip to the new home

mmm wildlife :)

sunset from the new home

feeling lucky to be here

a bit different than the usual visitor

my favorite little road here

the flamingo vulture gang

Watching kids soccer and "that one preachy post"

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:38:00 -0400

Last weekend, hanging out around Palmares, was great. Andy and I watched a local soccer game at the field by our house, made grilled chicken sandwiches, gathered leaves and such to attempt to make faces and such for the laughs and we rested. Weekends where you can sit on the couch guilt free are great weekends. For that reason though there isn’t going to be that much to write. Next weekend and week will definitely be different. I can’t believe that next week I start teaching English! I can’t believe next week we will be waking up to ocean views! Life is crazy!

I generally stay away from trying to preach to people (and will try my darnedest to never do it on Facebook ever) but I just read an article that speaks well to my beliefs and I thought that if you felt the inclination to be preached to you might enjoy it. While the traffic to the original post is so bad that you can’t get to it the comments after this response post repeats the initial post: http://www.adventistonline.com/forum/topics/brave-response-to-i-m-christian-unless-you-re-gay

I feel very lucky that generally the people I have truly known are trying to be fully loving people but as with everyone there are exceptions everywhere. Even in Portland. Even in Costa Rica I am sure.