(sidenote: already kind of failed at this blogging thing,
but it’s been a couple months so how about we give it another go. don’t judge
if another few months pass before the next one.)
P-E-A-C-E C-O-R-P-S, an emotional rollercoaster filled with highs and lows on a regular basis. really in one day you can be waterworks, ready to call it quits and a couple hours later something goes right and you start thinking about extending a third year(don’t worry mom & dad, i tell my friends on the regular i can’t extend). entonces peace corps is day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by year. you will be sure to have a whole lot of lows BUT they are cancelled out with a whole lot of highs. (Esteli wrote a whole post on this once…you should read it!)
entonces this week, it’s safe to say was a high. actually an A-L-L T-I-M-E high
in my service so far. like if i was forced to extend, i would easily take the
opportunity kind of high(mentira mom & dad).
before i came here i remember return peace corps volunteers
telling me that “peace corps is 20% of your primary job and 80% of your
secondary jobs & what you make of your service”. this is true and false. i
do my primary job(teaching english in the elementary schools) on the regular,
but it’s not quite as i imagined. i kind of do a lot of sitting while my tico
teacher teaches. this is not really peace corps fault because when schools are
applying to get pcv’s they tell peace corps exactly what they want to hear. i
know this, i have read the forms my co-teachers filled out on how they will
plan with me for as long as it takes, etc. but saying and doing are way
different. there is a progression. we just started planning, but now the issue
is teaching what we planned and using the materials i make. it’s ok though,
poco a poco. i mean what teacher that has been teaching for years really wants
to jump straight into being a co-teacher/watch someone come in with new fun
ideas. getting off track…anyways the true part of that statement is that your
service is what you make of it & your secondary jobs are a H-U-G-E part of
that.
getting to why i keep spelling out words that are important
in this post…
S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G B-E-E-S…who doesn’t love a spelling bee?
maybe i am an “in the closet nerd” BUT i loved watching spelling bees when they
came on the tv. i remember watching them with my brother J.J. and trying to
spell the words(i already can see him telling Ali that i am making this up, BUT
we enjoyed a good spelling bee). really spelling is quite interesting, and we
are talking about in your own language. try spelling in a different language. a
whole new vocabulary. a whole new A-L-P-H-A-B-E-T. it’s something that has
always intrigued me and even with learning my new language of spanish i always
ask the person to spell the word when it’s a word i have never heard. it helps
me to remember. so of course when a couple fellow volunteers brought up having
local spelling bees, followed by regional spelling bees, and ending with a
national spelling bee i was in.
for 3 months now i have been working with my 5th
& 6th graders. 10 in one school and 6 in the other. these 16
kids have religiously learned a new alphabet and 50 vocabulary words. they
chose to come in 2 hours before their regular class once a week and 2 hours on
their weekends. at first i had no idea where to even start, so obviously we
started by singing the alphabet song. this alone is a C-H-A-L-L-E-N-G-E. anyone
that knows the spanish alphabet would know that their E sounds like our A &
their I sounds like our E and where did the Ñ go in our alphabet? and why
does ll not make a “yay” sound in english words? and why do words like balcony,
bakery, hobby all end in y’s and not i’s? AND most importantly why can’t Witnei
make the rr sound in spanish words(never going to be able to roll my r’s
because it doesn’t exist in the english language and i must have a bad tongue)?!
like i said, a new alphabet alone is a C-H-A-L-L-E-N-G-E.
then there are the words. now there are a few easy ones like
age, can, and cool. next are normal ones like because, experiment, and galaxy. lastly
are the difficult ones like embarrassed, building, & bright because why on
earth does igh make the letter “i” sound?! at first my kids were
O-V-E-R-W-H-E-L-M-E-D, but with time it became easy. surprisingly easy. they
just got it. we played hangman to work on our letters, wrote on white boards,
had races, spelled w/cut-out letters, and made up silly games. you name it, we
did it. these kids were having fun and playing games. challenging themselves
and all at the same time they were expanding their english vocabulary.
so after 3 months of repetitive work it was time for the
competitions. these took place this past monday & tuesday. a great start to
my B-E-S-T week in service. i made the letters for the back drop sunday night
because every event in costa rica comes with a back drop. i went through and
asked the students what words were easy, normal, and hard so that it was equal
for all. made the bags and sorted out the words. made the goody bags because
once again every event in costa rica comes with a goody bag. then it was
competition time, first rounds were easy words, then moved on to normal and
never made it to difficult with either group, but there were only 10 in that
bag. i read off the word twice in english and then my co-teacher would read off
the spanish meaning. the other classes came to watch and all in all it was a
success.
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| escuela isla de chira. |
monday was the competition in San Antonio at my Escuela Isla de Chira. 6 students competed and 4 of them stayed in for 7 to 8 rounds. the competition lasted an hour and two 6th graders won, Emma & Hanzel.
tuesday was the competition at my escuela Montero y Palito.
