Catching Up

It's been a couple of days since I posted so here's the scoop on what's been happening...

The meeting/interview at CIMA Hospital - this went really well! I like the PR Manager and she is very interested in having me help with some special projects. Next step is meeting with her boss. Hopefully, that will happen in the next couple of days. As a side note, 90% of the meeting was in Spanish...and I understood about 90% of what was said!

My new students - two of the three brothers I'm teaching have proven to be good students. The third has no interest and has stopped coming to our classes. Working with them is mentally exhausting for me because they know virtually no English. I have to explain everything in Spanish. This is a great opportunity for me to practice but doing so for two solid hours is difficult. We've worked on basic greeting and questions, days of the week, months of the year, numbers through 20, and the verbs To Be, To Have, To Do and To Make.

Contacting me - I ordered a Vonage phone adapter and a friend from Hattiesburg brought it to Costa Rica when he came to see his wife who lives here. Naturally, I got a box that doesn't work. So I've sent it back via Adan who is headed to the States this week. Rather than go through all the rigamoroll of trying to get a new one here, I've found new options with Skype. Want to call me? You can call my computer by dialing (504) 322-3475. Supposedly, I have voicemail as well, but I haven't been able to test it.

The Greatest Backpack Ever

Before embarking on this adventure, I took the advice of a friend and purchased a great backpack. It was on the expensive side ($80 which was more than my new set of luggage from Walmart) but it was worth every penny. I carry it with me almost daily and with the padded straps, it's very comfortable. Here's a list of the things I can get in it:
laptop computer
1/2" stack of papers
3 - 4 paperback books
small umbrella
digital camera
wallet
brush
sunglasses
various other "purse" objects (gum, lipstick, pens, etc.)

The bag is intended to carry camera equipment. I've removed the dividers in the bottom section to give me more room.

Guanacaste Day

Monday is a holiday in Costa Rica. Technically, the holiday was Friday but most businesses will be closed tomorrow to celebrate. July 25 marks the day in 1824 Guanacaste was annexed from Nicaragua. The holiday commemorates the region’s entry into the union. The province had to choose between belonging to Costa Rica or Nicaragua. Needless to say, they preferred to be 'Ticos and still are, to the joy of every Costa Rican. Celebrations include parades, music and craft fairs.

Long summer days and beautiful beaches are two phrases that best define what Guanacaste is all about. A province for the active soul, Guanacaste draws visitors with its stunning shoreline, incredible bird watching, amazing horseback riding, excellent surfing, superb snorkeling and wonderful mountain lake windsurfing. With so much to do, it’s easy to understand why so many people come to visit this amazing province.

Forming the eastern borders of Guanacaste are a chain of volcanoes that stretch out to join the Cordillera de Guanacaste and Cordillera de Tilaran mountain ranges. Offering some truly terrific hiking facilities, tourists can trek their way to the summit of a number of volcanoes, including Rincon de la Vieja Volcano Area, to enjoy some really breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside. Passing through lovely lush dense forests, which play host to a fabulous array of exotic plant and wildlife, many rare and endangered animals and birds live here including jaguars and tapirs. From these mountains also flow various rivers that roll down to form an alluvial plain drained by the Rio Tempisque. This river in turns nurtures the province before emptying itself into the Golfo de Nicoya.

A region steep in culture, the name Guanacaste is derived from the word quahnacaztlan, which is a native word for the guanacaste tree. This tree is the national tree of Costa Rica.

Full Circle

The husband of the family I'm living with works at CIMA, an American owned hospital in Escazu. One night, he and I chatted about my experience working in healthcare and he mentioned it the next day to someone at the hospital. They requested my resume and I now have an interview/meeting with the Public Relations manager on Tuesday morning. Exciting!

It's strange how things come full circle so often. When I started college, my goal was to be fluent in Spanish and use that in my career (hence the degree in foreign languages!). Fourteen years later, I'm finally following through on that. Also, I spent nine years working in hospitals (which I greatly enjoyed) and after 18 months outside of the field, I've come full circle and may be back there. Very interesting how two very different paths may be intersecting soon!

Everyone think good thoughts at 10 a.m. on Tuesday...11 a.m. CDT!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

This post should actually be entitled "Feet, Bus, Taxi, Bus, Bus, Bus, Feet" because that is how I traveled today in order to meet my new students. I guess I should explain that I live in Escazu on the west side of San Jose. I meet my students at Mall San Pedro, which is on the southeast side of San Jose. Unfortunately, there isn't a bus that goes directly from Escazu to San Pedro. I have to go all the way into the center of San Jose first, then either take a taxi or other bus to San Pedro. For those of you in Mississippi, this is like going from Petal to Purvis by way of Laurel. For those of you in Louisiana, it's like going from NOLA East to Kenner through the French Quarter. Supposedly, this is going to change soon with the addition of new routes but I'm beginning to think I'll be gone before that happens.

