Muy Inteligante Estudiante

We arrived in San Juan del Sur on Sunday afternoon, and eventually found our school. (www.sjdsspanish.com )School starts on Monday, so it gave us plenty of time to check in to the school and meet our host family.

We were lucky that our host family lived so close to the school. Our host Mama is Marta, and she has 7 grown children and at least 5 grandchildren. It´s really hard to keep track and tell who actually lives there ´cause there are so many people coming and going all the time.

The $200 each for the week included the homestay, all meals, 4 hours of class per day, and group activities every day. Quite a bargain.

There were about a dozen people in our class which was quite huge for the school. Everyone had their own teacher per week. On the first day of classes we all arrived to meet our professor´s and went outside into a circle to play the remember everyone´s name game. (did I mention that the school is right on the beach!) My prof. was Francys and Rod´s Clara. Then off for our first lesson. Now at this point Rod has picked up alot more spanish then I have, which still isn´t very much. Rod has been buying everything, and renting the rooms, and ordering all the meals. (He takes such good care of me!)

After the first day Rod was feeling a bit more confident with the spanish and I was feeling a bit dumber than when I started class. I thought I was just a really slow learner and not picking anything up. Then day 2 (my birthday!) and I still wasn´t understanding a word of what my teacher was saying or trying to teach me. Well, long story short I ended up in tears at the break and I was moved to be with Rod and his teacher Clara for the rest of the week. Clara is super nice and very fun. She speaks very clearly, and gives lots of compliments. (she says I´m a muy inteligante estudiante!) (very intelligent student! haha. Obviously I enjoyed her classes more.

So, our fabulous afternoon activities. Day 1 we went to Playa del Coco, another gorgeous beach. Day 2 we went on the best horseback ride ever! It´s a good thing that we had all been on a horse before. We arrived, got a horse, and went. The horses knew where we were going, which was good. Our one guide didn´t seem to care where we went or how we got there. I had a fabulous horse, Macho. He responded really well, so I had a great time. Rod´s horse wasn´t too fond of moving. Although he did seem to go alot faster on the way back when he realized that he was going home. (This was a perfect birthday!.... oh, the school also had a cake and sung in spanish to me, and Rod took me out for a fabulous moonlight meal on the beach!)

Day 3 was supposed to be a cooking class. (all of the ladies were very shocked to learn that I could care less about cooking and that Rod does all the cooking!) Anyway, there was some mixup with the instructor and we had to change to salsa dance classes. More my speed! One of our professora´s was the dance teacher. The lesson was obviously in spanish (there is a no english rule in the school) and so I had no idea what she was trying to teach us. Needless to say I think I entertained the class with my own version of the salsa and Mambo!

Day 4 was a field trip to a local elementary school. I am well aware how spoiled the children are in our country, but it definitely puts it into a great perspective when you meet these children in other countries. Can you imagine that they don´t have their own iPod, or computer, or gameboy, or cell phone? In the classroom they have all 5 grades in one room(I know mom, so did you!haha).

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