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Published: November 2nd 2006
Well, I've been here now for 3 months. I can't believe it's been that long. That's longer than a whole summer at camp. It doesn't feel that long. Perhaps I'm getting used to everything and truly enjoying myself.
Along with being in a country for 90 days, comes the drama of having to leave the country and then return, in order to get your time extended by an additional 90 days. Last year they would simply put the teachers in a van, send them all to the El Salvador border, cross, get lunch, come back, and their time is extended by 90 more days. The problem with this now, is that there's a new deal between Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala that allows free travel between the countries without a passport. This means these countries can't count for us leaving and extending our 90 days. They would have to send us to Costa Rica, Belize, or Mexico.
Since our time was expiring on Wednesday, Monday morning Jill and I went up to Cesar to ask him what would be happening. He told us that they were aware, had been trying to plan something for weeks and would let us know after school. He then called a meeting after school for all the foreign teachers. Mauricio then informed us that we'd be going to Costa Rica, leaving thursday morning, except that Jill and I would have to leave the next morning. WE FOUND THIS OUT AT 2:30pm THE DAY BEFORE!!
After being in Cesar's office for a bit, Jill and I were told we'd leave Tuesday morning at 6am to take a bus to Tegus. From there we would catch a 14 hour bus to Managua, Nicaragua where we would spend a night. We would then take another LONG bus to San Jose, Costa Rica and spend a night there. The whole thing would then repeat itself but coming in the opposite direction, returning home. Here were my issues with this arrangement:
- They didn't give us an itinerary. Jill had to write down the bus times from the internet and I had to ask a few times to even have the names of the hotels where they were making reservations for us.
- It's the last week of Partial (term) 1. This week my students need to hand in any last minute late work to count towards their grades and I have A LOT of marking to do as well as inputing them all into the computer.
- They were planning on running classes still all week so who would teach my class? How could they cover the material (in english?) ?
- No notice to the students. All of the sudden I don't show up and they tell my students I've gone for the week? My students already have HUGE anxieties after being left 2 years in a row by their former teachers.
- Notice for us. We'd have no time at all to make plans for the week, go to the bank, pack our stuff, and get sleep.
- I had to ask if they'd be giving us cash for all this or if they would simply pay us back later. (The school has to pay for all of these arrangements obviously)
Jill was busy getting stuff ready in her class and I went with Cesar to get the list of hotels from the office. We then find out from Mauricio that he talked to someone at the immigration office who said you can pay a fee and get an extra 30 days extention in the country. To do this you would need to go to Tegus. SOOOOO, they decided to scrap the other plan, simply send teachers to Tegus as our time expires (we all arrived staggered) and then send us all on a trip to Costa Rica for the Thanksgiving Long weekend on November 24th. This way we wouldn't miss this crazy week of school right before the end of partial, and we'd all have more time to plan. HOWEVER, Jill and I would need to go to Tegus the next morning. The plan was to teach first period and then leave for Tegus at 8am... that was not the case.
8:15 rolled around and I went to find Mauricio. He was sitting at a table eating cookies and drinking a coke. I asked when we were leaving and he said he would go switch cars. He asked where Jill was and I said in teaching her class since no one had showed up to cover. He said the director was taking care of that and he's sure coverage would be there by 8:20 when the next class starts.
Well at 8:20 Jill's class had Spanish so she was free but I was now supposed to be teaching again and no one had arrived at my room. When I came back in my students were so confused. I had already explained the whole day to them, left my plans on my desk as well as plans on the board. They didn't understand what was happening. Nor did I really. Poor kids. So I told them to get out their math books and taught the math class. Another period passes, Jill tells me she still hasn't seen Mauricio and that she's not sure what's going on. Art who is the "substitute" has no idea what's going on either. No one told him that he would need to cover.
So after then having my students get their reading books out, turn to the story and am about to start it, Mauricio comes to the door with another one of the admin staff. He tells me she is going to teach my class and will just take them to the library to watch movies. I explain that I have worksheets for them to do in Spelling and Phonics classes, plus a science test that just needs to be supervised. She agrees to do these things in my class. I tell my students to put away their reading books and informed them of the new plans. They were confused yet again but I was as well.
So it's after 9 now and we're heading out. We get in the car with Mauricio and a friend of the family (also friends with Jairo). I'm still not sure why he came. Anyways, we drive the hour and a bit to Tegus and our first stop is at some car place to pick up parts for Mauricio's car. Ok cool. So he leaves the car running while they go in for like 15 minutes. This happened a few times during our day.
So we get to the immigration office and they give us sheets to fill out. Mauricio then tells us he's going to go pay for it. We didn't see where he went as we were filling out the papers but half an hour later we were slightly concerned that he was nowhere to be found. Turns out he had to go to the bank to pay and there was a huge line up. He's then given a sheet that he's told he needs to photocopy as they only have one copy and we each need to fill one out. UMMM... WHAT!? HE needs to photocopy some official document that YOU need? lovely. So we get everything filled out and then Mauricio waits in another line, only to find out that the guy who is supposed to sign out passports is off today and we'll have to leave our passports to be signed the following day. Jill and I really didn't like the idea but had no other choice. According to a few of the other teachers, this is not so out of the ordinary for travellers. Shocked me.
So we then went for lunch at Popeye's Chicken, which Jill and I each paid for ourselves. We figured after the drama of everything, they'd at least pay for our lunch... not so much. After lunch we stopped at a few more car places. Apparently something in the car was adding too much pressure to the clutch so it was stuck down and the car was having problems shifting or something. We happened to just run into a guy who went to school with Mauricio at EBH and he offered to give us a ride home. So Jill and I climb into his huge truck with him and his parents. Mauricio then speeds along with us all the way home, practically racing us. We're almost home and the truck pulls over. The guy tells us that he just arrived from the States today and that he wants to see his sister so Mauricio will take us the rest of the way. We get out, and I ask Mauricio how he was going so fast with a broken car. Turns out he wiggled something around and fixed it. So weird. Then he dropped us off at home. SUCH a weird day!
I'm not sure when I will get my passport back but I'm glad that day is over. My poor students. I arrived today to class and they had written things all over the whiteboard for me about how much they love me. I took pics so I'll post them.
More news on my class. The boy in my class who was failing has now gone back to the states to be with his Mom there. He was failing every class and apparently his Father gave him so many chances that he blew so he's being sent back. Poor kid. It's no wonder he didn't care to do anything in class... he just keeps getting passed back and forth by his parents.
That's my LONG rant for today.... happy 3 months to me! 😊
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Ginny
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Happy 3 Months!
It's really hard to believe you've been gone for 3 months already...crazy. Sorry you had such a crappy, confusing and weird day, hopefully you'll get ur passport back soon.