It has been awhile since my last post, my final days in Fortuna passed rather uneventfully. I decided to just stay in the house and ride it out, and I didn't talk to the family after the Cooper saga until the last day. LuLU wanted me to tell OTEC that I had a good time there and that they should send the next set of volunteers to stay at here house. I haven't been asked by OTEC about what living was like there, but I don't think I would tell them to send people to the house again. The family was nice and provided what I needed to get by in Fortuna, but I know from Luke's experience that a good host family can be alot more interactive than mine was.
The last week traveling with Andy has been a blast, it has been nice to be at the beach almost everyday for the past week, and moving every few days has let me see a different Costa Rica then the one I was accustomed to in La Fortuna. After a week of reflection beach side maybe my memory isn't as replete with grievances as it was when I first left La Fortuna. This last week has shown me that the hospitality I recieved from the Police Officers is abundant throughout, every time we stop and I speak with someone, be it at a restaurant, or a store, or for directions they are more then happy to help and just chat. It really is the "pure life" here and if anyone thought that these three months would give me my "Central America fix", Im sorry to say that it has only made my desire to come back stronger (sorry mom).
Its too bad that the program that I signed up for wasnt really a program at all, but I am the type of person who can adapt and make the most of it. It is too bad that the family I got stuck with wasn't interested in really "hosting" me, but all of the other people who I met in Fortuna and helped me get to know Costa Rica made it worth it. I think I also accomplished my goal of improving my Spanish, everyone I have tried to talk to in the past week has understood me and I even caught my self trying to explain something to Andy in Spanish last night and I had to tell my brain to translate it into English. I dont know too much else I can write about, I am sure I had many more adventures here than I wrote about in the blog, but that will give me something to talk about when I get back. Its strange to be heading home in less then 48 hours but it sure will be nice to see all of my friends and family again. for the last time, Pura Vida
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
11/23/09
I am closing in on my final days here in Fortuna. I am planning on leaving here on the morning of the 29th, but recent events might mean that I will head to San Jose a little sooner then that. After last weeks class experience I think Cooper was ready to take it easy, but on Friday he got the news that his parents would be moving and that he would have to return to the states to help pack. Overall I think that he was less then impressed with the program (He is going to file a complaint with the better buisness bureau). He had the same feelings that I did when I first arrived, the officers are great, but it sure feels like you got scammed by GeoVisions. So I dodnt think that he was all that heart broken to be heading home. Up until last night he was planning on staying here for the next week in order to give both groups of officers the same information.
Last night however his plans changed, and he ended up taking a bus at 5 this morning to San Jose. LuLU came home from a trip to her sons house and just laid into him, screaming at him over some bullshit about the meat in the freezer. After all of the problems and dissapointments he had in the last month I think that was the final straw. SO he left without saying anything to the family and I hjave successfully avoided talking to them up until now today. If they say anything to me about it or start yelling at me I am giong to the police station to finish out my time here. I figure I only have 5 or 6 days left in their house so I can try and just get through it. My private entrance will help a whole lot too.
I feel bad for cooper and the officers because both of them will be missing out on the next 2 months of class. I am glad to be getting out of here too, Overall I have really enjoyed Fortuna, but the constant tension with the family hasnt led to the best experience. They dont do anything for thanksgiving here but I know a resturant that does fried chicken and mashed potatoes so I think I will eat that for lunch and watch the Raiders/Cowboys game. I feel like just getting out of here and heading to San Jose, but here in Fortuna I have the officers to talk to and I know my way around. Like I said if it gets unbearable at the house I will just go to the station, but without class the idea of spending all of my time there almost seems as bad as staying at LuLU's. I hope that everyone has a good Thanksgiving, and I will keep you updated about what I decide to do. Pura Vida
Last night however his plans changed, and he ended up taking a bus at 5 this morning to San Jose. LuLU came home from a trip to her sons house and just laid into him, screaming at him over some bullshit about the meat in the freezer. After all of the problems and dissapointments he had in the last month I think that was the final straw. SO he left without saying anything to the family and I hjave successfully avoided talking to them up until now today. If they say anything to me about it or start yelling at me I am giong to the police station to finish out my time here. I figure I only have 5 or 6 days left in their house so I can try and just get through it. My private entrance will help a whole lot too.
