El Fin del Año!

I didn’t know if I’d make it, but here I am in one piece! I made it to the last day of school! It has been crazy these last few weeks and my work isn’t near done yet, but I am done giving classes for this year. I’ve not only been busy wrapping up school stuff but I’ve also been trying to squeeze in fun activities with friends since the weather has been nicer. Last weekend a bunch of us took off for a beach about 3 ½ hours away called Manuel Antonio. It was a beautiful place and a great chance to hang out with our Bible study group from church and a few other friends. We came back from the beach Sunday night and dove right back into exams Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was our last day with our students in which we celebrated the end of the year with a talent show/Christmas presentation and an outdoor carnival. It was a beautiful day for a Christmas party, about 82 degrees, sunny, clear blue skies, and a nice breeze- what everyone here calls Christmas weather. I think it would be pretty easy to get used to this kind of Christmas weather.

The party was really fun and a great opportunity to meet parents and hang out with the kids one last time before the end of the year. I took lots of pictures and talked to parents for a long time and enjoyed feeling like a kid as I ate McDonald’s for breakfast, nachos for lunch as well as granizados, cotton candy, and soda throughout the day. I didn’t get to go on the inflatable toys though. :) I did however get to take part in the talent show by accompanying one of the secretaries who has a gorgeous voice. We performed a Christmas song by Jaci Velasquez. It was really fun and my students cheered so loud for me. It was really sweet.

Anyway, so yesterday began our 10 days of staff work days to wrap up the year. This includes entering grades, completing exit profiles for some of our students, organizing all the material we used this year (digital and paper copies), writing and giving make up exams for students who didn’t pass, meeting with parents, organizing the library, and cleaning the school. When I first heard that we had over two weeks of extra work days at the end of the school year I was surprised and couldn’t imagine why we would need so much time, but now that we are here I am grateful that these days are built into the schedule. It has also been a really nice chance to spend more time with my coworkers. I am so blessed with a great group of people to work with. They help me figure things out, the correct my mistakes in Spanish, and they make sure I’m experiencing everything that is important to experience in Costa Rica. They also tease me a fair amount. For example, our whole conversation today during lunch in the staff room revolved around the theme of “Let’s find Lynne a Tico husband so she’ll stay here longer.” One of our administrators thought I should get to know her son but another teacher said she disagreed because she found the perfect man for me at her church. They make me laugh and sometimes embarrass me, but they have been so welcoming and helpful.

We have 8 more teacher work days but I can hardly think about work anymore because I’m so excited about my family coming a week from today!!! I can’t wait to show them my life here! And I am just as excited for the time I get to spend at home with them and a bunch of friends. My goal this week will be to try and stay focused on work long enough to get the rest of the things on my list accomplished. Right now I am packing up getting ready to head out on a church retreat with our young adults group. I only know a few people from that group but Leslie and I decided to take the opportunity to get to know more people and to get away and have some God time after these last few crazy weeks.

Praises and Prayer Requests

Yes, so it has officially been forever since I’ve updated my blog but if you had been here the last couple weeks I think you would understand why. I feel like all of us teachers are even more ready for the end of the year than our students. We’re so ready for a break yet we have more work in the next few weeks than probably any time this entire year. Good news is that I finished and turned in my last set of exams that I will start giving on Wednesday. The bad news is that over the next week or two I have to enter all the homework grades, quiz grades, exam grades, behavior grades and all that as well as completing student exit profiles. Oh the life of a teacher. I can’t really complain though because even with a boat load of work the last month has been really good with my students. They are starting to respond to me better and I can tell that they are more comfortable with me. I have let myself be a little more crazy and weird with them and I think they appreciate that. :)

Some of you probably already know this, but I have agreed to continue teaching here after Christmas, but I am petitioning the directors to let me commit to teaching half of the year with them and coming home in June or July. Although I will not officially have their answer until I finish here in December, from what I have heard it sounds like they are planning to accept that position. This way they will not be left stranded looking for a teacher to replace me in a month or two, but they will have more time to recruit and I have agreed to help make some contacts at Whitworth with the hopes of finding myself a replacement that I could train in June. I feel very comfortable and confident with this option and I am looking forward to being able to begin a new year here and establish my rules and procedures from the beginning. I am also looking forward to being here during the dry months of the year. The weather here right now is just starting to get nice again for which I am very grateful.

Instead of trying to sum up everything that has happened since my last post I’m just going to write about a few prayer requests and praises that have been on my heart lately.

Praises:

1. Next year: I am so grateful that I have made a decision about next year and that I feel at peace with that decision. I know next year is going to be hard but I feel like this is the right decision for me.

