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Published: January 20th 2009
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Drake Bay
Waiting for this sunset led to having to spend a night in the jungle because it was too dark to find the way home. I last blogged Costa Rica sometime near the end of the first semester, beginning of June if I remember right. Well, after the fabulous month off (see previous two blogs about Colombia and Panama), the second semester turned out to be completely different to the first.
About a dozen new teachers started in August, which put us old lot in a minority. This really changed the atmosphere of the school. When I started teaching in January there were only five newbies. We had to make a real effort to join in with the established teachers. Despite being stressed about lesson planning and standing in front of students for the first time, we also went out a lot and tried to participate in everything. This led to me making some of the best friends I’ve ever had and relaxing about the whole teaching part, seeing as I had lots of available and willing help around me.
I have no complaints about the teachers who came in August and I wasn’t surprised to see them as stressed and nervous as we were. But because they outnumbered us in the staff room, two cliques seemed to form, the old lot and the
Drake Bay
My favourite piece of coast in Costa Rica. new lot. In the past all teachers went out on Thursday night, no excuses, and this often led to big memorable sessions. The second semester we were lucky to get ten of us.
I think I’m exaggerating things slightly. Latterly we all got to know each other really well and maybe I’m just sad that that didn’t happen sooner. The fact that the second semester was much shorter probably didn’t help.
My weekends were very different in the second semester. We worked four Saturdays on then four off. Therefore, again I had a three day weekend 50% of the time given that the school is closed on Fridays. I didn’t seem to venture as far as I did in my first six months. I put this down to several reasons:
Firstly, the rainy season. In Costa Rica it is prevalent, persistent and unpredictable. It is not like Southeast Asia where everyday at exactly four o’clock it will rain very hard for an hour and a half then be blue sky again. In Costa Rica it could be anytime of day or night, light or heavy and may be for five minutes or five days. You can’t really
Basilica de Nuestra Sonora de los Angeles, Cartago
After walking through the night with over a million others on the La Negrita Pilgrimage. complain though because it is the reason for the lush scenery and rich wildlife. But it does put you off long bus journeys and expensive accommodation if it is raining too hard to do anything. This meant I took more day trips, which leads me onto the second reason:
I had better local knowledge. After spending a long time in a country you realise that the nicest places aren’t necessarily in the guidebooks. By listening to local people I discovered lots of fantastic places much closer to home. We got in a habit of taking a bus somewhere, walking until we were very lost, cutting across fields and down streams when it started to p**s down, miraculously finding a little pub for beer and chicharron, then taking a bus home.
The third reason was that I had pretty much ticked off all the places on my list that I wanted to see. There are some very notable exceptions such as Volcan Rincon de la Vieja and Playa Conchal, but again this leads to my next reason.
The final reason for generally staying closer to home at weekends was that I realised that all these places will still
be there in the future. However, a lot of my friends won’t be so close. Also, there are fantastic beaches and mountains all around the world, but this particular set off friends are only here. This realisation led to me spending more nights cooking for friends, going out for meals, going to bars and generally hanging out (I can’t remember how to say that in British English!?).
So now for some more positive things:
I no longer think I am merely pretending at being a teacher. Having taught exclusively advanced classes for the last five months means my knowledge of English grammar is now good enough to be only caught out about once a fortnight. “It’s incorrect because it sounds weird” is no longer my most common answer to a smartarse student.
My Spanish has come on leaps and bounds from just above zero to being able to converse freely after four tequilas. God only knows what I’m saying.
I mentioned already what good friends I made amongst the other teachers. To that list I can add the other staff at the school, lads I played football with, teachers and students at the other school where
Guayabo National Monument
The Costa Rican Machu Pichu. I volunteered, people I know from the pub, friends of friends, family of friends, the other teacher’s students, my own students and in particular my intensive class.
I had the luxury/punishment of teaching the same class three hours a night, four nights a week. Contrast that to a typical class that have lessons for an hour and a half, twice a week. Despite comings and goings within the class, there was a core little group that I had for my entire year. When you spend that much time with people it’s inevitable that you’ll end up close but I didn’t expect to become as close as we have. Through helping each other with husband troubles (them), girlfriend troubles (me), learning Spanish (me), learning English (them and me); they really became my replacement family while I was away.
As much as I wanted to go home for Christmas, having not seen family or friends for a year, I found it very difficult to leave Costa Rica. Most of the other English teachers are off doing fantastic things but I get sad when I think of all my friends in Heredia doing normal things that I am no longer part
White Tipped Reef Shark at Playa del Coco
The diving around Costa Rica wasn't awesome but I have seen more sharks here than anywhere else in the world. of.
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