TEFL Con Ticos

This has been another busy week, full of classes and time spent with the family. The majority of our time is spent in Spanish classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in a community room here in La Fila. My group spends the majority of it time reading and discussing articles pertaining to Costa Rica or having fiery debates about all sorts of controversial subjects (it’s great for our Spanish). Kevin’s class works much harder than ours does, I think, studying grammar and practicing continually. His Spanish is really coming along! He’s now able to hold his own in basic conversations, chat with locals, and he now knows basically every word relating to baseball, thanks to uncle Oscar, who is a Yankees fan. Given he’s family, Kevin doesn’t hold that against him. We spend the rest of our days in Tarbaca learning all sorts of important information about the Peace Corps and the work we’ll be doing once we swear in. On Tuesdays, “Tech Days,” we discuss our duties as TEFL teachers, learn abou...

Days before we left for Costa Rica, a well-traveled fellow we met at a coffee shop in Soldotna said to us, “Costa Rica? Oh, that’s an easy country.” Considering this was Kevin’s first time preparing to travel away from North America, he wondered what the guy meant exactly by “easy.” Was he trying to tell us Costa Rica culture is similar to that of the United States? Or was he trying to tell us it’s easy to get around Costa Rica? In the three weeks we’ve been living in Costa Rica, we have learned that yes, Costa Rica is easy. It’s easy to love. People are easy going. The colon is easy to convert into the dollar. Great food is easy to find. Getting around with public transportation is generally pretty easy. It’s easy to be pegged as an Outsider. And lastly, it’s easy to buy most things you really need. But what we’ve also discovered is that Costa Rica has its challenges just like any other country. As Peace Corps trainees, we’re getting a more realistic view of Costa Rica than what m...

Another week has passed in beautiful Costa Rica and both Megon and I commented today on how quickly it went. We've started to get into a nice groove here, getting to know things such as the people of La Fila, how much the bus ride to Tarbaca (where we do our Peace Corps and TEFL training) really costs, and how two straight weeks of gallo pinto feels on the stomach. For the record, we don't mind eating rice and beans everyday. Today the family took us on another adventure. Last weekend it was the beach, this weekend it was Cerro de la Muerte, otherwise known as Death Hill. No, our host parents don't want us to die. It's the name of the area where they own a cabin. The only deathly thing we saw was on our hike around the area. Megon pointed out a bunch of turkey vultures hanging around some canyon. Once we got closer we saw bones. Soon we found out it was just a dead cow that probably plummeted off the hill's steep slope. We, on the other hand, made it out alive. ...

When Megon and I first heard the Peace Corps selected us for Costa Rica, most reactions sounded like this: “Peace Corps in Costa Rica? Really? Two-year vacation!” Just to clarify, when people in the United States think Costa Rica, most think of white sandy beaches, beautiful weather and abundance of nature. We experienced all three Saturday when our family took us to la playa, otherwise known as the beach. However, when you live in La Fila – a tiny community tucked away in the mountains ­­– going to the beach is hardly like a trip to the grocery store. Going to the beach from here is comparable to Lewis and Clark’s expedition; you just never know what’s coming around the bend. The day started with a 3 a.m. alarm, and by 3:15 we were on the road to Quepos, a tourist/surfing town in Southeast Costa Rica where Megon lived for a month while taking classes at a Spanish-speaking school. Our goal was to be there by sunrise and return to La Fila in time for dinner. Mario, our host dad who t...

Last Wednesday our Tica family took us on a special adventure. We all loaded into the little white minibus (la buseta, they call it) and drove a couple villages away toward a town called El Rosario, which basically consists of a church, a little plaza, and a couple little shops. All around the village are coffee fields as far as you can see. Coffee is one of Costa Rica’s major exports (along with bananas) and this mountainous area we’re living in is covered in beautiful dark green coffee plants heavy with little green and red balls. We drove up to one coffee plantation owned by a family friend and the boys got to run around through the rows. Our purpose there was not to just admire coffee plants (matas de café), however; we were there to pick oranges! Little orange trees were planted all over the fields to provide shade for the coffee, and the oranges, now very ripe, would just go to waste if not for us. So we spent a couple hours roaming the fields and collecting all of the oranges M...