I feel bad for cooper and the officers because both of them will be missing out on the next 2 months of class. I am glad to be getting out of here too, Overall I have really enjoyed Fortuna, but the constant tension with the family hasnt led to the best experience. They dont do anything for thanksgiving here but I know a resturant that does fried chicken and mashed potatoes so I think I will eat that for lunch and watch the Raiders/Cowboys game. I feel like just getting out of here and heading to San Jose, but here in Fortuna I have the officers to talk to and I know my way around. Like I said if it gets unbearable at the house I will just go to the station, but without class the idea of spending all of my time there almost seems as bad as staying at LuLU's. I hope that everyone has a good Thanksgiving, and I will keep you updated about what I decide to do. Pura Vida
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
11-17-09
I figured I should post something to let you all know that im still alive and doing well. I am done with my official teaching job here. I will be staying around to help Cooper transition until Andy comes down on the 29th though. I offered to continue teaching, but he wanted to start with fresh material so I let him have at it.
The testing went well, Cooper went to San Jose to pick up a package for a few days at the end of last week which made reviewing a little stressful, but overall it went well. I didnt have a mutany with this group so that was a plus too. The grades didnt really turn out the way I had wanted them too. I was hoping for a fair number of As and a majority of B´s´but it ended up that everyone that I expected to get an A did and the rest of them ended up with C´s. I thought about curving the test for a while but I never appreciated that approach to grading as a student so I ended up figuring the grades based on the numbers (sans probability curves). Some of the officers were dissapointed with recieving C´s, but my grade will be averaged with those of the other volunteers to give them a composite which should mean no one will get below a B. Im not really sure why we had to give them grades, but oh well.
Last night was Coopers first night trying to run the class, instead of helping me review material they already knew. I think it was quite eye opening for him. He is taking a year off from Brown and has to provide detailed sylabi to prove that he taught during his time off. Going into last night he had high expectations about what he could get communicated succesfully in three hours. I have been telling him since he got here that he shouldnt expect to much and needs to have a great deal of flexibility built into his lesson plans. Before last night his response had been that if they dont get the material they will just get a bad grade and he will just move on to new stuff teh next day. Which might be a good approach if youre teaching apathetic High Schoolers, but for middle age police officers who get easily frustrated it wasnt the best game plan.
So last night he had a pretty ambitious lesson plan (I wouldnt try to tackle the information with them in more less than 3 days), but his Spanish is amazing so he can communicate ideas to them much easier than I can. We started the lesson at 6 pm tico time (so 645 give or take 30 minutes). It was tough watching him just writing things on the board and expecting the police to just pick up the information. I could tell that the police were getting really frustrated, but I figured that the best way for Cooper to realize the pace at which they learn was to experience it first hand. He managed to get through the whole lesson plan, but by the end I think he was starting to realize the limitations of teaching here. I am looking forward to seeing what he does tonight and hoping that he can slow down, even if he has to lie to Brown about what he taught here.
