Costa Rica

Thrilled to head to Nicaragua on Saturday, but right now I think I´m most excited to see Kate and Tim deboard the local bus in Santa Elena! Finally...visitors!! I´ll be anxiously waiting with my favorite street-side empanada lady, craning my neck to see the tell tale smokey, exhaust billowing signs of the bus careening up the mountain into town. Mi familia tica is also excited about their arrival. Last night Roy assured me that it would be ok with mom if they slept in my room with me. I tried to explain to him that it may not be ok with Kate and Tim to share my extra narrow twin bed with me.

The town has been preparing for Semana Santa (Holy Week). The boys all went to Confession yesterday and the house is stocked with traditional comida (food) de Semana Santa... a corn flour pastry stuffed with bean paste and/or vegetables.

School continues to go well. I love my 11th grade class, but holding their attention proves to be more and more of a challenge as we approach the final quarter. Eleventh grade is the last year in high school and the school system is dictated by the loathsome administario exams. Every ¨graduating¨ high school student needs to pass the federal administario, similar to an SAT but harder and more comprehensive - includes all subject areas- in order to officially earn his/her diploma. The last quarter of colegio (high school) is therefore dedicated to reviewing for this exam...no grades are given out and therefore the students´ incentive and motivation to participate and be present in class wanes considerably. It´s a strange (and flawed) system. Universities in Costa Rica are federally funded - i.e. tuition is payed in full via federal funds - and only those students who pass the administario are eligible to attend college. Because the government dictates both the funding and the exam guidelines, the system seems dictatorial, lacking any quality control measures. The government creates an inappropriately difficult test so as to ensure that federal funds are only spent on a small number of university-bound students each year. Roughly 10% of the graduating class passes the test each year and only those that pass go onto college at the expense of the Costa Rican government. So add the extremely low odds of actually passing the exam to the psyche of our already school-weary 11th graders and you have our current situation. Referred casually as ¨senior slump¨in the US, the sentiment of students here could more aptly be characterized as complete indifference and acquiescence. Several of them are already interviewing for tourist-based jobs at hotels, restaurants, reserves, etc...and for the most part they´re just ¨done¨ with school. Plus warm weather, and the advent of high tourist season (ie. mass exodus of attractive gringos to Monteverde) has them thoroughly distracted. As Xenia explained to me the other day at lunch, everyone is more concerned about finding a gringito/a, which loosely translates as a casual fling with a tourist, than coming to school. With almost half the class having turned 18 sometime this spring, I see more of them at night at Bar Amigos than in English class...verguenza

Heading to Nicaragua on a 445am bus Saturday morning. A local bus will take us down the mountain, drop us on the Pan-American Highway and from there we are supposed to wave down the Tica bus bound to the border from San Jose. Not exactly sure how this is going to work, but I presume we´ll manage. Spending three days in Granada, the oldest post-colonial city in all of Central/South America. It´s supposed to be beautiful. Then off to Ometepe, an island in Lake Nicaragua where we´ll be hiking the volcano which resides in the center. Allegedly, you can repel into the crater of the volcano, but I feel like that kind of thing warrants some experience repelling. We´ll spend our last two days on the beach in San Juan del Sur and then head back to MV in time for Easter Mass in Santa Elena.

After that, I have ONE MORE WEEK of school...madness. Will be ending my trip with a week of travel with my family. I already know that 7 days of hot showers and meals that cost more than $3/plate will feel like luxury. Then, I´m homeward-bound - still not quite sure how this is possible.

Wishing you dias soleados and viajes felices,

Kathryn