Celebrations and Frustrations

As I write this, Claire and Caleb are attending the local Spanish elementary school.  That is a reason to celebrate, as it means they are brave enough to immerse themselves in something completely new.  It also means Vern and I have a few hours of freedom during the weekday mornings.  We put Caleb in the grade 1 class, since he would absolutely tower over the little Kindergartners here, who are just starting their school year and are naturally smaller in stature.  We figured it would be good for Claire and Caleb to be in the same class; it’s a one-room schoolhouse, so Grades 1-6 are in the same classroom!  This has turned out to be a good decision, so the kids are on the same schedule and Claire can help Caleb when he’s struggling.  Grades 1-3 start at 7am, which means we are walking to school by 6:40am!  The older grades start mid-morning.  There’s a Costa Rican Spanish teacher and an English teacher from the U.S. who’s volunteering here for the school year.  The subjects taught at the school are: math, English, Spanish, social studies, agriculture and science.  One day last week I arrived a bit early to pick up the kids so I sat outside the English class, only to hear Caleb squawking out the English alphabet 3x faster and louder than anyone else in the class….I guess it felt pretty good for him to finally know what he was supposed to do!

The school has a small courtyard in the middle for soccer and basketball, and there’s a very small play structure.  The kids get two recesses during the morning.  They are also served a hot lunch every school day at 10:45am; that’s a culinary adventure for Claire and Caleb!  Fridays are early dismissal….at 9:10am, after two hours of classes.  That’s truly an early dismissal time, considering some schools in Canada only start at 9am!  Caleb has been saying school is too long, so he liked early dismissal on Friday last week. 

Escuela la Lidia (apple/peach orchards in the background)

Claire and Caleb ready for their first day of spanish school.  Everyone wears navy and white uniforms.

We also celebrated Caleb’s 6^th birthday last week!  The first words out of his mouth were “I’m six!”.  He had a great day, complete with a water balloon fight, gifts from us and our neighbours, pizza and brownies.  To top it off, Mario and Laura invited Claire and Caleb over to watch a movie at their cabin in the evening.    

Caleb got water balloons for his birthday and enjoyed a water balloon fight with Claire and Julio.

We gave Caleb a boat craft for his birthday, which he enjoyed making and sailing on the small trout ponds around here.

Another reason we are celebrating is that we now have some Costa Rican wheels!  Our neighbours down the road had a friends’ car parked at their place for a few months and offered it to us.  We paid them to pick up a new battery for it, and we now have transportation around San Gerardo de Dota.  We can only use it in police-free San Gerardo, since it’s not registered or insured, and without any gas station in town we have the logistical issue of getting gas, so we won’t use the vehicle that much.  But it frees us up to go farther and to go out in the evening after dark.  The concept of walking everywhere you need to go in town sounds easy, but it’s been exhausting at times….there’s no such thing as a “quick errand”. We are happy to have a bit more freedom.  

I’ve mentioned we have very friendly, generous neighbours.  They invited us over for dinner the other night (one of our first evening excursions when we didn’t have to walk home in the dark b/c we had our own vehicle!) and we enjoyed a turkey dinner, complete with stuffing, wine, and tarts for dessert.  That felt like a celebration!   

One more celebration that I'll share—our family spent the weekend by ourselves at the field station as a change of pace.  The university students are on a trip to Nicaragua, so we moved in for a few days, with permission from the station manager and enjoyed extra space, nice kitchen with microwave! and the TV.  It was very enjoyable! (Interesting side note: we were woken up this morning at 5am to the sensation of our bed moving and the veranda doors clinking together!  We figure it was a small earth tremor!) 

Now for a frustration or two.  We’ve had water leaking from the one tap we have in our cabin, causing frequent flooding on the floor.  For many fix-it jobs, we are told “manana” (which is supposed to mean in the morning or tomorrow, but often doesn’t mean either!).  So Vern took matters into his own hands, and gave Mario the specifics of what type of tap we needed and offered to install it himself.  That didn’t go well (not Vern’s fault, but I won’t take the time to discuss plumbing details!).  After many hours in the cramped space under our sink, some advice from a neighbor, more plumbing parts from other neighbours, and being covered with goopy caulking and spider webs, we had a new faucet that doesn’t leak (nearly as much, anyways….).  Where’s Home Depot when you need it??!!