Sunday, Aug 10/14
It’s a beautiful sunny Sunday morning here in Samara! Nick and I arrived just over a week ago now and we are gradually getting accustomed to the eagerly anticipated ‘simple’ life here! YES, we are ‘learning’ to live, pura vida!!!
I’m now sitting on the patio with my coffee, music and laptop.... enjoying the breezy sunshine and tranquility that it brings as I look out over the treetops toward the distant hills, with flecks of colour appearing sporadically from the many birds and butterflies!
As my heart sings with gratitude, I say a prayer of appreciation for all the beauty life has to give. It makes me happy to know we are fortunate enough to be in yet another peaceful, welcoming and beautiful country!
Oh yes, we have been welcomed by many including: some of our family (my brother Chris and his wife Maria were here at the casa when we arrived); our kind and helpful new neighbours Patrick and Sharon from Montana who have been here for a year and now call Costa Rica home; the helpful and awesome staff, teachers and classmates at TEFL Heaven; my new students (so far, mostly teenagers/young adults who have cell phones attached to their hands lol); various locals including Ticos, tourists & business owners who have made Samara Beach their home; and of course, our animal neighbours who have taken turns ‘dropping/flying/crawling/hopping’ in for a quick hello!! Some we encouraged to GO very quickly -hahaha! YIKE!
So far, our animal visitors (that we know of, LOL) have included a white-nosed coati, 2 little raccoons (yes cute!), ‘families’ of bats and geckos, various spiders, a scorpion, a moth the size of a bat, our neighbouring dog “Luna”, a couple of cockroaches (yuck yuck!!!!), a spectacular halloween crab, a toad (a small one- apparently they grow the size of a small dog here!) and of course many beautiful butterflies of assorted colours and sizes! How could I forget to mention the hummingbirds (yes a few so far Teresa!!!)
We have heard many familiar and unfamiliar sounds including the songs sung from birds, crickets, geckos, distant cows and dogs, and of course, the howler monkeys who jump on our roof at night to play, eat or just let us know they are happy to have us around! ???
While walking to town one day, Nick met a family of monkeys who decided to say hi by dropping the guayaba fruit they were eating on his head. I think the baby howler monkey laughed at him... Nick was enamoured with his new little friend...sooo cute:)
He also encountered a colourful snake which he later identified as a coral snake. Luckily it wasn’t a face to face (or face to foot )encounter!!!
Yes, our walk to town is an adventure in itself! The roads are difficult to manoeuver the closer you get to our ‘hilly’ Buenavista area as the runoff from heavy rains sculpt huge crevices and gullies into the once level pathways! To think I once complained about Barrie’s potholes! Silly Lishy :p Apparently once the dry season comes, it gets better!
Riding our bikes is even trickier but we are both getting good at dodging puddle-filled holes, horse poop and bumpy terrain. Our bike ride to town is a 10 min trek starting with the down slope of our treelined street and the previously mentioned sculpted roads, through a mixture of country side with small fields of cows, horses and crops (sugar cane??) and residences including a couple of smaller quaint hotels. Dogs regularly greet us to check us out then move on you acknowledge their existence! The locals are friendly... I am mastering Hola and buenos dias! But a smile speaks a thousand words and its easy to smile here:) The road eventually improves the closer you approach the Iguana Market (a grocery store)and the final 5 minutes of road are paved!
My TEFL school is located in the upper level of a mini-plaza with a lovely cafe right next door! There are two classrooms and another room with the office and workroom! It’s completely air conditioned and comfortable! There a tons of resources and materials with laptops, printer and copier. We were instantly made to feel at home since it is our second home for the four weeks of the course. When I arrive I am usually drenched in sweat ! I usually take a few minutes to order and enjoy a cappuccino before classes start at 10:30. On days I teach I usually arrive much earlier to ensure I have lots of extra time to prepare for my lessons! Our classes end at 7:30pm (completely dark at this time) so by the time I get home (via taxi) its close to 8pm. Yup a long, intense day! ohhhh my brain hurts!!
