Hola todos!  First, a few things I forgot to mention about the weekend.  1) We saw a horse in the ocean with it's owner cooling off...it looked just like postcards you see of wild horses haha and 2) The ocean water is SO warm...I never knew an ocean could be that warm!  When it's shallow it's hot, like bath water haha it was awesome, 3) We couldn't drink the water there so we were buying tons of bottled water...you never know how much water you drink until you're constantly replacing your bottle of water!  Plus it was reallyyy hot and humid, like you sweat the whole time you're there, so we drank lotsss of water.  Definitely made me appreciate the fact that we can drink the water here in San Jose :)

As for today, another good day at Carmelo.  This morning we went to Mass at the school (yep--it's definitely Catholic!) so I pretty much could follow along with that easily.  At the end of church they sang happy birthday to the kids to had birthdays that day, it was really fun.  Then we worked a little bit with a teacher we had been with on Monday, with fourth graders.  Then we switched and helped a different teacher who works with younger kids.  We went down to the preschool and taught them -- very cute -- mostly by singing songs like '5 little monkeys jumping on the bed' and 'hokey pokey.'  Next we switched to another class, a little older, maybe kindergarten or first grade, and did some of the same type of thing, learning things like body parts ('head, shoulders, knees, and toes') and family members.

The kids are really nice and sweet though, like in the last class when it was time for us to go, they mobbed us and gave us hugs and came up and asked questions...very loving haha.  One girl came up and the first thing she asked me was if I had a boyfriend haha.  Now the kids recognize us when we come in everyday so they always say hi if they pass us in the school and everything.  Oh and today I got a present...one of the fourth graders gave me a pencil :) yeehaw! 

I decided to start Spanish classes next week instead because I realized I wouldn't be here for much of the week because we're traveling this weekend...I'll keep the location a surprise so you all have something to look forward to in a future blog! :P  So I'll write about the class once I experience one...PS this also means don't panic when you don't hear from me Thursday-Sunday, I will be gone!

There's not as many people living with me now...we have three people upstairs and two downstairs, and one of them is leaving this week.  So we'll see if we get more new people sometime!  My host family is great...the other night the son got his guitar and was playing for us and trying to teach me, unsuccessfully mostly, to play too haha.  In the back of the house he has a bunch of bird cages with like 30 canaries.  Today he showed me some babies that are only a few days old...they were tiny and pink because they didn't have many feathers yet, all sleeping together in the nest.   

That's all I can think of for now...how is the good ol US of A?  Miss you all!  Nos vemos pronto!

(By the way, I wrote this blog yesterday but then it started raining and the internet went out so this is attempt #2!)

Hola todos!  Time to catch up a bit, I’ve been out of the internet loop for awhile.  It was a rough and stressful week, which is partly why I didn’t write cause I was waiting for it to improve!  But it’s better now.  There wasn’t much to say last week about the volunteer placement because all of last week we never ended up doing what we were supposed to do but today I think we’ve finally figured it out.  I’ll try to go somewhat in order and remember what all we did. 

Wednesday and Thursday we didn’t do much teaching.  Wednesday we were put out in the hallway with a small group of kids with nothing to do so we kind of made stuff up for about half an hour and then the school day was over, so we spent the rest of the time playing with them after school.  It was like baby-sitting but worse because they were too old and didn’t need us, like about sixth grade.  Thursday was just playing with them again, but this time I knew what to expect so it wasn’t as bad.  We mostly played soccer with them up in the gym, which was fun.  But a lot of the kids are super sweet and fine one minute, then someone does something to make them mad and they just freak out the next minute.  Like we’ll be playing soccer and something happens and all the sudden they’re fighting again.  And this happens like every few minutes.  It’s just crazy cause the kids are really nice but their first instinct when something goes wrong is just to physically fight the other kid…so they have tempers! 

Friday we went in a bit earlier to see if we could catch them during the school day, but as with our luck, turns out they didn’t have classes that afternoon because their grades were coming out or something like that.  So, we really weren’t needed much.  Except I felt bad for the one lady in the preschool left alone with a bunch of crazy kids!  The school is so different too, because last week I never even saw the kids in class and I was like, “do they ever go to school?” haha but seriously kids are always running around the school, walking around by themselves during class, playing, just looking like they do whatever they want haha so it seems a little less structured than what I remember of elementary school, that’s for sure.  So anyways I was really worried I’d be stuck not doing what I signed up to do the whole time and was just getting really frustrated and disappointed.

