My First Day of School

Monday, July 23, 2012

I didn’t bring shampoo or shaving cream with me because my suitcase was so full, and I figured I would buy both here. On Saturday, I went to Poli (a mini version of Walmart) and thought I was buying shampoo. I carefully read labels--in Spanish, of course--moving from one brand to another to find something for tinted hair. I decided to buy Dove. I made sure to choose shampoo, but evidently, the label on the bottle of conditioner was exactly the same as what was on the shampoo bottle, except for the words acondicionador instead of champú. I read the label on one bottle and picked up what looked like the identical bottle beside it. When I arrived home, I realized I had conditioner instead and had to wash my hair yesterday with soap. I conditioned it well to get rid of the tangles, but once it was dry it looked and felt like I had washed my hair with honey: sticky! Off to church I went looking like I don’t know what.

This morning I happily got up at 5:30 excited for the first day of school and the opportunity to actually wash my hair with real shampoo. After a lovely lukewarm shower and hair washing, I readied myself for school, had a breakfast of mini corn tortillas with melted cheese and black beans, and walked to the bus stop with Kesa (the other student here in this house,) and Marcia (older daughter in this family and one of the teachers from the school I am attending ,Costa Rican Language Academy).

I felt like a kid on the first day of school wearing my little backpack, filled with a new pencil, notebook and pocket Spanish dictionary. We walked about 3-4 blocks to catch the public bus to town. I paid my fare, 210 colones, sat down with Marcia near the front of the bus and enjoyed one of the more entertaining commutes of my life. It was a combination of the game of “chicken” and the Indy 500. For people whose motto is pura vida, the costarricenses, or ticos as they liked to be called, sure are aggressive on the roads! Most of the streets do not have lines that mark lanes and there are few stop signs or traffic lights until you get to main roads in the city proper. People just pull out in front of each other with abandon, motorcycles are allowed to zoom pass cars in the middle of the road (still in the same “lane” as the car they are passing as oncoming traffic also squeezes by), and busses grind through their gears (If you can’t find it, grind it) as they pull up literally within inches of each other. I swear I could open the side window and shake hands with the people in the bus next to us. When stopped, the bus in front is so close, it is practically a hood ornament. It’s not uncommon to be at a 90 degree angle to another bus as the other one tries to get in front. This morning we were stopped directly over a train track with the sound of a train approaching! About 1 minute after we finally passed over the tracks, the train went by. It wasn´t going all that fast, but I still think a collision with a train would not bode well even in a bus! Everyone and their dog were on their way into the city as we literally inched our way down the two lane road. When there was an opening in the traffic, everyone raced to see who could get down the road the fastest. Like I said earlier: chicken versus the Indy 500.

After leaving the bus, we walked another 3-4 blocks to the school, were allowed in by a security guard, and Kesa and Marcia quickly went to their various classes. I was given an identification badge with the name and address of the family I live with (kind of like a kindergartner pinning their name and address to the front of their shirt) and escorted to a large room where I waited with about 30 other newbies to the school. One by one we were pulled aside for our oral exam to determine class placement. I was interviewed by a young man named Oscar, who ended up being my instructor as well.

I was put in a class with 3 other people: 2 sailors (a man and women who are both mid-shipmen) from the U.S. Navy Academy in Anapolis and a man from Holland, who is married to a Costa Rican woman and now lives in San Jose. Oscar conducted the entire class in Spanish and really pushed us to the limits of our abilities. We reviewed a lot, but encountered some things that were new to us and had quick mini lessons as needed. We spoke, wrote, listened, and read in Spanish from 9:00-noon, before breaking for a one hour lunch.

I met up with Kesa, who introduced me to two of her new friends, sisters from Nassau, Bahamas. We walked several blocks to a nice tienda (market) and bought our lunch. The tienda was similar to a typical U.S. grocery store. One could see many of the comforts and brands from home, mixed with some decidedly Costa Rican items. The deli was at the back of the store. At first, I went for something safe--a tuna sandwich on wheat bread. Then I put it back and decided to eat something authentic. I choose an empanada Argentina con jamon y queso (kind of a ham and cheese folded over pastry) and a mixed fresh fruit salad. We went to a counter to have our take out boxes stamped with the name of what was inside, went to a cashier and checked out. The cajera (cashier) was not impressed that I used a 10,000 colon bill to pay for my 3,000 colon meal, but that was all I had and I needed change for the bus anyway. I got a fistful of change back so I should be good with bus fare for the foreseeable future!

After lunch, I had another hour of class instruction. We were all a little tired and goofy by then and had some fun teaching our instructor a few words he didn’t know in English. By the way, he is university educated and is a very intelligent young man, having studied multiple languages including Greek and Latin. He had no problem explaining language concepts and giving translations in English, as needed. Anyway, we were being asked various questions where we had to use new vocabulary to describe various types of people. We were talking about materialism and why we would or wouldn’t like someone who is materialistic. I was supposed to explain why I wouldn’t like someone like that. I said it was because that type of person is often prideful and…for lack of a better explanation, said in English, “They think they are all that and a bag of chips.” The other students laughed; the teacher looked confused and I was asked to explain myself. First of all he thought I said sh**, not chips. He did know that word!  Although that is inappropriate, it’s funny even now as I write about it. Then he translated bag of chips into Spanish and still couldn’t understand why a prideful person would be like a bag of chips. Well, that is often the case with slang; they just don’t translate very well if you try to translate each word literally. He never did get the gist of the saying, but we all had a good laugh and eased the tension of all the Spanish we had been exposed to all morning. By the way, the instructor taught us a saying earlier in the day: estar de goma. It is a Costa Rican phrase that means hung over from too much drinking. The words literally mean “to be rubbery or a rubber band.” As you see, an English speaker would never figure that one out by translating each word. You have to learn the phrase in its entirety and just use it for what it means.

Classes ended at 2:00. I went to the computer lab to upload yesterday’s blog posting. Three computers were down, and the others were all taken. After waiting for 20 minutes or so, one came available. The entire desktop and every website was in French! The school has students from all over the world and evidently someone changed the language. I didn’t have time to dink around trying to figure out how to change the language, so I used my one year of high school French and knowledge of Spanish to figure out what was what and was able to check my email and add another posting to the blog.

At 3:00 I went to a complimentary Latin dance class offered every afternoon and learned a few meringue and salsa steps. The class was full of mostly young people from around the world. One other grey-haired person showed up and we were promptly paired up. “Roy” is from California and didn’t have anymore rhythm than I did. We were AARP poster children for how to stay active and healthy as you advance in years. The old hips just didn’t do what the instructor’s did, but we made a valiant attempt at looking like sexy latinos. (I don’t know where my daughter, Noelle, got her ability and skill to dance so well. She surely didn’t get it from me or her father.) We had to change partners 3 different times and I felt like a “cougar” dancing with several different young men, who kindly took on the challenge of dancing with this old girl. (I don’t know how Demi Moore was able to hook up with Ashton Kutcher! It’s weird dancing with someone half your age.)

I was sweating profusely after an hour of swinging my hips latin-style and think I will have a hard time getting out of bed tomorrow! Nevertheless, it was good exercise and if I can walk tomorrow, I will attempt another lesson.

Ouch! I just got my first mosquito bite since arriving in Costa Rica.

I’m off to bed. I’m not sure what I’ll write about tomorrow, but I’ll try to keep it a little shorter than the long postings I’ve had the past few days. Thanks to you who are reading and for your kind remarks.

L to R: Kesa, Alia, Alaina. My lunch companions today.