Weirdness of the Month - Crocodile Edition

1.  So, I thought it was weird last year when I saw an iguana crossing the road.  That doesn't come close to what wanted to cross the road last week in Quepos.  And this was right in front of the elementary school!

2.  I got into a collectivo last week (a collectivo is an unofficial taxi - basically anyone can be a collectivo) and as I got in, the woman in the back seat yelled to the man in the passenger seat, "We're a taxi now.... respect!" That was the only thing that was said the whole way into town.  You could cut the tension with a knife.  I wonder if the driver just picked me up to avoid whatever argument the family was having.

3.  Homeless people can be really friendly here.  Last night, I had just bought a bag of platano chips and opened them as I walked by a man sitting on the sidewalk.  He looked up at me and asked me for one chip.  I handed him one and he looked back at me and said, "muchas gracias... muy amable!" He was genuinely happy for the single chip.  I remember one time I tried to give a whole subway sandwich to a homeless man in downtown Tucson and he threw it on the ground angrily.  Another homeless man here says hello to me every time I walk by and tells me I'm the most beautiful thing he's seen all day.  It's not in a creepy way, either.  He actually just sounds like he's saying something nice.  Whatever it is I like it better than the kissy sounds some guys make as they drive by or the sounds they make that sound like their calling over a cat.  I guess they're literally "cat calling."

4.  I ran into one of my improv students at the independence parade a few weeks ago and she was carrying around "baby pienselo."  It was like baby-think-it-over had followed me all the way from the middle school.  I even got to hold it for her while she had to take care of her real little brother.  Weird.

5.  I've been noticing that Spanish has different onomatopoeias than English does and that amuses me. For example:

We say "knock knock"; they say "toc toc." "Toc toc, who's there?"  :] 
We say "ding dong"; they say "zum zum."
We say "Bam!"  They say "Zas!"
Chickens who speak English say "peep peep," but chickens who speak Spanish say, "pio pio." 
I say "yaayyyy!"  They laugh at me. 
They say "Ay!!!!" and guys make weird screaching wooping sounds to each other.... I'm still not really sure what emotion it conveys but it happens in the house I rent from late at night and drives me crazy.

How odd that sounds seemingly not based in a language are still specific to that language.  I mean, a knock is not a word.... it's a sound.  And chickens don't speak English.  I wonder why it's this way.

A Day in Review - a variation on weirdness of the week

Some days here are still just so odd that when I look back on them I laugh in appreciation for all the weirdness.  Maybe even the weirdest part is that it often takes until the moment I reflect on the day to realize just how weird it was.

I sleep through my alarm even though it has been going off for an hour.  My friend calls to see if I'm coming to work and I get to the high school within 15 minutes to be only 5 minutes late.  While the students make fun of me for being late, they almost seem happy to see that I make mistakes and were kinder the rest of the class.  That was unexpected.  In fact, it seems we finally have some sort of a positive relationship.  We all let things go easier and their work ethic has improved.  They also act like they trust me more.  It has been a 7 month process.

I climb up a hill to a new student's house and we talk for about a half hour so I can see her level of English.  After the mini-class, she tells me she really likes me and then out of nowhere she says, "I want to name my next child after you."  I didn't tell her that nobody here can pronounce my name and that I've started introducing myself as Mori because it's easier.

I walk past a storefront that is a room of slot machines and a man is playing slots.  He has set his baby on the adjacent machine.  I'm serious.  A baby that looks as though it can barely sit on its own is sitting on a slot machine.  That's like the time I walked by the gym and saw a baby sitting in the middle of the boxing ring while people boxed all around it.

Speaking of babies in odd places... I have seen babies in front bike baskets, babies carried like a sack of rice under the arm of a bike rider, and the most agile - a dad riding a bike with his toddler on his shoulders... while holding an umbrella so they would stay dry during the thunderstorm.  Picture that.  I can't help but juxtapose these scenes with the use of car seats and safety measures taken in the US.

Then, I have two more private classes where a series of "have you ever" questions leads into an hour long discussion of the three fights this tiny, sweet, female student has been in.  She recounts in very good detail why the fights started and what happened.  The vocabulary for the day - fight, hit, scratch, drag, choke, defend, jump on, punch, bully, beat up....  Very important words, right?  

My last student of the day tells me things like "I think I will live forever because I laugh a lot" and  "When I was child I thought my gift was dancing.  It wasn't.  Then, when I was older, I thought my gift was singing.  I heard myself.  It wasn't.  Now, my gift is writing.  I want to be a famous writer.  I don't know why I write like a boy. I think I write boy characters because boys are complicated, but the woman is more complicated.  I don't understand the woman.  My boyfriend says he knows me but he can't know me because I don't even really know me." She is 16 years old.

This student and one other 9 year old student have been with me for over a year.  They were the first two to call me when I started advertising in August 2013.  They were the ones that I had to tell things like, "Well I usually...." when I had really never done it before! I showed up so nervous thinking, Well, here we go..... I hope I know how to do this or can figure it out as we go..  That's just what we did - figured it out one lesson at a time.  The progress they have made and the trust we have built is incredible.   The nine year old started with the alphabet and now can say things like, "Can a baby fly?  No, it can't."  "I have brown hair.  Moriah has brown hair.  Jeremy has a car, but it is a little toy car."  That might not sound like much, but she used to look at me like I was an alien when I asked her something like "How are you?" At some early points, it seemed as though she was not retaining or progressing at all.  Suddenly, she started producing language.  Now, she understands much of what  I say and always helps me invent new English games to play.  We laugh a lot.  Sometimes when I am in class with these students it hits me how lucky I am to have this job where I spend time one-on-one with interesting, creative people like this.

Even the Taxis Can't Find my House

While I live on a street without an entrance for cars... just a decrepit sidewalk, I thought at least the taxis would know where it was.  Nope.  It was pouring rain as it does almost every night.  The kind of rain that as soon as you step out into it, even with an umbrella, you may as well have just emerged from the ocean. 

So, in an attempt to arrive at my corporate English class somewhat dry and presentable, I called a taxi.  When I gave the dispatcher my address, he only half listened and insisted that he knew where it was - giving completely different landmarks in his direction. 

The taxi never came.  I called again to see what had happened and he said I wasn't there when the car arrived.  That's because it wasn't even my neighborhood!

I explained again and he acted like I was incompetent and told me that wasn't my address that I had said. 

He insisted it was a different address and the process repeated. 

No taxi.

At this point, my class was starting so I walked the 100 meters down the sidewalk to a landmark that taxis would understand.  I called a different taxi and went on to class. 

In the process I still managed to get soaked.  I guess that's what happens when your neighbors are literally chickens. 

Cocal and the Baby Food Robber

Tiny human footprints were found on the wall of the school kitchen in the Cocal School that I teach drama at.  All of the rice and beans were stolen.  The only way someone could have gotten in would be by being the size of a toddler and squeezing through the narrow spaces between the bars in the windows.  Having your toddler steal food from the elementary school... what an illustration of the poverty in this area. 

You can see an example of the houses in the area behind the kids