During this whole time Maximo was trying to get in touch with the school and work things out and this morning we were finally able to go to the school in the morning.  There are two other Maximo volunteers that go in the morning and I guess they didn’t want us all in the same class but we were all together today (that might change later) but honestly I think all of us in there was fine!  When there’s a lot of kids all needing attention, more people is better.  So today was perfect, like what I’ve been wanting to do this whole time, and so now I have hope it’ll get better haha.  We just go in the classroom with the English teacher and go over the lesson with the kids and then help them with the workbook practice they have during class.  I’m not really sure what grade everyone was in but I think today we did fourth, sixth, and seventh.  The sixth and seventh graders actually understand more than they let on…many of them are very smart, but don’t yet have the confidence to use the language (it’s the same in Spanish for all of us learning!).  The fourth grade class was insane, there were 38 kids in the class (seems like a lot of the classes are huge) and they were all just yelling and crazy and super hyper haha so it was hard to teach much of the lesson and kind of better when they had the workbook and had something to do.  I can’t imagine that poor teacher having all those kids by herself.  (Sidenote, update from today: we worked with an awesome teacher, he's really fun and we taught fifth and eighth graders...we were the "professional pronunciators") So hopefully it’ll work out from here on out!  I also found out today that the school goes on a break starting July 4^th, so my last week will be free…maybe I’ll do some traveling or something.

Now, the weekend!  A big group of us went to Puerto Viejo, a small Caribbean town.  I told Brian his hippie friends would have loooved this place haha because it was really chill, laid-back, and smoking weed is a way of life haha.  We learned that “tico time” (aka, everything takes longer because people move slowly) really applied there…if you want a meal, you better allow a couple hours from beginning to end!  We went to get ice cream and waited at least 45 minutes just for them to bring it out.  I got impatient haha.  Rushing you or trying to turn tables over in restaurants is unheard of!  I guess it was the town’s birthday or something because before we left to go back to San Jose we saw a parade of horses and music going down the street, it was pretty cool.  So we left for Puerto Viejo really early Saturday morning and took a bus for about 4 hours to get there.  We checked in at a hostel that a bunch of other people were staying at called Rocking J’s.  It’s kind of a party spot and we were talking to other people from Maximo who had stayed there the night before and a couple of them were moving places because they didn’t like how rowdy it was.  So, we got a backup room at a place across the street just in case it got too crazy!  It was owned by an Austrian man who was really funny and weird so we had a lot of fun making fun of him the rest of the time haha.  But the hostel was actually really fun and we slept in hammocks outside haha it was pretty cool.  The problem was mostly just noise, because there was music until late, then drums out on the beach all night, then we woke up really early…I don’t know why, I think maybe because the sun rises so early.  Oh yeah the first day we got there we just walked along the beach until we found the hostel and then found some beach to hang out on.  There were some places where you couldn’t get in the water because there was like coral and rocks and stuff before the water, so it created tide-pool type things.  The second day we rented bikes and rode down the road a ways to the nicer beaches and that was really fun.  We saw lots of wildlife while we were there, including lots of lizards, crabs, and stray dogs, sea urchins, and an eel too!  We heard the monkeys in the trees but never actually saw one.  I didn’t do too bad in the sunburn area…everyone got burnt but I only burnt my shoulders a little bit haha.  And before we left to go back to San Jose, me being the genius that I am, discovered that I had accidentally thrown out my bus ticket home when I was throwing some receipts away…so I had to buy another, just lucky we realized it before I tried to get on the  bus!  Oh yeah and the bugs weren’t as bad as I thought they would be, but I must have gotten into something really weird…there are like bumps on my finger and it’s swelling so I hope I didn’t get some weird tropical disease that requires amputation or something…I’m waiting it out for now!  (Update from today...it looks better...) It was a much needed break after a stressful week!  But now I’m just relieved because I think things volunteering-wise will get better. 

