My first interesting cultural experience....
This week has flown by so quickly I can't even believe it! It is already Saturday night and I have been here a little more than a whole week. Sorry I haven't updated the blog much this week. It has been really hectic and I definitely don't have as much free time as I would like. Class has taken up essentially all of my time during the day and it is pretty intense. It's not hard per-se but just very time consuming. We have been starting class at 8:45 every morning and getting out about 4 in the afternoon with an hour for lunch. One or two days a week though we have either had to stay late or come early in order to observe an ESL class being taught by one of the instructors. I am actually going to start teaching a class next Thursday (with a partner) for the first time! I don't know what their level will be yet but I will learn it next week and have to come up with a lesson plan. I never realized how much time and effort it can take to make a lesson plan, and this is just for a 50 minute class! I have a new and profound appreciation for teachers and how hard it can be to actually be a good one. I have also been re-learning (supposedly...) English grammar and how it should be broken down for the students to understand. It is really astounding how many strange and irregular things that English does that we, as native speakers, take for granted everyday. In many instances it can be very difficult for the students to understand the grammar rules for English since there will be a rule, and then hundreds of exceptions for that rule. I know that when I was learning Spanish there were definitely not that many irregular things to learn/teach.
Anyways on to the fun stuff!! Wednesday night some of us went to this bar called Bamboo Jam which is halfway between the town where I live and go to school called Quepos and Manuel Antonio which is where the beach is. It was ladies night so the all the girls were definitely having a good time with not having to pay for drinks. At first there seemed to be a bunch of tourists and not that many Costa Ricans (in Spanish they are called ticos) but closer to midnight they all kind of showed up at the same time and the dance floor filled up really fast. As far as I can tell the ticos are way better dancers as a whole than Americans and I feel way out of my league out there with them. It is still fun though and I am just going to have to embrace my awkward American white girl dancing for the time being (although lets be honest I will probably never be able to get over that).
Thanksgiving/Thursday was my roommate Richard's birthday (turning 27) and so we had a nice family dinner at the house, which of course included Rich downing a third of a bottle of guaro at the dinner table. Have I mentioned guaro yet? I can't remember, but regardless it is my new liquor of choice down here. It is a local type of liquor made from sugarcane that is very popular down here. It sort of reminds me of vodka, but not really. Regardless it goes down very smoothly and is great mixed with coke, or made into a guaro sour, or my favorite a drink they call the guapirinha (a take off of the delicious Brazilian drink caipirinha), which is guaro, lime, and brown sugar. After family dinner we took a taxi into Manuel Antonio and went to Rich's favorite bar right on the beach where he knows all the bartenders. We drank more guaro and ate chips and salsa and guacamole. Funnily enough they were showing the UT vs. Texas A&M football game at the bar so I actually got to watch it from about the 2nd quarter to the end. It was something I was definitely not expecting to see and it made me miss home the most out of anything that day. I mean what would Thanksgiving be without watching that game? Other than that instance though I never really felt like it was Thanksgiving. Not being at home with family and friends really killed the holiday spirit for that one. Also being in such a tropical place makes me feel like it's the summer. Some houses are starting to be decorated for Christmas around here and it is so funny to see Christmas lights and decorations on houses that have banana and coconut trees in their front yards (and yes I currently have a banana tree in my front yard and Mama Tica uses them to cook). After that bar we ended up back at Vista Serena with some other friends until we went back into Quepos to go out. Going out here sort of reminds me of Spain where people are staying out until all hours of the night but it's also different because I would never even consider walking home by myself from a bar here whereas I was comfortable doing that in Spain. The men in Costa Rica, at least so far, are less aggressive than I remember the men being in Mexico when I lived there for two months in high school. So they are more respectful than Mexicans but less than Spaniards. At 2:30am I finally had to end my night though and head home so that I could be at least somewhat alive in class on Friday. Everyone else stayed out though since I was the only one with school in the morning.
I am not going to lie, Friday morning was a little rough on me after getting home so late the night before and having to go to class early at 8:30. However, as I was sitting at the dining room table eating breakfast at about 7:45 Richard and our new roommate Brennan walked through the door. They had been out all night and looked pretty bad. They immediately went to bed and Yorleny ended up having to call Brennan's school (he is taking Spanish classes) to tell them that he was not able to come to school. Ridiculous. Ridiculously funny.
Last night after school I walked home with the intent to take a nap immediately so that I would be ready to go out again with all my TEFL friends. On my route home I pass a small church which has never had anything really going on at it before, but Friday there were selling homemade tamales as a fundraiser and after smelling them I HAD to buy some. I ended up buying una piña which is two big tamales tied together. Now in the United States, or at least Texas, all the tamales I have seen were wrapped in a corn husk and cooked. Here they don't do that. They are wrapped in banana leaves and because of this you can make them WAY bigger. Think about something the size of medium burrito. They were pork and soooooo good. Guess how much I paid for them? 1,000 colones which is about $2 (500 colones equals approximately $1). I don't know about you but I consider that to be a great deal. After my tamales muy saborosos I took a nap (my first one of the week since I am at school all day) and went out last night. It ended up being a chill night involving drinking games at the school with my new friends and then going to a lounge called Musik and then an American bar called Wacky Wanda's where a lot of the Quepos prostitutes hang out. Let's just call that an interesting cultural experience....
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