Yesterday was a whirlwind. It was my first day at the ILCO offices, since Monday was a national holiday. What national holiday you might ask? Mother's day. That's right. These people know how to give credit where it's due. Stephen told me it was a national holiday, no one went to work, it was a weekend event, and
businesses made significantly more sales than most days due to the increase in gift-buying so as not to disappoint any mothers. Then I asked what they did for father's day and he said "nothing special." I mean, I know parents aren't supposed to show any favoritism with their kids because they're supposed to be fair and unbiased and have that parental love sent from heaven and children aren't necessarily held to the same standard, but did the nation of Costa Rica really need to make such a public statement about most popular parent? Seemed like an unjustified hit below the belt to me. Regardless, glad some day I'll be a mom. Guess you know where my family and I will be vacationing in mid-August!
Back to the whirlwind... Started off the day with a meeting with Xinia (executive director of ILCO and my boss) and Stephen. We took care of some housekeeping stuff (internet, cell phone, copies of keys, furniture, etc.). Then I had to go pick up all my stuff at the house in San Sebastian because it's being fumigated today.
I'll be staying with Xinia the next few days at her house in San Pablo with her husband until everything is back to normal and cleaned up at the house in San Sebastian. After that I got some lunch with the technology guy at ILCO offices, Roberto. We went to a huge store called "Mega" and got some gallo pinto. It's, from what I'm
told, one of the most common Costa Rican foods. It's just pinto beans and rice mixed together. I also got some chicken and potatoes. I have a feeling this will be a steady part of my diet while I'm here. After that I bought a cell phone with Roberto and the receptionist, Claudia. I had to buy the phone, charger, a number, and minutes. It's a prepaid phone which I like since I don't use it that much in foreign countries anyway.
At the end of the day came the tornado, figuratively speaking. I met with Stephen and a Pastor named Nehemias to talk about scheduling in San Julian and El Jardin (two small towns about two miles from each other). Nehemias is the community pastor in this area and he spends his weekends up there to lead Sunday services and teach a gardening class at the local school. My original schedule planned for me to work in this area on Monday and Tuesday in the mornings and afternoons. At the end of each day I was supposed
to go back to Puerto Viejo which is a bigger city about an hour away from that area by bus where I would stay in a pastoral house every night. We were doing this because Stephen was under the impression that there were no families available to take me in Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday night. The problem arose though that since these communities are almost exclusively Nicaraguan immigrant populations, there is only a limited amount of public transportation to these areas. It turns out that there are only two busses that run from Puerto Viejo to El Jardin each day; one at 11:30am and the other at 5pm. Then there are only two busses that run from El Jardin back to Puerto Viejo each day; one at 5am and the other at 1pm. This made scheduling a little more difficult. It took us a few hours to sort through the logistics of that...
What I'm supposed to do is travel to El Jardin/San Julian this Thursday, stay the night with a family in the community, and then talk with the principal and teachers of the schools on Friday morning. There I'll need to figure out the class schedule of the students I'm working with, when they do English, whether or not I'll be
working with them during school hours or doing after school reinforcement classes, where I will stay, and what curriculum/materials/objectives these teachers have for their students in English. The trick is going to be being assertive enough to make some decisions and hopefully start classes this coming Monday and Tuesday
without being too pushy. Not to mention I have to catch my bus at 1pm (the last bus that leaves that area for the day!) to get back to Puerto Viejo so I can come back to San Jose Friday night. Challenges: 1) not being too pushy but being assertive enough to make some decisions about the next week, 2) recognizing the fact that the teachers and principals may want more time to think about scheduling or aren't ready to committ to any schedule and being okay with classes starting a week later, and 3) being prepared for a complete change in schedule (different days, different times, different students) than had originally been planned. This has happened around 15 times with housing arrangements, meeting times, work schedule, and daily plans in the 3 days that I've been there so not being prepared for what actually happens is something I need to be... prepared for.
I will also travel to San Martin, another community I will be doing adult and youth English classes in, on Sunday with the local pastor to talk to the community there. I will be doing mainly the same thing as I did in San Julian, trying to figure out schedules, assuring them that these classes will actually take place, and discussing best times for them to meet, etc.
The challenging part of this whole thing is that I'll be trying to work out a schedule with El Jardin/San Julian as well as with San Martin without overlapping schedules. I won't know what one community wants while I'm talking to the other and they could overlap. It's kind of like a rubix cube. Once you finally get an entire line of red blocks lined up, you realize the yellows are spread out everywhere and you have to undo the perfect red line so that the yellow can get itself together. Not to mention working around that terrible bus schedule El Jardin/San Julian have.
