My First Week of Work

Wow!  That is how I feel. The past week was packed full with activity and the beginning work!  I guess I’ll start where I last left off.  On Thursday, we visited Casa Maria Axiliadora in San Jose.  Casa Maria is a multi-faceted ministry run by a group of Salesian sisters. The complex includes a daycare, school for at-risk girls from in 7^th through 11^th grade, housing for single women with children, classes for women in sewing and cooking, clothing donation area, and the convent.  Sor Roxana, the director of Casa Maria, gave us a thorough tour of the complex as well as provided some interesting history about Sor Maria Romero, the daughter of Maria Axiliadora, who was just declared a saint in 2002.  Her mausoleum and museum is located at Casa Maria.  It so happened that our visit was just in time to attend a birthday celebration for Mary at the girl’s school.  Our group sat right up in the front of a large hall, and all of the 120 teenage students were sitting in chairs facing us.  Since I work at the girl’s school, I was called up to the microphone, introduced, and asked to say something to the crowd.  I was so unprepared, but I managed to utter in Spanish, ‘Hello, I am very excited to be with you this year.’  Hahaha I was little embarrassed (you know me).  Next, Sor Roxana led the celebration with “Feliz Cumpleanos” on the guitar.  The party was complete with two large cakes full of candles which Sor Roxana proceeded to blow out by waving her guitar over them after the song was over.  Everyone ate cake and drank soda.  Oh my!  My first thoughts about working at the girl’s school were coated in fear.  All of the girls were shouting to each other, laughing and looking toward our group, and they just looked tough.  Soon, we walked over to the daycare to meet the kids where Margie works.  About half of the kids are refugees from Nicaragua.  We were greeted by the cooks who handed us each a large popusa and a cup of homemade fruit juice.  A popusa is this corn cake with a little bit of spiced sausage and onion inside then topped with cabbage.  It was quite tasty!  Then we walked a few blocks to Albergue San Gabriel, a doctor’s office that treats children with severe illnesses.  This is where Molly works.

Friday, we rode the bus into San Jose again to learn our way around.  We found some of the bus stations, the church, the market, and main streets.  We ate at a little ‘soda’ or café.  Sodas usually offer a plate called ‘casado’ or married.  It is a meat of your choice which is served along with rice, beans, some kind of little salad, and sometimes a fried plantain.  It was absolutely delicious! A typical Costa Rican lunch.  That night we had a house blessing.  The friars and some others associated with FrancisCorps came over to our house for the blessing.  Afterward, we enjoyed chatting and eating the hors d’oeuvres we girls had made that afternoon.

Friar Rick (program director) and I with the statue called Abundance in San Jose.

On Sunday, Nicole wanted to show us the city where she studied abroad last year called Heredia.  It took about an hour to get there by combination of foot and bus.  We saw the University and much of the city on foot.  Then we met up with her friend who ended up driving us to his friend’s aunt’s birthday party.  The party was at the aunt’s house on a dairy farm out in the countryside.  Who knew we’d find ourselves out petting cows with Costa Rican family on Sunday afternoon?   It was a relatively small party, so our group of four American girls provided a bit of entertainment when the uncle turned on his boom box playing traditional Costa Rican band music and insisted that we dance around in a circle with him.  Pretty funny!  Our hosts were extremely nice to have us (who they had never met) come to their party.  What a gift to be able to experience a family gathering here.

Monday was my first day of work at Casa Maria!  I left the house with Molly and Margie at 6:30 AM.  Our daily commute includes walking 8 min to the bus stop in Moravia, riding a bus for about 30 min to San Jose, then walking about 20 min to Casa Maria.  Monday was mainly all orientation. I now have a set weekly schedule.  Classes are held from 8 to noon and are 40 minutes each.  I am to help in a few technology classes, teach one conversational english class once a week, help in a couple civics classes, and work in the office.  I get to be in each grade level at least once a week, so that way I will get to interact with all the girls to some extent.  At noon, most of the girls go home.  There is a group of about 25 'internas' who stay overnight at the school in a dormitory for free.  At noon, these girls eat a lunch of rice, beans, and something else like spegetti or bread.  I also eat lunch during this time but in a separate room from the girls, since the nuns want me to establish myself as a teacher rather than just one of the freinds.  At 1 PM I take the internas up to their dormintory room on the third floor, so that they can change out of their uniforms.  The dormitory is a really big room with four rows of 10 beds spaced about 3 ft apart.  Then it's time for 'oficios'-- each girl has her own part of the complex to clean.  I am supposed to inspect each area and make sure that they have in fact done their chore...gotta put the fist down, haha, I'm not so good at that yet!  After chores are done I hang out with the girls, chat, and am there to tutor them if they have any homework that they want help with.  Also, usually Sor Nela is also there with me and the internas during the afternoon.  I leave at 3:30 PM to head home.

I've slowly been getting acustomed to being at the school.  A lot of the girls put on a tough facade, but I've already seen a couple of them open up to me a little.  They all come from hard family lives and/or are dealing with many personal issues themselves.  It is difficult to hear about the home lives of some of these girls.  Many seem not to care so much about their education, but rather are at school to fulfill the requirement or to get away from their problems at home.  I lead a 10th grade conversational English class on my second day of work, and my was it ever hard to keep those girls attention!  I'm going to have to get really creative to keep them interactive!  Oh, and I now have a 'husband' named Francis (a 15-year-old girl at the school with dimples), hahahaha what a little ham!

Thursday was 'el dia de la independecia' or Independence day.  There were parades in all the towns, and everyone had the day off.  Fireworks began around 4 AM!  All of the grade schools showed off their marching bands, dancers, and patriotism in the parades--music, crowds, homemade lanterns, traditional dress, and lots of red, white, and blue. Viva Costa Rica!

School girls in the traditional dance clothing walking in the Independence Day parade in Guadalupe.