In other news I am getting ready to sign up for classes. My registration window is tommorow after 6pm and as of right now I can still get into all of the classes I need to in order to get closer to graduating. I have already had a friendly conflict with my advisor, reminding me of how much I hate college and giving me that drive to just put my head down and get through the personal hell that I have found to be ¨higher learning¨. It was a bummer watching my hawkeyes and steelers lose this last weekend, but hopefully Iowa will finish strong against Minnesota on Saturday. I look forward to being cold with all of you very soon. Pura Vida
The testing went well, Cooper went to San Jose to pick up a package for a few days at the end of last week which made reviewing a little stressful, but overall it went well. I didnt have a mutany with this group so that was a plus too. The grades didnt really turn out the way I had wanted them too. I was hoping for a fair number of As and a majority of B´s´but it ended up that everyone that I expected to get an A did and the rest of them ended up with C´s. I thought about curving the test for a while but I never appreciated that approach to grading as a student so I ended up figuring the grades based on the numbers (sans probability curves). Some of the officers were dissapointed with recieving C´s, but my grade will be averaged with those of the other volunteers to give them a composite which should mean no one will get below a B. Im not really sure why we had to give them grades, but oh well.
Last night was Coopers first night trying to run the class, instead of helping me review material they already knew. I think it was quite eye opening for him. He is taking a year off from Brown and has to provide detailed sylabi to prove that he taught during his time off. Going into last night he had high expectations about what he could get communicated succesfully in three hours. I have been telling him since he got here that he shouldnt expect to much and needs to have a great deal of flexibility built into his lesson plans. Before last night his response had been that if they dont get the material they will just get a bad grade and he will just move on to new stuff teh next day. Which might be a good approach if youre teaching apathetic High Schoolers, but for middle age police officers who get easily frustrated it wasnt the best game plan.
So last night he had a pretty ambitious lesson plan (I wouldnt try to tackle the information with them in more less than 3 days), but his Spanish is amazing so he can communicate ideas to them much easier than I can. We started the lesson at 6 pm tico time (so 645 give or take 30 minutes). It was tough watching him just writing things on the board and expecting the police to just pick up the information. I could tell that the police were getting really frustrated, but I figured that the best way for Cooper to realize the pace at which they learn was to experience it first hand. He managed to get through the whole lesson plan, but by the end I think he was starting to realize the limitations of teaching here. I am looking forward to seeing what he does tonight and hoping that he can slow down, even if he has to lie to Brown about what he taught here.
In other news I am getting ready to sign up for classes. My registration window is tommorow after 6pm and as of right now I can still get into all of the classes I need to in order to get closer to graduating. I have already had a friendly conflict with my advisor, reminding me of how much I hate college and giving me that drive to just put my head down and get through the personal hell that I have found to be ¨higher learning¨. It was a bummer watching my hawkeyes and steelers lose this last weekend, but hopefully Iowa will finish strong against Minnesota on Saturday. I look forward to being cold with all of you very soon. Pura Vida
Sunday, November 8, 2009
8-11-09
The last week has brought a few changes to my life here in Fortuna, the tourist season has started to pick up. Something that can be measured by the number of Octogenarians in bermuda shorts standing in the park taking a picture of the volcano at anyone time. This statistic has transformed from an anomily to the norm seemingly overnight and the town is deffinitely busier for that. I gave the first installment of my final exam on Friday and Saturday of this week. I had to give it over two days because I had a student strike to deal with, they said that they didnt have enough time to review the material, but from my perspective a solid week of review, when I only taught for two weeks seemed like more then enough. They had called Andres who is the officer in charge of the program here earlier in the day and asked him to move the test which he did, but of course they didnt ask me and when I arrived on Friday they told me there wouldnt be a test that day.
Let me just say that I was beyond pissed off, and even though I dont have the vocabulary to express that feeling in Spanish without utilizing the myriad curse words Ive aquired since my arrival I think they got the message. I called Andres and he explained their possition to me, too much work this week, not enough time to study. I responded that this weeks group is in fact the advanced group so that if he wanted the test moved back for this group I would without a doubt be moving the test for the other group (not actually an option because of the graduation date). After talking with me, I think he too realized how pissed I was that they had gone around my back to declare an extra week of studying for themselves and we ended up giving the test to those who wanted to do it on Friday, and everyone else got to take it on Saturday. The scores ended up how I thought that they would, all over the damn place, but teaching to and measuring the progress of a widely varied student ability has been a problem from the beginning.