We have three new people in my house now, so me and my roomie are the only original ones now!  I’ll have lotsss of roommates before my time is up haha.  Also I’ve changed my mind on the Spanish classes and I think I’ll take them for a few weeks.  I think it’ll help me progress a little better speaking-wise since I spend most of my time with people who only speak English haha.  And now, what you’ve all been waiting for: pictures!

 My tiny room

 My house--it's the white one with the red gate, but doesn't include the house above the green wall...it's long and narrow so it's skinny in front but goes back further

 Beach in Puerto Viejo on the way to the hostel

 Hammock photo shoot at Rockin J's

 Beach in Puerto Viejo after our bike ride

Hola todos!  Last night a bunch of us went out to this street near a university that has a bunch of bars...it was fun but I was soo tired I just wanted to go to bed!  While we were walking to the bus stop something ran out in front of me and we didn't know what it was until we saw another one a second later...cockroaches. On the sidewalk. Needless to say I felt very vulnerable in my sandals.  The first bar we were at was this crazy techno place and we got this huge tower of beer.  Then we saw some white people across the street...yes, we're pretty easy to spot, we kinda stick out...and we waved to them so they came over and sure enough, they were volunteers too.  We went to one more bar after that then took a taxi home but we made someone who spoke Spanish come with us so we were sure we could make it home!

This morning I got to go to my volunteer placement for the first time.  It's pretty far away so I'll be racking up the bus fares for sure.  I have to take multiple buses to get there, so while the buses here are cheap, six buses a day is going to add up.  I take a bus to get to the Maximo Nivel office, then another bus to get to downtown San Jose, then I walk down the main street for a bit, then I take another bus out to the school I work at.  So lots of traveling!  The main street, called avenida central, is all pedestrian traffic so that's easy and there's lots of shops and things.  I have one other volunteer that is at my same placement so I have someone to travel with.  I think I will figure it out soon though...I looked for lots of landmarks today so I can remember where to get on and off the bus!

The school is a private religious school with uniforms and nuns and all...brings back the memories haha...called Carmelo.  While the area around the school looks a little sketch, the school inside is actually pretty nice and a decent size.  I haven't met the lady I'll be working with yet but the guy we talked to today was really nice...he said the kids get attached so I have a feeling by the end of this I'm gonna be really sad to leave!  Today they were in the middle of the school day so we'll start actually working in the classrooms and teaching tomorrow.  We work in the afternoons 2 to 5 and we'll be with the younger grades so lots of cute kids.  For today, we helped out in the preschool.  Lots of crazy kids running around!  We got a lot of stares haha, clearly we look like we don't belong.  Then we moved into even younger kids, like probably 2 to 4 year olds and they were soo cute.  And, the language barrier is a lot easier because you don't have to say much haha.  So I just played with the kids and gave them lunch and then they went to nap so we were there bout 2 hours.  While we were playing an alarm went off and at first I thought it was a lunch bell or something but everyone was running around like crazy and I didn't get why it was chaos...turns out, it was an earthquake drill!  So we all stood in this courtyard for a couple minutes and that was it.  There was a really sweet girl a little bit older, like second grade, who started talking to me and would ask me all these questions like she wanted to know the English names for things and stuff like that.  After we had cleaned up all the lunch stuff we headed back to Maximo.  I'm really tired but this is better than yesterday because I felt like I actually did something today so I feel a little more productive!  I'm excited for tomorrow because the Maximo person who took us to our placement today was saying that this school specifically asked for people who are staying here longer because they actually train us and stuff.  So it seems like it's not going to be as disorganized as I had anticipated.

As for Spanish, it's also not what I expected.  Contrary to popular belief, ie what I thought this whole time until yesterday, Spanish classes are extra money.  Soo instead of spending all the money on lessons, I chose instead to do a tandem conversation program where you get to sit down with a native speaker and they help you with your Spanish for a half hour, and you help them with their English for a half hour.  I don't know how the schedule for that works yet but hopefully it'll be cool.  And I always have my host family to practice speaking with too.  However, I'm also speaking lots more English than I thought I would because it's the only way to communicate with the other volunteers!  And, since my project is teaching English, I suspect I'll speak it then too.