10 students competed and 5 stayed in for 5 to 6 rounds. this one made me a
little more nervous. the very first kid in the very first round went out, and
then the word S-H-I-T(excuse my language) passed through my head. third kid
also went out in the first round…once again S-H-I-T(excuse my language again)
passed on by. i mean these kids didn’t come to the class religiously and
stopped altogether for the last few classes, i myself believe they just wanted a
goody bag. after the first round the competition got on track and was a success.
it also lasted an hour and one 5th grader Scarlett & one 6th
grader Valery were the winners.
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| escuela montero y palito. |
overall i could not have been prouder of all of my little
spellers. i mean it’s one thing to practice in our little group, a whole other
to compete in front of half the school. i mean these kids were spelling
ridiculous words in english. it was crazy A-W-E-S-O-M-E.
even crazier is how awesome the 4 winners are. to some it up
they learned 50 words in 3 months and now have to learn 70 more words to
compete in Liberia in O-N-L-Y 3 weeks. at first i wasn’t sure if this was
possible but after an hour class with each couple of girls it definitely is
possible. my two 6th graders Emma & Hanzel are ridiculous. we
went through 25 new words. they can now sound out & spell the words. only
needed me to spell T-W-O of 25 new words. then we had 15minutes at the end of
class so i decided to challenge them and told them they had 15minutes to write
all 75 words they now know as i read them off. 75 words in 15minuts and only
spelled F-I-V-E wrong and only 2 of them were from the new 25 words. needless
to say they will be just fine. my other two Scarlett & Valery were a little
more challenged, but they definitely are up for the challenge. in one hour i
watched them push themselves to whole new levels.
this was easily the most gratifying thing i have done in my service.
it was an awesome feeling to have seen this project all the way through. all in
all spelling is F-U-N and i don’t care what anyone says, spelling bees are
C-O-O-L!
that was the highlight of my week, but really it just got
better from there with more secondary projects & integration…
wednesday night i had my community class which is another
secondary project i love. i teach english to a group of women from a fishing
association and i love them. i have more moms than i could ever ask for. they
always show. if they don’t, there is always a note on the way from their
children. a few weeks back when the earthquake happen every single one showed
that evening. we had class with a bunch of flashlights because we had no
power(for a few days after the earthquake actually). they are a dedicated group
of women. wednesdays are easily my favorite day of the week because when 5
o’clock rolls around i get to see them. T-H-I-S past wednesday night was
especially great though. if there is one way to get people together in costa rica
you hold a B-I-N-G-O night or K-A-R-A-O-K-E night. in this case it was a
B-I-N-G-O night…family BINGO and they loved it. probably going to play again
next class as an intro. who would have thought BINGO would be such an effective
learning material?!
and lastly there was thursday morning. the same group of
women from my community class have an oyster farm in the sea, well the palito
fishing association does. what do you do with an oyster farm do you ask?! well
first you have to always have an eye on it. like they go out every night in
groups, sit on a platform and stay awake all night. i went out one night about
a month back. really i thought i was going fishing and so i did for 20min
before something BIG ate my line…i still say it was a crocodile. so T-H-I-S past
thursday i agreed to go again during the day. once again thought we were going
fishing. once again was fooled. but this time i got to see them at work &
work beside them.
23,000 oysters they farm. all in net-bags, inside net-cages.
oyster farming goes like this: get the oysters->un-stitch the stitched
net-cage->pull the net-bags out->remember the net-cage number so the same
oysters go back into the same cage(most nerve wrecking part. was saying
“24,37,34” over and over in my head all morning)->scrub every damn(excuse my
language) oyster and get poked by the iron brush 5 times for each
oyster->scrub the net-bags->re-divide the oysters evenly into their
net-bags->put the oyster net-bags into new net-cages->pray you remembered
the number to the right set of oysters as you put the number tag on the new
net-cage->stitch the net-cage back up->put the oyster back out on the oyster
line.
let me tell you. it is some tedious work that leaves you
with a sore back & a few holes on the tips of all your fingers. at the end
the women asked to see my hands because they were worried. i put them in my
pockets and told them not to worry, my fingers will become accustomed to
scrubbing oysters in no time. I was happy that i got to go out and see what
their work entails. I was even happier for the 3½ hour nap i took that
afternoon. i can’t believe they do
that once a week. not to mention remembering those numbers, especially when
everyone is working on this little platform and moving around your piles.
“where did my 24’s go?!?!”. the numbers are based on their size and location on
the line so you really can’t screw it up. still not 100% sure my 37 and 34
weren’t switched…
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| note the crocodile off to the right above the line. |
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| paddling out to the platform. |
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| scrubbing. |
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| bringing in the oyster cages from the line. |
this week is what peace corps is all about. learning a
culture. seeing the challenges in it. AND with all that, seeing people S-U-C-C-E-E-D.
entonces, “WHY am i HERE?!”. because i choose to be. i
choose to be impacted by this new culture, new language, and a new
family. day by day. ups & downs. you just got to laugh at the norms that just aren't so normal. this
opportunity is one i couldn’t pass up in life. i have to remember all that when
this rollercoaster takes a serious drop. but for T-H-I-S week…i am seriously in
L-O-V-E with what i do. <3
