El Dia del Independencia: Weekend of 15th of September

Despite repeated hints, suggestions, and various enticements to the children regarding leaving town for a 3-day weekend (including various beach offers), Anna Ruth insisted that she wanted to stay in San Jose, resting and relaxing at home. And so we did. And we actually had a great weekend! We were invited to a Saprissa game by the coach who set up Anna Ruth and Molly with the soccer team that was #1 for U-20 women in the country last year (Saprissa is also # 1 in the country and we watch them on TV often). Of course Saprissa won, and it was great fun watching them play from the box that is reserved for Saprissa officials. We also met one of the abuelas (grandmother) of a player, and she was all done up in purple (the Saprissa color), including purple hair and nails.

On Sunday, Anthony and Amy went to market, leaving the children home to rest and relax. On the way we watched a few celebrations with traditional dancing and then arrived at the market. Just as we finished our shopping we had a tremendous deluge of rain that was such a torrent that folks just hung out under tarps rather than try to walk in it with umbrellas. In fact, the people with whom I shared a tarp put their umbrellas on their legs because of the huge quantity of water splashing back up at them from the ground. With thunder quite near by, the situation became rather exciting, and we all became very good friends. Fortunately after about an hour, the rain began to recede and we were able to walk back home. And even more fortunately, this was such an enormous downpour that there was no more rain for the rest of the Independence Day celebrations.

In the evening, we joined our neighbors to wait for the Torch as it was run by the avenue near our home. Now this is a very cool tradition! As Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama all have the same independence day, a torch is lit in Guatemala about one week before Sept 15, and it is run by students through the country, then through El Salvador, then through Nicaragua, and it arrives in Costa Rica on the night of the 13th and is run through San Jose somewhere in the late afternoon/early evening on its way south and down to Panama. Also, on this day preceding Independence Day, wherever Costa Ricans are at 6 pm, they stop what they are doing, and as one nation, they sing their Independence Day hymn. So we went to a very nice pizza restaurant that overlooked the avenue, and this was a great idea because it turned out that the Torch was about an hour or so behind schedule. When the police cars began to gather to monitor traffic so that the runners would be safe, we left our nice little perch and ran out to the street. Even for non Costa Ricans, watching this police motorcade and the runners holding the Torch of Freedom was very impressive. This is not a great photo, but might give you a little bit of an idea of what it looked like. When we returned home, we watched on TV as President Oscar Arias received the Torch in Cartago (the old capital) and then receive several speeches with various requests for improvements over the next year. The difference between the very polished presentations of the recent conventions and these clear speeches without much regard to presentation (content over looks) was very interesting. Arias is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, but he has run into a bit of trouble recently between CAFTA and now getting caught lying about various relations with China and Taiwan, and he looked pretty darn weary on Independence Day. . .

The big parades were on Monday morning, and all the schools were marching in their colors, many with bands (below is Colegio Calesanz who won the band competition), baton twirlers, and little kids with hula hoops. There were also a few schools with variations, such as the University Lab school which had children marching with their paintings of Costa Rican animals, another school with children in costumes, another school with payasos (very large puppets, sometimes as big as 10 feet tall), and a high school with students during traditional dancing with traditional garb that was quite wonderful. So, in the end, we had something interesting and different to watch every day of Independence weekend, and it was well worth while staying in town to see it all in the capital city!

Manuel Antonio

As predicted, we had an absolutely splendid time in Manuel Antonio, and it is only with the greatest restraint that I have limited the photos to the few shown. Anthony went ahead with the students, and Molly, Anna Ruth, and I took the public bus after school, arriving close to 10 pm. We just had to feel the sand on our toes and hear the waves close by, so we walked down to the ocean from the hotel and then to bed. In the morning we revisited the beach briefly before entering the park to see what we could see. The highlights included the two-toed sloth (actually moving her way down the tree) and capuchin monkeys pictured nearby, also a 3-toed sloth, an agouti, tree frog, snake, leaf-cutter and other ants, quite a few birds, and a ton of iguanas. Also great plants of course! We were invited to eat termites, which taste like wood it turns out, and not surprisingly given that that exclusively what they eat.


We spent an incredibly delightful afternoon at the beach, which included wrestling some of our clothes back out of the paws of the cutest raccoon, and watching our for marauding monkeys (who were kind enough not to make an attempt on our backpacks). Some of us went snorkeling, others floated in the waves or actually swam, and others went walking back into the jungle.