I think that Cooper is starting to settle in pretty well here. His spanish is much better then mine, during his last year at prep school in Massachusets he spent a combined six months in Chile and Argentina. It has been nice to have someone who can explain my ideas to the officers but we have also run into some problems along the way. I am sure that Luke had the same issues with me when I first got here, lots of ideas and energy and trying to do teach as much as possible everynight. The problem is that it is just impossible to expect the police officers to absorb more then a little information everynight, and because they dont have time/ choose not to practice outside of class effectively everything that sticks in their minds is absorbed in the 3 hours of class everynight. At first I felt bad telling him to tone it down with throwing a bunch of concepts at them (prepositions, the role of ´s) because I didnt want to dissuade him from giving teaching his all, and I deffinitely didnt want to portray the Police as stupid or unteachable. But in the middle of a test review week if there was any chance of them doing well I had to get them focused on the information and concepts they would need for the test.
After a day of putting it off I finally got around to explaining to him how frustrating teaching here is, and the limited ammount of information that can get successfully communicated in a week. I think I did a pretty good job of setting some lower expectations for him while not dissuading him from really trying while hes down here. With his knowledge of Spanish and fresh out of highschool drive I think he can really get alot taught in his time down here.
There were two people who camped out behind the station last night who are working on a two year bike ride from Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina. They were about the type of people you would expect to be attempting that kind of adventure and looked like they had recently rode a bike through El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (three places I dont think I would want to be able to move only as fast as my legs would take me, but as mr T would say different strokes for really crazy people). It was a bummer to watch my hawkeyes loose for the first time this year on saturday, but oh well Id rather go to a bowlgame that we will can win, than get torn apart by texas or OK at the rose bowl. Im closing in on my last days here in Fortuna which is starting to seem a little sad but Im am looking forward to freezing my ass off in Iowa with friends and family soon too. Pura Vida
Let me just say that I was beyond pissed off, and even though I dont have the vocabulary to express that feeling in Spanish without utilizing the myriad curse words Ive aquired since my arrival I think they got the message. I called Andres and he explained their possition to me, too much work this week, not enough time to study. I responded that this weeks group is in fact the advanced group so that if he wanted the test moved back for this group I would without a doubt be moving the test for the other group (not actually an option because of the graduation date). After talking with me, I think he too realized how pissed I was that they had gone around my back to declare an extra week of studying for themselves and we ended up giving the test to those who wanted to do it on Friday, and everyone else got to take it on Saturday. The scores ended up how I thought that they would, all over the damn place, but teaching to and measuring the progress of a widely varied student ability has been a problem from the beginning.
I think that Cooper is starting to settle in pretty well here. His spanish is much better then mine, during his last year at prep school in Massachusets he spent a combined six months in Chile and Argentina. It has been nice to have someone who can explain my ideas to the officers but we have also run into some problems along the way. I am sure that Luke had the same issues with me when I first got here, lots of ideas and energy and trying to do teach as much as possible everynight. The problem is that it is just impossible to expect the police officers to absorb more then a little information everynight, and because they dont have time/ choose not to practice outside of class effectively everything that sticks in their minds is absorbed in the 3 hours of class everynight. At first I felt bad telling him to tone it down with throwing a bunch of concepts at them (prepositions, the role of ´s) because I didnt want to dissuade him from giving teaching his all, and I deffinitely didnt want to portray the Police as stupid or unteachable. But in the middle of a test review week if there was any chance of them doing well I had to get them focused on the information and concepts they would need for the test.
After a day of putting it off I finally got around to explaining to him how frustrating teaching here is, and the limited ammount of information that can get successfully communicated in a week. I think I did a pretty good job of setting some lower expectations for him while not dissuading him from really trying while hes down here. With his knowledge of Spanish and fresh out of highschool drive I think he can really get alot taught in his time down here.
