Inside/Outside

Today is my four-month anniversary in Costa Rica. Happy monthiversary to me! It´s strange to think that I´ve been here that long - the usual rush and drag of time applies.

Often, people ask me how I learned my Spanish.  The answer is sort of drawn out: I took classes in high school and college, and studied abroad in Perú.  I always hesitate to add the last bit, due to some serious neglect of opportunity there that I think I´ve mentioned here before.  No doubt, I spoke more Spanish in Perú than I do in the States, but given the amount of time I spent there, the boost my Spanish got from the experience is laughable.  Similar things could be said about my interaction with real live Peruvians.

I´ve known for years that I wanted to reverse that model the next time I traveled, and planned accordingly for Costa Rica.  It´s paid off more than I could have imagined.  My Spanish has evolved and is evolving in ways that I am truly proud of.  The other day, discussing Spanish with a new acquaintance who is attempting to learn the language, I compared the difference between my Spanish when I arrived and my Spanish now to the difference between cheap boxed white wine and a bottle of Shiraz.  (Costa Rica doesn´t produce any wine to speak of - can you tell I miss it?)

More than that, however, I believe the most valuable part of this focusing on the language and the people has come in relationships.  Returning to San Isidro the other day, I climbed onto the bus for La Ribera tired and grumpy because the bus was unusually crowded.  Standing in the aisle and starting to feel sweat trickle down my back, I felt a tug on my skirt.  Luz, my host mom, smiled up at me.  From beside me, two of my host sisters said "Caroliiiiiina!" and one popped up from her seat to give me a hug.  Space was immediately cleared for me, stacking the youngest daughter on top of the older one.  And I burst into a smile.  What a difference being welcomed, being named, can mean.

As you all know, I am taking a course a few hours from my home here that requires me to spend three nights a week in Heredia.  The first weekend I stayed in a hotel a few blocks from the school and spent my nights wallowing in CNN in English.  Important, refreshing, but ultimately lonely.  This weekend I was lucky enough to stay with Memo´s sister Ana, who studies there.  True to Costa Rican generosity, she welcomed me into her busy life, housed me, fed me, talked my ear off, and celebrated Valentine´s Day with me by buying me an ice cream cone and openly sharing her views on love and machismo.  Instead of carrying  a styrofoam to-go plate to my hotel room and watching news all night, I snacked on papaya and papusas and listened to the latest work gossip from one of her two jobs.  Once again, I was allowed inside.

Walking with my classmates at the TESL institute as we go to lunch has really put this into sharp contrast for me.  With them, I am always "outside."  We travel in a group, speak English, and generally have a bubble of space left for us as we move from place to place.  There is nothing inherently wrong with this - one cannot learn the language for each place he or she wants to visit, nor is there something wrong with traveling with others.  But I am more thankful than ever for the moments of everyday Costa Rican life that my choices here have afforded me.

(Happy Valentine´s Day everyone.  Hope you let people you love know it!)

In which I rediscover Miss Caroline

For the past two weekends, I´ve been traveling to Heredia (just outside of the capital) to complete a certification for teaching English as a second language.  Long before coming to Costa Rica, I had set aside money to get certified while I was abroad, but had sidelined that plan in the haze of the daily joys of farming.  Sometimes, however, opportunities fall into your lap in a way that is not to be ignored.  Jeff, a friend of mine in San Isidro, recently took this same course and we fell to talking about it.  He highly recommended it, and told me some of the aspects of the class before mentioning the price.  At the number he gave, my mouth fell open.  It was well, well below what I had come up with during internet research while still in the States.  Call him, Jeff said.  There may not be room left soon.  So I did.  And there was.  A dream deferred was suddenly waiting on me only a few days and several bus hours away.

David Blake runs a teacher training facility in Canada for most of the year, and winters in Costa Rica.  He gives his certification classes at much more routine rates in Canada, but offers two sessions of class here during his "vacation." He´s taught all over the world, has an ear constantly open for business and money ideas, smokes like a chimney, and is married to a delightful Japanese woman named June who provides patient and insightful feedback as an English language learner herself. 

My classmates are an interesting hodgepodge of people. Priscilla, a seventy-something lady who landed in Costa Rica because a housing development desperately wanted her lot and offered to buy her a house anywhere in the world, has a big heart but can´t fathom the way some young people speak these days.  Jackie, a beautiful mom of three who lives in a suburb of Costa Rica that can be compared to LA in the states, comes from a special education background in the States and found herself at a loss when trying to do demonstrate "scowl" to June because of Botox.  Kevin owns a fancy bed and breakfast by the beach in Uvita, and taught Kindergarten in the States for thirteen years.  And so on.  It makes for a very interesting class experience - I have learned a lot from the students as well as the teacher.

Each hour that I spend in class, I am reminded of the joy and hardship and friendships and stress I found last year teaching ESL in New Orleans.  I have realized over and over again during lessons what an important experience that was for me - with help from Sarah at Literacy*AmeriCorps, my Corps members, and the Even Start Family, I received and created a quilted education in how to teach ESL.  I made mistakes, I made progress, I taught.  It´s been easy to feel distant from that experience here in Costa Rica, but this course has reopened my heart for the work of teaching English.  I am finding it easy once again to imagine a future of teaching.

I have one more weekend to go before I finish the course - this coming weekend I will be doing my two final practicums and learning about international job opportunities and resume writing.  The bus hours are brutal, San Jose is loud and the men obnoxious, but I believe this class is well worth it.