So, today, I walked about a 1/2 mile to the bus stop and caught the bus into downtown San Jose. Then, I walked a few blocks to catch a cab since I didn't know where to find the bus to San Pedro. (There isn't a central bus depot so you have to know where to go to catch the buses for each area and evidently, the stops are spread throughout the city.) I took the cab to the mall and met my students. After, I took the San Pedro bus back to San Jose, walked a couple of blocks, and caught another bus that was supposed to take me to the loading place for buses to Escazu. Unfortunately, that didn't happen but fortunately, I knew where I was when the route ended. I walked 100 yards or so to a bus stop, caught a bus back to Escazu, then walked the 1/2 mile home. All in all, an interesting experience. All the bus rides combined cost me less than $2.00. The cab ride was about $3.50. I meet with my students again tomorrow and I'm going to take a cab from where one bus drops me off to where the other picks me up and try to save the $3.50. I'm also going to take a map with me and mark the places so I can figure out how to walk from one spot to the other.

All The Colors Of The Rainbow

This afternoon, while I was trekking to Mailboxes, Etc., I took the time to take pictures of several of the flowers I see along the way. Most of these pictures are taken on my street and only a couple are from flower beds. The rest are from trees, bushes, shrubs, etc. I particularly like the tree that has several different types and colors of flowers on it.

Odds and Ends

I started teaching my new students tonight. Three young brothers, ages 18, 19 and 21. Unfortunately, they know very little English, almost none as a matter of fact, so I have my work cut out for me. We started with standard greetings, days of the week, months of the year, and concepts of time (after, before, tomorrow, etc.) The two older boys are very interested and learned a lot in one night. The youngest didn't seem very motivated at all, but hopefully that will change in our upcoming lessons.

Updates on some other things going on...I finally have wireless access in the house. Thanks to my friend Beth in Memphis for loaning me a wireless router! That's the good news. The bad news is...background info first - I ordered a Vonage system with a Louisiana area code and had it delivered to Brian in Hattiesburg. Brian's wife lives in Costa Rica and he was coming here and brought the package with him. So the bad news is that the adapter doesn't work. It reboots every 2 - 3 minutes which means the calls get cut off. So, I'm having to send back the one and I have and Vonage is sending another to the parental units to send to me. I'm wondering if it's worth all of this trouble!

I'm getting more comfortable using the bus system here. The only problem is there isn't a schedule of buses and their routes. I have a couple of specific places I want to get to and I know the buses stop there, I'm just not sure what the whole route is. So, on Friday I plan to ride around on several buses to figure out how and when I can get where I want to go. Easier to do this when I don't actually have to be someplace at a specific time. I'm sure that experience will lead to an interesting post!

The family I'm living with has a post office box so I can receive mail and packages from the U.S. I'm desperate for books to read so if you have some you want to send, let me know and we can set it up. :D Gaston is going to Texas in August for a conference and is going to make a Barnes and Nobles run for me. Should I tell him he'll need an extra suitcase just for the books????

Nice Work If You Can Get It!

I placed an ad on Craigslist a couple of weeks ago offering classes in English. I got a response from a guy who lives in Chicago who has three nephews in Cartago. The "muchachos" are headed to the United States in 30 days for jobs in the tourism industry and need to know basic conversational English, as well as enough English to make it through Human Resources and work as waiters. So, for the next month, I'll meet with them for 6 hours a week, working with them on their conversational skills. Not sure how much English they already know, but I don't think it's much so this should be interesting!

Go Fish!

I've taught Alejandro how to play Go Fish and for the last three nights we've battled over a deck of cards. Most of the time he wins and I'm not even letting him. He has this evil little laugh whenever he wins a card from me, although his favorite part is when he has to "Ve Pescar."

Sabana Park

This morning, I got up relatively early and took the bus (by myself!) to Sabana Park. The park is only about a 10 minute bus ride from where I live and it's a lot like Central Park in New York City. Sabana Park is huge and on the weekends there are lots of people out there. I walked around most of the park today and saw all kinds of activities...

Aerobics Class - my friend Julia goes to this class 4 or 5 times a week




Basketball Games -



Baseball Games - I sat and watched the first inning. Saw a beautiful double play on 1st and Home, a bunt sacrifice to put runners on 2nd and 3rd, a Grand Slam, and the third baseman get wiped out by the runner stealing from 2nd.




Pick Up "Futbol" Games and League "Futbol" Games -






Bike Jumping -





Fishing -



Pony Rides for the Kids -




It was very interesting to see all the food/drinks/things for sell...

Fresh Squeezed Juice -



Kites -



Ice Cream -



and all kinds of snacks, drinks, etc...no vender license necessary!



Sabana Park is the largest area of trees in the San Jose area. There is also a huge lake, sculptures and plenty of places for families to hang out and enjoy the day.










By the way...the bus ride to and from Sabana Park cost me less than $1.50 total.