The wait is finally over! Last Wednesday, Megon and I found out where our new home will be for the next two years. Are you ready? Well, we’ve been placed in La Rambla, a tiny community that is hot, humid, rainy and known for its delicious pineapples, crocodile rivers, howler monkeys, geckos and lots of interesting bugs. It’s about 30 minutes from Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui, a much larger hub that is an hour and a half north of San Jose. You might find La Rambla on Google Map, but I highly doubt it. We could hardly find it ourselves when we busted out our Costa Rica map.
Megon and I will technically be living between two communities, La Rambla and Rio Frio, on a finca (farm) with a mom and her three teenage sons. Though we’re jazzed about living on a farm, we’re still not sure what kind of farm. Horses? Cows? Goats? Chickens? Gatos? I’m crossing my fingers for a cow or two. Lately I’ve been craving a big glass of milk with a side of Oreos. Our family doesn’t drink milk, so my calcium craving subsides only after I swipe a handful of Megon’s Tums.
Jose, one of our three TEFL program directors, told us the house is “spacious and comfortable.” He scouted out our finca strategically so Megon and I can commute to our respective schools every day. From our home, Megon will bike two kilometers to the west to work at the high school and elementary in La Rambla, while I will bike five kilometers to the east to work at the high school in Rio Frio.
Megon’s high school is called an Ambientalista, which if translated in Spanish means it’s an environmentally-centered school. It’s totally Megon’s cup of tea. Apparently there are several hectares of preserved forest behind the school where kids can study, hike, observe nature or who knows what else. The principal there is a younger guy who, according to Jose, can hardly wait for Megon to arrive and start working with his English teachers, helping them become more effective educators whether it’s speaking better English or honing classroom management skills.
Megon and I both agree that working at my high school in Rio Frio will be a challenge. But I’m looking forward to facing it when the school year starts in February. During the day, the high school (grades 7-12) has more than a thousand students and six English teachers. In the afternoon, it turns into a nocuturno colegio, which is Spanish for night school. I think it’s for the kids who work all day in the pineapple and heart of palm plantations and want to squeeze in an education.
In general, Megon and I are pretty excited about the big move into our new site, which begins in late December. We know our way around greater downtown Puerto Viejo thanks to Tarah and Chris, the married PCVs we met a few weeks ago at our site visit in La Colonia. Since then we’ve stayed in close contact with them, and they actually stopped by La Fila last Friday and Saturday for a short but sweet visit. We plan to see them this weekend when we meet our new host family for the first time.
We'll be in La Rambla from Saturday until Wednesday morning. Then we return to La Fila for only two more weeks. Man, time flies! We’re not looking forward to saying good-bye to our family. But there is comfort knowing they live only three hours away by bus. We’re planning on visiting them often over the next couple of years and staying very close.
Comments
I thought it was random to come across their names in your blog as well.
Good luck with your transition!
PS: how was your spanish before you got there and how do you feel about it now?