2. Family: My family is coming in 24 days! I am so excited about it that sometimes I want to scream! My mom has been going crazy getting everything planned down to every last little detail which has been great for me because I haven’t had much time to help with the planning. We are going to vacation in two of the places that I have not been in Costa Rica and best of all everyone tells me that the weather here in December is great. So excited!

3. Spanish: I am starting to feel like my Spanish is finally improving. Of course I still make lots of mistakes but I am getting more comfortable using Spanish with the people I have met here. This week I even gave my testimony in Spanish at a Bible study we are going to now which was a huge deal for me. :) I’ve also had multiple people compliment me on how my Spanish is improving. Yay!

4. Students: Although some of my students continue to cause numerous problems in the classroom I have noticed a little bit of an improvement in their behavior as a whole. I also have many students who have been showing their appreciation for me by bringing me candy, fruit, or handmade cards. Last week I was talking with three 5^th grade girls and they asked me if I was going to continue teaching next year. I said that yes, I probably would but that I probably wouldn’t be teaching 6^th grade. The looks on their faces were precious and one of them told me that I should definitely switch to 6^th grade. I told her that that is the decision of the principal. They turned to each other and said, “we’re gonna have to have a talk with her.”

5. Friends: I think that in one of my earlier posts I mentioned that it has seemed kind of hard to make Tico friends. That is still true but God has blessed me and Leslie recently with a new group of friends from our church. It is a group of guys and girls in their 20s to early 30s who have a Bible study on Friday evenings. We joined them for Bible study and loved getting to know them. We ended up hanging out with them on Saturday after church and all afternoon Sunday. It was super fun. I have also gotten closer to two of our "non tico" friends and it feels kind of like we have formed our own family. We talk about almost everything and even do the motherly "text me when you get home" thing.

Prayer Requests:

1. End of the Year: These last few weeks are pretty overwhelming because of all the stress to get ready for exams and for the students to do well on them. We are all ready for the school year to be finished and the kids are even more ready. Unfortunately this means I am having more behavior problems again that create some very frustrating days. I keep telling myself “only ____ more days!” But reality is, if I’m struggling with classroom management now, I will most likely struggle with it next year as well. So, I’m praying, as always, for new ways to motivate my kids.

2. Housing: Leslie and I are in the process of scouting out houses and apartments for rent because we would like to live somewhere else for our next 6 months here. The house we’re in right now has been great and a huge blessing but we would like to share a place with a few of our friends and distance ourselves a little bit from the school. The whole living at school thing can feel kind of isolated at times yet sometimes it feels like we don’t have very much privacy. Anyway, we are looking for a place that is cheap, houses 4 people, is within walking distance or easy bussing distance from the school. It would be great to get a placed nailed down before we both leave for Christmas but it’s also nice to know we can stay here in this house until we find a place.

3. School Stuff: This end of the year is going to be tough on some members of the staff here at the school because enrollment for next year is down by a significant amount which means they are looking at laying a few teachers off. Because it’s a small school it’s a little bit like a family and the idea of people having to leave is pretty sad. Also, there are not a whole lot of other teaching jobs available here. I know that God will bring the right amount of students to the school but I’m praying that the people who do get let go will feel God’s protection and remember that He will always provide for us.

It’s encouraging to look above and see that my “praises” outnumber my “prayer requests.” God has truly blessed me with this experience and it has been amazing to see how He has worked in and through me during the last few months. I am looking forward (sometimes a little fearfully) to all that He is going to teach me in the coming months. I am also very much looking forward to seeing my family and spending some time at home for Christmas. :)

Basking on Beautiful Beaches in Bocas del Toro, Panama

I think I’ve found my new favorite vacation place. Spending the weekend on a beautiful island in the Caribbean off the coast of Panama was the best way to refresh myself for the last few months of the school year. Leslie and I decided to call it our happy place and to think of it every time we are stressed at school or missing our families. Anyway, I’m going to tell you about this trip because I highly recommend it if you want a beautiful, warm, fairly cheap vacation place, but I need to start at the beginning.