There were two people who camped out behind the station last night who are working on a two year bike ride from Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina. They were about the type of people you would expect to be attempting that kind of adventure and looked like they had recently rode a bike through El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (three places I dont think I would want to be able to move only as fast as my legs would take me, but as mr T would say different strokes for really crazy people). It was a bummer to watch my hawkeyes loose for the first time this year on saturday, but oh well Id rather go to a bowlgame that we will can win, than get torn apart by texas or OK at the rose bowl. Im closing in on my last days here in Fortuna which is starting to seem a little sad but Im am looking forward to freezing my ass off in Iowa with friends and family soon too. Pura Vida
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
11-03-09
Read the other post from today first:
OK lets try this again. So Andy and I have pretty much all of the deatils of our trip figured out location wise. We still need to figure out what we are going to do when we get to our different hotels, but that is a much smaller problem then not having hotels or an itinerary. I have been worrying about getting this planned out and signing up for classes for awhile now so it feels great to have at least one of those things not having over my head anymore.
So about the new volunteer situation. The other exciting email I recieved today was from Ernesto the project manager at OTEC. The first email that I recieved said that there would be a new volunteer arriving tommorow and that he would be staying with me and teaching the officers. So I emailed Ernesto back because I was super excited at the prospect of having a new person to speak english with. When I emailed Ernesto back asking when the new volunteer would be arriving so that I could meet him at the bus station he replied within a minute that he had miscommunicated in the email from yesterday and that the volunteer was ¨probably at home right now¨. I was pretty confused by that statement, was he at my home here? was he at his home in the states? So I asked Ernesto that very question and his reply was, oh hes at the house in Fortuna right now.
That was the moment when I just posted my first blog and headed out to the house to meet him. On my way back to the house I ran into some of the officers who were patrolling in the park. So I stopped and asked them if they knew if the new volunteer had arrived yet. That question was met by some blank stares, even by the chief of this weeks group. Obviously they hadnt been expecting another volunteer. Up to this point I have repeatedly been told that I was the last volunteer for this year and that they werent even signed up for the program next year for sure. Andres has been under the impression that I was the final one because he has been planning this big graduation ceremony with the town and government officials honoring the officers as having completed their english training course. After talking to the officers in the park either Ernesto was full of shit, or this was another prime example of how great an organization GeoVisions is.
I went back to the house and of course the new volunteer was there. His name is Cooper and he is an 18 year old college student taking a break before heading off to Brown. He is down here for the next three months, so I dont know what that means in terms of the graduation ceremony, but if I have to push the test back after all of the bull dealing with moving it forward Andres is getting a piece of my mind. He is living in the room where Heidi the other border used to live. It should be nice to have someone to hang out with, plus he did a study abroad program in Chile last year so He should be able to help me communicate in the classroom. I was a little down in the dumps lately because I havent done anything outside of class in the past week and a half but its amazing how great I feel right now. This last month looks like it will be alot of fun. Pura Vida
OK lets try this again. So Andy and I have pretty much all of the deatils of our trip figured out location wise. We still need to figure out what we are going to do when we get to our different hotels, but that is a much smaller problem then not having hotels or an itinerary. I have been worrying about getting this planned out and signing up for classes for awhile now so it feels great to have at least one of those things not having over my head anymore.
So about the new volunteer situation. The other exciting email I recieved today was from Ernesto the project manager at OTEC. The first email that I recieved said that there would be a new volunteer arriving tommorow and that he would be staying with me and teaching the officers. So I emailed Ernesto back because I was super excited at the prospect of having a new person to speak english with. When I emailed Ernesto back asking when the new volunteer would be arriving so that I could meet him at the bus station he replied within a minute that he had miscommunicated in the email from yesterday and that the volunteer was ¨probably at home right now¨. I was pretty confused by that statement, was he at my home here? was he at his home in the states? So I asked Ernesto that very question and his reply was, oh hes at the house in Fortuna right now.
