Mosquitoes, Centipedes and Scorpions…Oh My!!

My first couple of days in Costa were chill….almost too chill if at all possible. I hung out with my old host mom for a day and chatted it up, catching up on our shenanigans over the past two years. Her daughter is engaged to an American and is working in South Carolina and I relayed how bad healthcare sucks in the USA (which surprisingly came up several times during my stay). The next day I met up with another volunteer, Abe, who is from Brooklyn and is pretty laid back. He's from Brooklyn but he fits in perfectly in Costa. I also met the program's assistant director, Julia, who my parents thought was an imaginary person who didn't exist for any purpose other than to lure me to Costa Rica and scam me! But low and behold she was legit. In fact she's my age and she's from Texas. We had a nice little lunch in San Pedro and got to know each other. It was fun; I was thinking if this is what my experience was going to be like, I shouldn't be worried at all. However, I wouldn't be hanging out with these gringos the entire time. I was assigned to teach English to mostly taxi drivers in Liberia which is a major town in the Guanacaste region. Which, I mean, is a bummer because these people I just met definitely would be a safety net of English I could understand and people with things to talk about that is related to the US, but I know this experience is for something bigger and better. I met the other volunteer Alice in San Pedro as well, she seems cool enough, and she was the person I was corresponding with most of the time before I came to Costa.

Orientation is taking place in a small town near La Fortuna which is the city where the active volcano Arenal is. The small town is about as rural as it gets, There is a paved road that leads off into several unpaved roads, there is a very nice river about 2 miles down said dirt road and it is gorgeous. The school is designed for teachers in training to teach English, the teachers in training that I have met are all really interesting. They come from Chile, Peru, Guatemala, Mexico and Nicaragua, one of the guys I met from Nicaragua is the most interesting to me. He grew up in Nicaragua, went to college in Wisconsin, met and married his German wife there, had two kids and went to visit Nicaragua and ended up staying because his grade school friends were working on a project with an orphanage. The orphanage is the most interesting part to me, The government of Nicaragua has really strict rules and laws protecting children from abuse so Ali, said teacher in training, is having a hard time running his organization as an orphanage, which is heavily needed in Nicaragua. So Fabretto, the organization serves as a before and after school program to keep kids off the streets. Ali says he appreciates that the government is so strict against child abuse, but the government doesn't offer any solution to the problem of orphans. So Fabretto has to get its funding from people in the US, Spain and Italy. I am planning on visiting his organization soon, because Nicaragua lies to the north of Costa, I am really interested in seeing how it works and the impact that its making on his community.

Orientation itself was short, but we covered what we should expect from the local partners who are a part of this project. Well I guess I should explain the project. ALIARSE is an acronym for a non-profit organization that runs CREST which stands for Costa Rica English for Sustainable Tourism, their goal is to have over 500 volunteers teaching English by 2017. The program has a lot of intricacies; ALIARSE solicits funding from sponsors like the national phone company, the national electric company and the chamber of tourism to name a few. And they all work together to house, feed, and support the volunteers; the sponsors in the different communities throughout Costa also bring the workers of the tourism industry together so that they can be evaluated by the volunteers.

So far I'm scared out of my mind… This will be my first real teaching gig and I'm scared I might choke and be a horrible teacher. In theory I think I'm a great teacher in training, but in practice…ehh…I have only so much experience. And to think that tomorrow I will meet 100 students who are eager to begin learning….Alright enough with the negative talk. The grandson of the older couple that I am staying with just told me that he will be a part of one of my classes…talk about pressure…at least ill know if I suck right off the bat! Well now that I have unloaded my fears onto this blog, I guess I should star lesson planning for the first week….lets hope I don't screw this up too much!

 

Dwinetta