La Vida en Curridabat

The last couple weeks have been rather busy in Curridabat, our neighborhood of San Jose that the school and our homes are in... the end of our school week went well with a couple cultural activities. First, a spanish dance class where many of the chicas of our school had to play chico in the dances. And in the evening of that same day, a futbol game between 2 San Jose teams in the country´s semifinal. Luckily for the attendees of the game, the home "purple team", or more formerly, Saprissa, won. I expected much excitement after all of the stereotypes of crazed soccer fans, but the best we got was a section of the stadium where the people jumped up and down and yelled... for the entire game. Mas energia de los jugadores. But that was it, no rioting in the streets or the like. Maybe next time.

I have a couple shots of my daily surroundings. Above, a shot of the street I live on. Mine is the one with the lighter colored fence. Most of the houses have these fences.

And second, a patio in our school. The school is small, but very cozy with lots of rooms open to the outside. Its a small and friendly group for this month´s class. Everyday I wish that I had done something like this earlier when the spanish classes I had in college were a bit more fresh. We have a new teacher each week, and so far both have been very good. I told them both, "no recuerdo nada". I say that quite a lot here.

I went to an orphanage where I'll be volunteering a couple times a week for the rest of the month. It is small, about 7 kids now. At different times, they have kids up to about age 8 or so, which is why I had an interest in this particular place. But now, all the kids are below age 5. I haven't spent much time with kids that age, so was a bit nervous. But I suddenly remembered more about them once I got there... it's often a bit difficult to understand a 3 or 4 year old, as they don't speak clearly, or say things as they are running past you after another kid. So it was like that. But in spanish. How is it possible that I can ask a child their name, and it takes 30 seconds for the full answer, and I don't understand any of it? And why is it that my spanish skills that afternoon didn't extend to "Please get off the floor", or "Don't pull that boy off the table"? But I finally found the common ground of interacting with kids of that age in a language that you barely know: identifying colors and pushing them on a swing. Easy. The afternoon passed. Above, I have a photo of the area just near the orphanage I am working at.

Next... our weekend in Puerto Viejo y el mar caribe. Much more interesting and pretty photos from that trip.