That was the moment when I just posted my first blog and headed out to the house to meet him. On my way back to the house I ran into some of the officers who were patrolling in the park. So I stopped and asked them if they knew if the new volunteer had arrived yet. That question was met by some blank stares, even by the chief of this weeks group. Obviously they hadnt been expecting another volunteer. Up to this point I have repeatedly been told that I was the last volunteer for this year and that they werent even signed up for the program next year for sure. Andres has been under the impression that I was the final one because he has been planning this big graduation ceremony with the town and government officials honoring the officers as having completed their english training course. After talking to the officers in the park either Ernesto was full of shit, or this was another prime example of how great an organization GeoVisions is.
I went back to the house and of course the new volunteer was there. His name is Cooper and he is an 18 year old college student taking a break before heading off to Brown. He is down here for the next three months, so I dont know what that means in terms of the graduation ceremony, but if I have to push the test back after all of the bull dealing with moving it forward Andres is getting a piece of my mind. He is living in the room where Heidi the other border used to live. It should be nice to have someone to hang out with, plus he did a study abroad program in Chile last year so He should be able to help me communicate in the classroom. I was a little down in the dumps lately because I havent done anything outside of class in the past week and a half but its amazing how great I feel right now. This last month looks like it will be alot of fun. Pura Vida
11-03-09
I got some exciting emails today. The first was from Andy concerning our trip in December. Last weekend I sat down with Mauricio, one of the police officers to get some advice about our trip. He lives on the west coast of the country and was able to give me good routes and times between our destinations. After sitting down and looking at the map it became apparent that we had too ambitious of a trip in mind. With our original plan we would be drving between 3 and 5 hours everyday, which is not bad if your planning a road trip, but not the best if youre looking to relax in Costa Rica.
The other one was that there is a new volunteer who is here right now. So I have to go I will try and give more details about how screwy this situation has just turned out to be. Pura Vida
The other one was that there is a new volunteer who is here right now. So I have to go I will try and give more details about how screwy this situation has just turned out to be. Pura Vida
Thursday, October 29, 2009
10-29-09
This week has been fairly uneventful. I have been teaching the same information as last week only this time it has been to the slower group. It hasnt been easy. It seems like everything that took 30 minutes last week has turned into an hour plus with this group. It doesnt help that there are 12 people in this group who all need individual instruction and verification of what they are donig is correct, but oh well. I am planning on writing the test this weekend and giving it to the first group next Friday. If I give it to them next week that will leave a week each of extra material for each group and I think that it will be better for them to get tested on the information as soon as possible. Well I mean it will make it easier for me to review with them, I dont think it will have any effect on grades since what I teach one day seems to have been forgotten by the next.
Last night I got soaked on the way to class which really sucked, I felt like I was in some old movie where the rain and wind are so strong that the umbrella turns inside out and ceases to be of any use. When I left my room it was quite pleasant outside (merely drizzling) but by the time I was halfway to the station the heavens just opened up on me. I quickly got my umbrella out, but along with the rain came this crazy wind that just pushed the rain horizontally leaving my umbrella completely useless. Fyi there are no houses for the majority of my walk, only fields, so there was no possibility of shelter.
I got a haircut today, just got it trimmed up. I dont really have anything else to write about, my life has been blissfully uneventful (boring) this week. Pura Vida
Last night I got soaked on the way to class which really sucked, I felt like I was in some old movie where the rain and wind are so strong that the umbrella turns inside out and ceases to be of any use. When I left my room it was quite pleasant outside (merely drizzling) but by the time I was halfway to the station the heavens just opened up on me. I quickly got my umbrella out, but along with the rain came this crazy wind that just pushed the rain horizontally leaving my umbrella completely useless. Fyi there are no houses for the majority of my walk, only fields, so there was no possibility of shelter.
I got a haircut today, just got it trimmed up. I dont really have anything else to write about, my life has been blissfully uneventful (boring) this week. Pura Vida
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