Hello World! After undergoing a nerve-racking bus ride from our retreat center to La Fila, Megon and I made it safely here to this tiny, beautiful community tucked away in the mountains just south of San Jose. We are limited on Internet time here, so I´m going to share with you our best story ... So we wanted to arrive on the down-low, but it turned out anything but on Saturday. The Peace Corps delivered us to our training communities via a gigantic tourist bus - similar to what you´d see in Alaska - which was cool and all, but man did we make a gran entrada. Not only were we late, but our bus driver made a wrong turn on a road that wasn´t much wider than the bus itself. Having no place to make a U-turn for miles, the driver used some of his mad city-driving skills and backed up the bus ... on an uphill. At one point, the bus nearly went into a ditch. It reminded me of the time we went white-water rafting down the Six Mile and the...

Thanks again to all of you who have written and followed the blog! We hope all of you are doing well and enjoying fall! It sure is nice to be able to email/post every night, but this won't last long. In fact, tonight is probably our last post in a few days. We did, however, get some fantastic news today -- we're headed off to our new host communities tomorrow! We were placed into our language groups this morning, which was a much-awaited event. Kevin was placed into the novice group with 3 other new-to-Spanish volunteers, all of whom have the potential be great friends in the near future. Megon was placed into the advanced group with four other proficient Spanish speakers. We've both already formed great bonds with all of our fellow language group trainees, which is a good thing because we'll be living in the same village as them and taking training classes with them 5-6 days a week.  We got to leave, or "escape" as some have said, our retreat center in the ...

Another big day of training here at the "retreat" center in Tres Rios, Costa Rica . It POURED last night and we had another coolish, misty day in the mountains. We definitely didn't expect to be wearing so many of our long-sleeved shirts so often, but we're sure glad we brought them. It's just gorgeous here though and we're loving every minute of this adventure. It's been great getting to know the rest of our fellow trainees- we have a pretty cool and eclectic group here. Lots of talents and backgrounds to learn from. Yesterday we all participated in our LPIs, or Language Proficiency Interviews. It was slightly scary, especially for Kevin when he had no idea what the interviewer was asking him. He'll learn though and he's hoping for some quick progression. They basically involved us sitting alone in a room with an interviewer who asked us questions about our life and tried to challenge us with tough questions. They ranged from about 10 minutes to...

We are currently in Tres Rios, an area about 45 minutes away from the Costa Rican capital, San Jose. We flew in this afternoon with the rest of the 45 new Peace Corps Trainees. We were picked up and driven immediately out to our "retreat" center at Tres Rios, which has turned out to be a really nice spot with lush greenery, tons of noisy birds and ample conference rooms. Kevin and I have our own room, whereas all of the other volunteers (except for the one other couple) has to share rooms bunk-bed style. We're happy to have our private space! Today at the retreat we had a brief informative session about the events of the next few days, which include quite a bit of basic training, a language proficiency interview, health and safety training, and some cultural introductions. It should be fun. Our trainers seem really friendly and totally competent. By Saturday we will have been placed in our training groups (according to our Spanish abilities) and will be headed to meet our...

It's hard to believe but in almost two hours Megon and I will be on a bus, heading to Washington-Reagan airport and flying to San Jose, Costa Rica, along with 43 other Peace Corps volunteers. I should be asleep right now. Megon is. She's the smart one. Today was exhausting but completely amazing as we learned a ton about the Peace Corps, met some of the Peace Corps staff and each member of "Tico 21" -- an eclectic group of people from all over the country. They range from 21 to 60+ years old and have all the potential for long-lasting friendships. Our group is called Tico 21 for two reasons: First off, Costa Ricans don't call themselves Costa Ricans. Men are "Ticos" and women are "Ticas." Secondly, we are the 21st group to serve in Costa Rica since 1963. Among the 45 volunteers, 23 of us will be in the TEFL program while the rest volunteer in the Community Development program. If you're going to follow our blog, you should probably know the...

Megon and I are down to our final goodbye; her dad Scott and step-mom Sue. Our bags are packed and we're ready to go. It's 5:30 a.m. and Megon's dad is cooking breakfast -- eggs, beans and sausage, preparing us for a long day of flying across the continent and introducing me to Costa Rican cuisine. "I hope you like beans and rice, Kevin!" Scott said. Thanks to all of those who helped us leave Anchorage with our sanity.