Busses: The distance from my house to Bocas del Toro really isn’t that much, but the roadways here are not as direct as in the states and taking busses always takes longer. We left our house around 12:30 in the afternoon on Friday to get to the Caribbean bus station in San Jose. It takes one bus and one taxi to get to the station. When we got to the booth to buy our tickets we were told that the 2:00 bus was sold out and we’d have to wait until the 4:00 one. Nothin like sitting in a bus station for a few hours. The bus trip was pretty long but painless. I spent the first few hours having a great conversation with my friend Jessie who was came with us. The bus made a few stops but we weren’t going to get off until the last stop. We rolled into a little border town called Sixoula around 10:30. By the time we got there we were the only ones left on the bus which in itself is a little disconcerting, but we hopped of the bus in the rain hoping to find a place to stay. It turns out that Sixoula is little more than a bus stop. It had a few bars, one restaurant, and one “hotel” that was hidden down a dark alley. The place was sketchy but we didn’t have much of a choice so we paid for two rooms which were just a few feet bigger than the creaky double beds in them. The bathroom was down the hall and around the corner and I counted 6 lizards on the way to brush my teeth. I also woke up during the night several times to the sound of something running across the roof. I hope it was only a lizard and not a rat or something else. Even with the company we all got some sleep and were grateful to wake up to sunshine. (which we hadn’t seen in over a week) We packed up our stuff and walked through “down town” towards the border.

Border Crossing: This post would not be complete without explaining the experience of crossing the Costa Rica-Panama border. If the experience of spending the night in Sixoula wasn’t sketchy enough we proceeded through town to the border which you cross by walking across an old train trestle with boards missing all over the place. One the Costa Rican side there was a little building where you got your exit stamp and filled out a form for why you were leaving the country. Pretty normal, but I was disturbed to see a woman who obviously hadn’t showered or changed her clothes for days standing off to the side rambling in Spanish. I didn’t catch all of what she said because most of it didn’t make sense, but I did here her say that she was being kept there because she didn’t have her documents. Then I realized she was handcuffed to the fence. Someone else in line with us asked her if they had given her any food and she said yes, but that’s about all we could do for her. Hopefully she got everything straightened out ok. Thankfully she wasn’t there 2 days later when we came back across the border.

Bike Rides: We were so grateful to finally make it to our hostel and we were so excited that it was so much nicer than the one in Sixoula. Our hostel was literally right on the water but didn’t really have a beach at all, however it had a large dock with hammocks, a bar/restaurant, and lots of tables and chairs. It was by far my favorite hostel I’ve stayed in. It was a great place to chill and enjoy the beautiful view and it even had live music one of the nights we were there (music got louder and more pitchy as the band consumed more alcohol) :) After checking into our hostel that first day and taking a little power nap we walked through town to find a place to rent bikes so we could ride over to the other side of the island where there are really nice beaches. Bocas is a pretty popular place so it took us 3 or 4 tries before we found a place that had bikes for the 4 of us. We were told that the bike ride to the nicest beach took about 1 ½ hours and since we had to be back by 6 to return the bikes we took off at a pretty good pace. The scenery was beautiful and the temperature was perfect. There is a beautiful little road that winds all the way around the island right along the beach. After the first 15 minutes of riding the road turned into dirt/sand/gravel which made riding a little bit harder but thankfully it wasn’t too muddy. We stopped at a few cute little beaches but found one farther down that was gorgeous and empty. We parked our bikes and dove into the water so excited to be at the beach at last!

Beaches: You know in all those sappy romance movies where in the last scene the guy and the girl making out on this romantic tropical beach? Well, that’s what these beaches looked like. Gentle waves. Clear bluish green water. Tropical fish. Palm trees. Clean sand. Coral. Beautiful shells. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

Buceando (snorkeling): I had never been snorkeling before and was kind of hesitant to pay $30 for the tour that we heard about but when everyone else decided to go I decided to suck it up and pay for what I hoped would be a cool experience. That was a great choice. Snorkeling with these guys was awesome! The couple that took us was a woman from Cuba and a man from Spain that had moved down to Bocas to start their diving business. They had invented a plastic shield type thing to use to snorkel behind a boat. These shield things were attached to the back of the boat and had handles to hold onto with. So we didn’t have to swim. The coolest thing was that we could use the shield things to steer where we were going and it was almost like scuba diving because we could dive under the water just by tilting the shield down and when we ran out of breath all we had to do was tilt it back up and we’d be at the service in a couple of seconds. Such a cool way to snorkel! We were able to see lots of different types of fish, coral, and even a big mantaraya (a stingray).

After doing the tour behind the boat we all boated out to a beautiful little island that had tons of different types of birds on it. Our tour guide said, “ok, you can all hop out and swim,” so we jumped into the water and snorkeled around the island seeing more fish and watching the pelicans dive down from the palm trees into the water. We continued on from there to a different beach called Playa de las Estrellas (Star Beach) because it was known for having tons of star fish. We ended up only seeing one, but then we got to try out the tube device they had. Compared to all the tube rides I’ve done at Hood Canal this one was pretty lame, but I was just excited about the idea of tubing in the Caribbean ocean in Panama. :) It would have been awesome to be able to ski there, but it is almost unheard of down here. But all day as we were boating around I was just longing to ski because the water was so warm and so flat it would have been perfect!

