Feild Trip, English Class, and Improv - oh my! (oh yeah... and Costa Rica beat US in soccer)

So much has happened since Thursday and I am so grateful.  I have so much to say that I feel like this post might take hours.

On Friday, I woke up at  5:30 am to be at the school by 6:45.  We went on a field trip to a national park near Jaco.  It was so much fun to hang out with the kids and ride in the van with them.  They were crazy, of course, but also really well behaved.  On the way home, we stopped at Pizza Hut in Jaco; you can not imagine how exciting this was for them.

Jaco (an hour away) has the only pizza hut, movie theatre, etc.  Some of them have only been to a movie once in their life.  Imagine it is like going to Disney Land and you can imagine the excitement.  They decided that the van driver was going to be my new boyfriend so that I would stay in Costa Rica forever.  They gave me a piece of pizza to give to him because they said that that would win his heart... then they made me sit in the front to talk with him.  They spent the whole ride home whispering and making the "we're watching you" face at me with the fingers pointing from their eyes to me.  It was hilarious.  I'm just thankful they didn't see me give him my card with my number on it - for English lessons of course!  Oh, also on the way home we saw Scarlet Macaws - about 20 of them - flying from a tree.  The driver told me that they pair up for life and if one dies, they continue on alone for the rest of their lives.  It was really cool to see them flying together.

Then, I got to hang out with my friends in Quepos as we pretended to watch the sun set... even though it was raining. "If you can't think of 25 reasons why you're sad... You have to laugh for one minute instead." Gracias, amiga tiene razon.

"Goooooooaaaaaaal!!!!!!!!!!!!" Next adventure, the Costa Rica vs. US game.  What an experience.  This was definitely the first time I had ever watched an entire soccer game and also the most fun.  The bar was packed, the energy was electric.  I wished I had had a CR jersey, though, because after the game the people on the street kept saying "sorry for your country."  I had to say several times, that I was for CR!  haha.   

Today started off great with a real English class!!!!! Yes, a real class to an intermediate student.  The way that this class came to be is a pretty cool story.  My friend here in Quepos has been telling her friends about me in hopes that I can find more work and stay here.  One of her friends' sister has a daughter who was taking English classes from an institute here and didn't like it after the teacher added two new students that were at a much more basic level.   She quit that on Wednesday.  Her mom called the brother who is a taxi driver and asked him if he knew of any English teachers.  He did.... me!  Isn't that quite a roundabout story?  I guess that just goes to show that networking and word of mouth can be more effective than hanging up flyers.  

I spent an hour at the house talking to the mother after the lesson ended today.  She told me that she wanted me to stay in Quepos forever and that she will find me a boyfriend here :]  Oh, all the boyfriend finding help I have.  I think this student sounds promising as a once a week student!  They also seem very responsible and not flaky at all.  For this I am very grateful.

The other huge accomplishment of the day was being a part of an improv group in Spanish!!!!!!!!!!! I am so proud of myself; this was one of those things that I had dreamed of being able to do since I started being passionate about learning Spanish, but also something that felt so far away from being possible.  Today, it became not only possible - but a reality.   Oh, and they played "un, dos, tres, bop" instead of "bibity bibity bop," pass the sound/movement and everything! They even did big booty- "ooohhh tracero!" Haha. Word association was the hardest, because I didn't know the words so mine were super random but I could do my part of the story telling.... I was super proud. Also, the leader talked about gift giving and saying yes and reacting to things in the moment! I was so excited; it felt like home. It was like reading a book that I had already read so I had a framework to understand what was happening.  The group was made up of one guy, his two roommates, and his friend visiting from San Jose... so who knows if it will continue, but I am happy I at least got to have that experience.  Also, the leader from San Jose invited me to attend a festival in San Jose in two weeks where troupes will be gathered from all over Latin America.  

One of my favorite parts of the whole experience was seeing that things like improv games and skills can travel and have traveled all around the world; they've even read the same books as me about improv.  It's kind of like Darwin's Theory of Evolution.  The ideas travel and then begin to evolve and change in their own separate environments.  Eventually you can have very distinct styles and forms.  He and I talked about this after the meeting and I hope to be able to attend the festival to see more of what improv in Latin America is like. 

So, to wrap up... I am super tired from concentrating so hard all day.  I think I used up all my brain power in following the improv instruction and playing the games.  That is one more life goal that I have accomplished and I hope to use that experience and develop it more in the near future.