That evening we had dinner in a restaurant that was part open air restaurant and part airplane, and the airplane part was the sister plane to the one shot down during the Reagan administration when we really weren't trying to topple the Sandanista regime with drug money from Iran. . . Any oldtimers (relatively speaking) remember Contra-Gate and Oliver North? Well that history still figures prominently in Costa Rica and of course Nicaragua.

In the morning, more beach time, lunch, and then bus home. The bus ride home included beautiful vistas
as we climbed layers and layers of mountains.


We also stopped at a bridge overlooking a crocodile haunt. Not quite sure why these crocodiles hang around this bridge but they sure do.
And we held on tight to our side of the bridge, as it is a very narrow passage way between the wall of the bridge itself and the car lane. Given the driving styles here and very narrow, curving roads with many drivers passing here, we are always grateful not to be driving and also to arrive home intact! This week and weekend we are at home. Monday is Independence Day, so we are going to try to catch sight of the torch that is run through Guatemala, Nicaragua, etc to San Jose on Sunday (celebrating all these countries' independence), and see a parade on Monday.

Peaceful week in San Jose

The last few days have been very peaceful (thank goodness). The students have settled in very well and are excited by their classes and internships, and are enjoying their homestays. Anthony and Amy have graduated to past tense and a new book in their Spanish class. Molly and Ruthie had a half day of school on Wednesday to the delight of all. Molly visited a friend's home for lunch, ping pong, and touring the compound; Ruthie came home for a well-deserved and entirely relaxing afternoon of reading on the couch. Anthony traipsed around San Jose looking for painting journals and what not for the family. His class has started now; it is called "Magic in the Land", and they are beginning by drawing and painting the beauty all around them. So in his usual way, he is integrating many senses and experiences and incorporating all of this with reading and thinking. Amy has discovered that she does not have to go to La Paz waterfalls to see hummingbirds on demand; the feeder at the institute turns out to be a favorite haunt, and so she likes to sit for a few minutes before class to watch them have almuerzo (lunch).

We also have been very interested in the goings on of the McCain-Palin ticket, and the Republican National Convention. What an interesting contrast between the two conventions!

Tomorrow Anthony and the students head out in the morning for the national park at Manuel Antonio; Amy, Ruthie, and Molly take the public bus there after school. The Lincoln School does not have the same attitude toward absences as Carolina Friends, and we had to write an extensive justification for every day our children would be away from school. Because there is public bus available in the evening, we did not have a good justification for missing the school day and spending one more day in the jungle and/or beach, alas. Watch for many photos early next week!

Semester begins for students with armed robbery

oh dear. What a surprising end to the day. On the way home, five of the students were held up and lots of good stuff was stolen. These students ended up at our house, rather shaken up as one can well imagine, and we garnered sheets, blankets, pillows all together, and had a slumber party of sorts, while processing as fast as we all could about the robbery, whether one could feel safe enough to stay in costa rica, etc. etc. It was a long night, and last one to bed was actually Anna Ruth who was at a party till almost 2 am. Ticans party late into the night apparently.

Sunday we went to the Farmer's Market with these students who were amazing in their abilities to voice their fears, process what it would mean to stay here, what it would mean to go home, implications for themselves, for the program, for Elon, and for each other. All the students went home to their Tican families for the afternoon, three returned to us for one more night, and now all of them are home with their Tican families and feeling way more settled now that school has begun. Everyone is still a bit jumpy and preferring more escort and company, but they are all great troopers and ready to explore costa rica. For our part, we are very excited to be working with such an upbeat and mature group of individuals, and also we are more aware of what we want in a college. Elon administration showed very much the ideal response to a challenging situation. Our kids did too, sharing their home with enthusiasm and energy, and working hard to help these students feel comfortable and welcome.

Volcan Poas, La Paz Waterfalls, and Students Arrive

We had another great trip on Saturday: to the volcano Poas, which is still active and in this picture you can see the steam being released from vents in the crater lake. Also a picture of the four of us from the top crater, which blew quite a while ago and is mostly just scenic now. We arrived on a very cloudy day, and just as we walked to the crater, the clouds opened up so we could see just about everything (except for the long range view of the Caribbean!).
Then we went to La Paz waterfalls where we had gone two weeks earlier with friends; this time we were with the newly arrived group of Elon students. I can't tell which part we like the best, the incredible hummingbird party, the Bird House (see Toucan below), the frog house (see red-eyed tree frog below), the serpents, etc etc, or the waterfalls themselves (see falls and students below). Finally on the way back to the buses a skinny raccoon and these coatimundi showed up, also an armadillo!