TEFL Con Ticos

Hard to believe it, but this week Megon and I will reach the four-month of our 27-month Peace Corps service. Time is just flying by. So far, we have felt truly fortunate with how our experience has taken shape. From our training host family to our current host family to the success of our community English classes, Costa Rica has been very generous to us. Throughout our four months, we’ve definitely had our “What the?” moments; moments when our cultures have collided. Below are some of the funniest cultural quirks we’ve observed. The purpose isn’t to bash our Tico friends, but rather share what we have grown to love as the real Costa Rica, not the Costa Rica tourists see. 1. Halloween – In October we learned Ticos don’t really celebrate Halloween. That was no surprise. This month, however, we learned how Halloween has crept into Tico TV. There’s a talk show about pop culture that plays the theme music to “Halloween” – the movie – throughout its entire broadcast. Picture it, five ta...

Ethel has turned out to be quite the counterpart for both Kevin and me! She and José decided to take us on another adventure this past weekend, this time to the province of Limón on the Caribbean coast. Ethel’s got Caribbean roots, so she took it upon herself to introduce us to its colorful culture. For Kevin and me, it meant a day at the beach, a break from the rain and quality time spent with friends. The drive down to the coast was the quintessential Tico road trip. Costa Ricans, and Ethel and José in particular, love to take their time and enjoy every minute of every experience. We stopped approximately 10 times between here and the beach, purchasing intriguing fruits at roadside stands, breaking for drinks and again for lunch, pausing for interesting views, and gathering information here and there. One of our stops was at a heavily flooded area near a wide river. The last few days of relentless rain meant overflowing rivers, and this particular area on both sides of the highway...

This has been another eventful week for Kevin and me. In order to get to know our neighbors, get the community involved in an activity, and take advantage of our students’ summer vacation, we decided to offer some English classes. Two, to be exact. The first is for teenagers, which takes place on Monday and Thursday evenings for an hour. The second is for adults and it meets Tuesday and Friday evenings, also for an hour. We’d heard from other community members not to expect too much of a turnout, that our neighbors don’t especially like to get together and do this sort of thing. So we expected small classes, but we were hoping for at least 10 so that we could actually do some interactive activities with them. We were astonished when 22 “teens,” or people ages 11-23, showed up for class on Monday. They were even pretty much on time, which in itself is a small miracle in Costa Rica! Tuesday’s turnout was just as incredible; 20 adults showed up and participated like crazy. Our four favor...

After a taking break from blogging over the holidays, Megon and I are back to share some of the stories we’ve accumulated throughout the last couple weeks. We’ve settled nicely into La Rambla by surprisingly keeping ourselves busy in this sleepy community until school starts in February. The people here have been friendly and willing to share facts of the community to a pair of strangers. Day by day we work in hopes of changing our stranger status to local status. One of the first steps toward that change was purchasing rubber boots. One day of walking through cow manure in my sandles was enough to make me take the bus to Puerto Viejo and invest $10 on footwear that I won’t need to clean daily. Buying boots was also a ticket into the lechería , the lifeblood of our host family. I have gradually worked my way up from silent observer to gatekeeper to grain giver to hose master. The boys seem to like it when I help. They especially liked when I sat them down the other day and asked ...

This has been a busy week for Kevin and me. We’ve spent time with Kevin’s counterpart, gotten to know a few nearby towns, planned an English class and spent lots of quality time with our host family. The majority of our time and energy this week however, was divided between two CATs: one on paper, the other furry. The CAT, or Community Assessment Tool, is the main project we PCVs work on upon arrival to our sites. It’s a huge project that involves a lot of interviews, surveys, investigation, listening, and most of all, patience. In order to gather information for this assessment, we’ve had in-depth conversations with many people in and around our community: the pulpería (corner store) owner, farmers, doctors, teachers, policemen, and the president of our town’s Asociación de Desarrollo , which basically is the town’s governing body. It’s been busy but also extremely helpful in learning about the strengths and weaknesses of this particular village in Costa Rica. It is through this as...