(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