All in all it was an amazing trip that I am so glad I took. Crazy new experiences and beautiful country. It was kind of tough to come back to work the next day especially because we are in the worst part of rainy season and it rained night and day for 13 days. (the longest it’s rained here in over 40 years) It made me have more sympathy for Noah because even the sound of the rain was starting to sound super annoying to me. Thankfully the last few days have been better and we are even seeing the sun a little bit. I can’t believe that we have less than 5 weeks left in the school year! And, my family’s going to be here in 45 days!

Heart to Heart

So there have been a couple things on my mind over the last few weeks that I feel like I need to share with you so you can have a real understanding of what my life has been like here not just the adventures I have had and the trips I have taken, but the day to day stuff.

1. Although there have been many great days of teaching where I feel affirmed in my choice to be a teacher there have also been many days where I’ve come home and cried because I feel incapable of doing this job well. I know that I am incapable of doing any of this without God, but I often choose to wallow in self pity rather than ask God for guidance and support. This job is harder than anything I’ve ever done and I often feel like I am not meeting the school’s expectations or the expectations of the parents. The language barrier sometimes seems so big that I feel like I cannot communicate anything to them without using Spanish which leads me to number two.

2. I think God is using the language barrier to humble me. While I know I am improving in my Spanish I feel like I’m making such slow progress that sometimes I don’t even want to try anymore. Mostly everyone is very nice and patient with me when I’m speaking Spanish and occasionally people compliment me on how my Spanish is improving. I am getting more comfortable talking with the other teachers and staff here which has been a really good thing because I have gotten to know several of them more during the last few weeks. However, because many people here speak English, if they here you struggling with Spanish they will switch to English to try and help you out. This is nice for convenience sake, but I can’t help feeling frustrated when I’m searching for a word in Spanish and they “give up” trying to understand me and switch to English. I know that this will change as I practice more and get better but I feel like I should have made it farther by now now that I’ve been here about 3 months.

3. The decision about next year has been weighing heavily on my mind the last few weeks because I need to make a decision within the next 2 or 3 weeks. As some of you know already I am strongly considering committing to another 5-6 months of teaching here. I didn’t know the option of teaching only half the year was a possibility until Leslie and I talked about it one day then talked to our bosses about it also. As much as they’d like us to stay for an entire year, they know it will be hard to find replacements for us and would rather have us stay for 5 months during which they could be looking for replacements for us. I was really wrestling with this decision about a month ago and felt like God wasn’t giving me clear direction because I was leaning toward one option one day and the other the next day, but since thinking about staying another 5 months I’ve been very much at peace about it. Nothing is settled by any means, but I feel confident that the decision is in God’s hands (and the hands of the school directors) and that if God wants me to stay he will show me that through what the directors decide.

4. I have also been struggling a little bit with ungratefulness lately. I think that part of the problem is when I’m feeling homesick I think about the things in the states that I don’t have here. Also, there are so many fun things to do here but many of them are very expensive. I’ve gotten to do a lot of cool things since getting here, but there are so many other things I wish I had time and money to do. The other day while Leslie and I were sitting waiting for a bus we were talking about or housing possibilities for next year and trying to figure out if we could afford to move to an apartment or house off the school campus. When we broke it down we realized that we make less than $5 an hour when we’re at school. That doesn’t include the 2-5 hours we spend working on grading and lesson planning ever evening or the work we do on the weekends. Although that’s a little depressing when I think about trying to save up money for airline tickets or weekend trips to the beach I have everything I need here and I need to remember that I’m here for the experience and to make a difference in kids’ lives not to make a fortune.

5. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know some of the teachers better in the last few weeks. They are starting to be more comfortable with me and joke around with me. Spending a whole day with them this week on our staff trip to the beach helped a lot. Hanging out at a nice resort in Puntarenas was completely different from being around each other at school. I loved seeing all of my coworkers in a more casual environment. I’m hoping that as this year ends and as next year begins I will be able to get to know them even more and that I will feel more a part of the school staff.

So that’s what’s been on my mind the last few weeks. Basically I want you to get a feel for the ups and downs that are a part of my life here. God’s been teaching me a lot through these ups and downs and I’m working on being grateful during the downs as well as the ups. :) Thanks for all your prayers!