Welp, got exactly what I asked for. And I do not regret any of it. I slept in Ronald Reagan airport Friday night with my two book bags and 10ft. coffin surfboard bag stuffed full of surfboards and spear fishing gear. I flew out Saturday morning and arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. I then caught a taxi to the bus station where I waited 2 hours to get on a crowded bus and arrived in Nicoya 5 hours later at 10:30 pm. I met my host family that night--no one speaks any English--and slept in my new room that night.
I seem to continue to luck out with room and board. I have my own room and bathroom, except this time there is no air conditioning, my shower does not have hot water, and there is not a toilet seat for my toilet, ha. I am not really complaining but it is certainly different from our American luxuries. After sleeping there my first night, I left for Ostional on a bus the next morning. i finally arrived in Ostional at 5 pm Sunday evening and surfed for about an hour, not good surf, but was nice to be in the water. My friend Ludi is being gracious enough to let me keep my surfboards and spear fishing stuff at his house while i am teaching in Nicoya. The next morning I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and caught a bus back to Nicoya to teach on Monday.
My room own room
My own bathroom, no hot water and no toilet seat, but im not complaining.
Nicoya and teaching are both equally ok. Nicoya has about 49,000 people and is located in the Northwest part of Costa Rica on the Nicoya peninsula. I am teaching at a kindergarten through 11th grade Catholic school. The school is in great condition and not as bad as I expected. The last thing I want to do is be another arrogant American that thinks he knows what is the best way to do something, but the teaching here is quite different than back home. T
There are many things here I hope to contribute to the improvement of. There are something’s I may never understand because of cultural differences. I guess I will see as time progresses. The school has no real windows, no air conditioning, and is really small. There are about 300 students total, K through 11.
The students are full of fun and there is very little classroom management here. They are very nice and give me lots of stickers and are fascinated by my ear rings, except the Catholic nuns made me take them out when I am teaching. The art teacher does not speak English; this is going to be a challenge but I think I will do just fine.
I will start teaching all the classes next week. I only get one day a week with all the grades. It is really hard to get into a routine here because their culture does not really operate that way. Yesterday I went to Playa Samara with Dani and Kayla. This was because the whole town of Nicoya did not have power all day long; therefore, they did not have school.
Everything is going as well as can be expected.
San Ambrosio Catholic School