****To all my teacher friends ... I am sooo impressed with TEFL Heaven’s philosophy about teaching and learning ( Marie Clay would be impressed!) and their pedagogical practices. Lessons are ‘student centred’ and activity-based with a gradual release of teacher direction, support and talk (scaffolding) leading to an eventual ‘open’ activity at the end (culminating activity) where the students SHOW that they have attained the objective (or not) lol! So far the students have done wonderfully with their ‘open’ activities which makes me satisfied with the lessons my teacher partner and I implemented. Starting Monday, we teach alone.
Our instructors structure our lessons similarly to the ‘model’ we are expected to follow for our own classes. So far we have had activity-based lessons covering topics in classroom management, linguistic structures, syntax (yike, haven’t done any formal grammar study in years!!!) learning styles and multiple intelligences to name a few! We have a multi-national, multi-aged, spirited, FUN, knowledgable group of 12 from countries such as Ireland, UK, USA and Australia. The instructors are wonderful and really KNOW their stuff!!! I am impressed with the content, structure and professionalism of this program for anyone who may be interested in pursuing this path.
As expected with any high level course, I am going to be BUSY the next three weeks!! There is a lot to learn in a short time and the expectations are HIGH (all good!)
Bring it on!
To wrap up, here are some highlights of our first week in Samara Beach!
- being in AWE of the town, the casa we are living in AND its surrounding beauty including the flora and fauna (with the exception of a few) lol
- having Chris and Maria here to greet us, introduce us to the village, their favourite places, logistics of maintaining house/services and technology (wifi), and of course, our neighbours
- my first bicycle ride to grocery shop with Maria! WOW... freedom! The bike ride there was refreshing... BUT then the trek back ... LOL what a calamity...trying to balance the groceries on the bike on the very bumpy roads! That’s a first for me.... glad I didn’t have to carry water on my head as well! tee hee;)
- sure, we knew we’d get rain most days at this time in the season yes...expected, but our experience with the rain Sunday night had us in AWE as well.... a torrential downpour succeeded in turning an entire street in Samara into a raging RIVER in a FLASH, as we were having dinner at Momma G’s italian restaurant! The water came in sooo fast eventually reaching the ‘top’ of the patio’s wall almost to the point of overflow.... We concluded dinner and as we headed for Patrick and Sharon’s car I inadvertently went for a swim as I had no idea idea there were steps down to the street YUP... I missed the step and SPLASH!!!! soaked from neck down including purse!! As if that wasn’t enough of a mishap, we got home to find our kitchen floor entirely covered in ankle-deep water... we used every towel in house to ‘mop’ it up for several hours!! YUP when it rains here it RAINS!!!!! (note to self: remember steps, buy new mop head)
ps. I don’t recall ever having to ‘lay’ money out to try to DRY (psst I had mucho cashola due to upcoming tuition payment so I had to dry a lot!!! When I paid tuition last Monday I had to give them damp $$$ - I just said ‘don’t ask’ LOL
pps... wet money all GONE:) imagine how that happens??!!!! lmao
pps... wet money all GONE:) imagine how that happens??!!!! lmao
- my first week at TEFL Heaven- the people, the learning , the exhaustion and the satisfaction of teaching effective lessons (for the most part- but still lots to improve on).
- Nick’s first surfing lessons! He did so well- he learned the ‘advanced’ way to get on a surf board as he mastered the beginner way instantly! Way to go Nick! He loves it:)
- Our first Friday night on the town with MOST of my classmates (two were not able to join us). We has a BLAST and enjoyed some much needed down time! Nick was instantly welcomed and met some new friends from my group as most are close to his age!!
We were all so exhausted but our adreneline kicked in for a great conversation and learning about each other further!
- a do-nothing Saturday! We just enjoyed the day at our place without going anywhere... sleeping in, chatting, doing laundry, emails and ending the day with pizza & mini series ‘True Detective’ ... can’t wait to see the next two tonight!
Things on to do list for next week:
- get phones set up
- Nick -take resume to Organics Market and check out gym
- our possible zip-lining excursion with class on Sat- yike!!!
- visit turtle sanctuary
- look for mop head teehee
- be awesome!!!!
Cheers everyone!
Pura Vida
Lish and Nick