So, this is my big challenge of the weekend... talk with principals, teachers, and community members and try to get a committment from them on when/where/how to begin classes this coming week. But like I said, the bigger challenge will be accepting it if it doesn't all work out today and decisions are not made until next week. I've been praying for that patience.
I am excited to meet the people in these communities and I am continuously surprised at how much responsibility is in my hands, but it is this autonomy that is most nerve-racking for me. I have held many different positions of leadership in my school and community, but these positions are different in Costa Rica. Here it seems, and most logically because I work in small rural villages filled with immigrants and plantation workers, that word is not spread through email or even telephones. Instead it is by word of mouth. If you want a group of people to convene, you better knock on their door and ask them. You better tell a friend of their friend to be there. In the United States it seems like I have lead people who are already trained by someone else, guide people who already know when and where they're supposed to meet, organize material
for a class that's already been scheduled. Here, at least in this position, I am the leader and the trainer... and the organizer... and the receptionist... and the coordinator... and the publicist... and the teacher... and the technician. I am the front man and work behind the scenes. I think that's what everyone faces when they are attempting to start a new program. One that has never been done before. This is not like any mission trip I've been on where everything is already arranged for me and I just step into to teach the class, lead the workshop, paint the house. This has to be the epitome of the accompaniment model of mission work. I will walk alongside those with whom I work and work it out with them. There is no middle man. I am the middle man. And as challenging as that is going to be and can't think of any other way it should be done. Because at the end of the day, regardless of how many prepositions or linking verbs my students learn, I want them to know that they have a sister, a friend, in Christ somewhere else in the world that knows them by name. Knows their story, knows who they are, and loves them. Without being that tangible... without working side-by-side others... what would I be doing here anyway?
COSTA RICA CULTURE SHOCK:
1) I learned last night that Costa Rica has nine provinces and within those nine provinces are regions and within those regions are towns and that is how Costa Ricans say where they're from. San Pablo (town) of Heredia (region) of San Jose (province). And you thought it was just their names that were really long...
2) There are 34 micro-climates in Costa Rica. Sunny w/ rain, rainy, cloudy, sunny w/o rain. I'm not sure if this holds any relevance to us because I don't know how many micro-climates we have, but there it is.
3) When Costa Ricans are given their license plates they are given a number... 1 through 10 or so. Every day of the week there is a certain day for each car in which they are not allowed to drive. For example, if my license plate is #2, I cannot drive my car on Mondays at all because #1 and #2s are not allowed to drive on Mondays. Tuesdays are 3-4, Wednesdays 5-6, etc. I think this is to cut down on the country's carbon footprint and crazy, crazy traffic they have here.
4) Costa Ricans are called "Ticos." This is because they use diminutives for so many words. A diminutive is a way of conveying the smallness of an object or just for endearment purposes only. For example, in English, a diminutive would be "doggy" instead of "dog." Or "Johnny" instead of "John." In Costa Rican Spanish, they do this by adding "tico" to certain nouns. So, instead of saying "little" as "chico," they say "chiqitico" to mean "really, really little." They add "tico" onto a lot of words and, therefore, they call themselves "Ticos."
This city is gorgeous. Like I told you before, the best part about it is that you can be on any street in any location and you can see the mountains from somewhere. And they are green. But not just one shade of green - all of them. They are the color of lime, emeralds, mint, pears, olives, evergreens, the ocean, asparagus, and moss. And once you leave downtown San Jose, the roads start to twist and wrench and bend in all directions at 90 degree angles upwards and 180 degree loops. It becomes obvious that San Jose was built on the only flat space of a plateau a mountain had to offer and the "suburbs" are left to wind their way through the contorts of the valleys. This inevitably allows for every bend in the road to be worthy of a public lookout spot for the view it offers of the mountains that surround it. We passed a cemetery today on the way to work that was placed at one of these cliffy hills that overlooks the mountains. I thought what a shame it was that everyone there was dead and couldn't see the beauty that surrounded them.
Today I am working at the offices until 2pm reviewing all the materials and resources that ILCO has so that I can get some type of inventory started and prepare for my upcoming trips to San Julian/El Jardin and San Martin. I also am preparing for my tutoring sessions tomorrow with Xinia and another administrative worker, the coordinator with US delegations, Rodolfo. At 2pm I'll be heading over to La Carpio, which is a community in San Jose of Nicaraguan immigrants with a Pastor named Erik to visit the Casa Abierta (day care) in that community for a few hours. I'll be working over there in the coming months and it'd be a good idea if I got to know some community members in that area.
Until next time.
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