Other random observations...although they told us to dress conservatively while we're volunteering, ie nothing above the knee, I've noticed hardly anyone here wears shorts, like even though it's hot and sunny, everyone still wears long pants.  So I guess dressing this way helps me blend in too.  And at all the bars, they play American music.  At the second bar they were playing like classic songs you'd hear on the radio, like the Beatles and 80s music. 

Now I'm waiting to go to a class here at Maximo that's a sort of teaching English crash course, and after that who knows!  I need a siesta.  Hasta luego!

Hola todos!  I’M HERE!  Although I did have some trouble at immigration in the airport because I didn’t know the address I was staying at…you’re supposed to be able to stay here 90 days without a visa, and when I told her I didn’t know where I was going, she reduced it to 45 days!  Since I’m staying here longer than that, I was able to convince her that I was, in fact, going home and showed her my return flight information and she changed it back to 90. Yeesh.

I found my ride at the airport pretty easily, and there was a large group of us there – probably about 8 total.  On the ride from the airport we drove through downtown San Jose and there’s lots of American places to eat—I saw Taco Bell, McDonalds, KFC, and lots of Subways.  We are staying outside of San Jose though so we’re in a smaller town.  We all piled into a big van and got dropped off at our respective homes.  One girl I was with lives right next door to me!  She’s on a different volunteer project than me but it’s still nice to know someone.  Also, the drivers here are insane.  The rules of the road seem to be: make up your own rules.  A lot of the roads are just criss-crossing all over the place, with no lines or anything…safe to say you shouldn’t cross the street if you value your life haha.

The house I’m staying in is on a big hill…yes, I can see the mountains from here!  The house is simple but perfectly fine.  It’s more like a boarding house because there’s lots of people staying here, and various members of the family are always walking in and out.  My host mom’s name is Marina Sanchez and her son is Gerson (he’s grown) and they are the ones who are here most of the time.  The first floor of the house is where the family stays, and the kitchen has a big long table.  The food is good though…pretty traditional so far, we had rice with chicken and beans for dinner last night and this morning for breakfast we had eggs, rice, something like a plantain, juice, bread, that kind of stuff.  Since we’re gone during the day our host mom makes us lunch to take with us. 

The second floor of the house is where most of the visitors stay…there’s 3 bedrooms and a bathroom and living space and stuff.  Right now they’re all full, so upstairs there’s 7 people total.  My room is smaller than the size of mom’s closet (not an exaggeration, it’s tiny) with a bunk bed, some shelves, and some drawers so I left my giant suitcase out in the living area or else it would take up the whole room.  Right now my roomie is a girl from Canada and she’s cool and will be here for 2 more weeks.  So far I haven’t met anyone who’s staying longer than me.  Everyone’s staying for different amounts of time, so my roommates will change as time goes on.  There are people from Boston, New Jersey, England, and Canada so there’s lots of accents in that home!  The bathroom is normal, normal shower, and the whole don’t-throw-toilet-paper-in-the-toilet thing isn’t as weird as I thought it would be.

My host mom doesn’t speak much English but her son does.  He’s an angel!  But seriously he’s super nice and chill and helped us a lot when we got there to help us feel comfortable talking and everything.  And it’s really handy because he’s there if we ever don’t understand something.  I can understand pretty much everything they say, because they’re nice and talk slowly haha.  And they can understand me even when I’m not making sense…they’re good at figuring out what we’re trying to say!  I think of the people staying there I have the most Spanish so I can help them out too.  My neighbor that I mentioned before doesn’t know Spanish and her host mom knows no English so when she first got there and she was the only one home with her, there was a bit of a language barrier!  But we visited each other’s houses and I helped her talk to her host mom a little bit. 

There is no internet at home so I can only write when I bring my computer to the office.  It’s about a 15 minute bus ride from home.  I’m waiting for my orientation now so I don’t have any information on my placement yet.  I’m hoping it’s not terribly hard to figure out where I’m going because it sounds like we have to take a lot of buses to get there and they only show us one time before we’re on our own!  My sense of direction tells me…I will get lost.  I don’t know my address because…the addresses are weird and I don’t know how to write it.  The house number here is 22346327 (but I’m not sure if that costs money…sooo just stick to other methods of communication for now…like my phone). 

Well that’s all I can think of for now…more to come later!  I'll try to post pictures once I have some.  Hasta luego!

This is my blog's test run...I leave in 2 days!