Just another Tico-venture

It would be an understatement to say that I love my fourth graders.  They are amazing.  They are sweet, sassy and incredibly smart.  The 4 girls make up for the occasional laziness of my two boys.  Thursday was no exception.  I was hardly looking forward to class since it was the end of the day and I had already taught 1^st and 6^th grade, including a new student in each.  However, my fourth graders (who are learning about the rainforest and its preservation) helped re-energize me and turn my day into “one of the good ones.” 

Together we made a giant poster of the rainforest including each of the four layers and the animals that dwell in them.  They asked me why I had to leave at the end of the year, which I appreciated.  I told them that it was just time for me to find a new job and they told me that I didn’t need a new job.  Then I joked with them that they might not even remember me a few years down the line and Daniella (one of my smartest students) insisted that she never forgets anything, so that was impossible. 

After we finished our poster we watched 10 minutes of Harry Potter.  Costa Rican children aren’t really encouraged to let their imaginations run wild, a point I discovered when Harry Potter escaped his muggle relatives in a flying car and my students said, “A flying car! What a lie!”  I did my best to assure them that it’s magic and we can’t understand how it works, but that it is possible.  What’s next?  No Santa Claus?

I went on another Bike ride with my 6^th grader Christian today, who, coincidentally, I caught cheating on his last exam.  My 5^th and 6^th graders all cheat on almost every exam; I just don’t always catch them with hard evidence.  He had a worksheet poorly hidden in his desk.  We rode a few kilometers down the Pan-American passing a number of “new” waterfalls that have popped up since the rain started to intensify.  I feel desperately out of shape, but any exercise is better than none, or so I have heard. 

This past weekend, I had my in-service meeting in San Jose with the other WT volunteers.  It was pretty good.  Our meetings lasted about half of the day and we covered a lot of our questions and concerns for the end of the year.  We went out dancing on Friday night and to see Wanted at the movies on Saturday night.  I also joined a fantasy football league, which I am not proud of, but it will serve to pass the next 3 months and 17 days or whatever it is. 

On Sunday I tried to catch a 10:30 bus home only to find out that it was actually a 10:00 bus and that all of the buses were booked until 2:30.  Rather than sit in the bus station for four hours, I ventured over to the hospital/doctors office a few blocks from the bus terminal and went to the pharmacy for some over the counter-prescription meds.  Following that riveting experience, I ate lunch in the Hospital Cafeteria and then headed back to the Bus Station.  Mikki Jean and I lucked out and had seats next to each other on the bus despite not having bought our tickets together.  The ride back was uneventful, except for the remnants of landslides that we passed on our way into San Isidro.

So, that’s all for now.  Papa Lathan arrives tomorrow and we are headed to the beach for a day or so.  Then it’s back to El Vergel for classes on Monday and he flies home on Tuesday.  You know it’s a Lathan vacation when . . .