For starters, I apologize for being M.I.A. I’ve never been one to actively journal, blog, or record my thoughts in a more sophisticated (debatable) manner than text messages, Facebook posts, or just plain verbalizing the crazy that goes on in my mind.
With that being said, a lot has changed since my last post. And a lot more in going to change really soon.
First, I’m a legit TEFL-certified English instructor now and I absolutely love teaching. During my TEFL program, we had 10 practicum teaching experiences and I absolutely loved being at the head of the classroom, instructing on topics ranging from sports vocabulary and the past perfect tense to idioms and the third conditional. Don’t know what those are? Great, I teach private classes too at $15 an hour.
I also gave private lessons to an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) student as part of my program, and I really enjoyed getting to know him and teach him with my project partner. Most of you are probably familiar with the term “ESL,” which stands for English as a Second Language, but ESL classes are typically taught in English-speaking countries (i.e. the US). But in a country that doesn’t speak English (i.e. Costa Rica), English is a foreign language, so instructing English is referred to as EFL.
Second, living with a host family turned out to be both a rewarding experience and mildly frustrating. Don’t get me wrong, it was great to see a real Tico (more colloquial term for Costa Rican) family’s culture and make simple observations on cultural differences on a daily basis. However, I never really felt fully welcomed into their family and more often than not, felt like I was a business transaction for them. I’m sure that since they get 11-12 students a year, it must be hard for them to get close to students only to have to say goodbye to them days later. Also, the daughters (15 and 8 years old) fought all the time and would constantly wake me up at 7am (even on the weekends) fighting about something in rapid-fire Spanish, or distract me from studying at 9pm. Lastly, the dogs barked at me every single time they saw me, every hour I was home, every day I was there, for a solid month. By the end, I wanted to harness my inner Cruela Devil and make a fur coat out of their pelts. Okay, not that dramatic but they really got on my nerves by the end of my stay.
Third, life after my program has definitely shifted. I only live about 4 blocks from my host family, but life couldn’t be more different. Primarily, I feel like I have total freedom to do whatever I want with the three other people I live with and stay out as late as we like. Brittany is my immediate housemate. She’s from Ohio, has a bit of a midwestern accent, and loves wearing the color green. Julia and Ryan live upstairs and are cousins. Julia is from North Carolina, was semi-dating this Tico guy who can’t get over his ex so it makes things complicated, and she always watches movies with Brittany and me. Ryan is from New Jersey, but sounds like he’s from California. He’s great at soccer and has found a really good balance between work and play: he works two jobs, but is always down to go out on Saturday nights and is typically the life of the party.
Most Saturdays, we work all day and then go out at night, normally until the wee hours of Sunday morning. When I say the wee hours of Sunday morning, I actually mean 7-8am. If we’re not going to bed when the sun’s out on Sunday, something went awry. I guess that’s just how they do it in Costa Rica.
Fourth, although I’m a fully certified teacher, I don’t actually teach that much here. I was in this weird predicament where yes, I’ll be staying until October, but most English Institutes want to hire someone for a 6 month run. So, I had reached out to a lot of institutes letting them know I’m here until October 10th and able to substitute teach. However, most didn’t get back to me, and the ones that did, would “Let me know” if they ever needed a substitute. So far, I’ve had a handful of substitute teaching jobs. Luckily, one school actually hired me to teach two classes a week. At Lapa Verde, I teach a group of 5-6 year olds and another class of 9-10 year olds. I absolutely love it. They’re so cute and I love teaching starter students because everything is new to them, and they feel so proud of themselves for being able to say something as simple as “I have brown hair” in English. I also had another job offer at this institute called Inlingua, but they ended up not wanting me to work there because I’m leaving in October. It was annoying because they hired me fully knowing that I was leaving mid-October. I wasn’t really feeling them but they somewhat pressured me into working with them, and then ended up cancelling on me two days before I was supposed to start. Oh well. All’s well that end’s well.
Fifth, I finally got a gym membership with a month left in Costa Rica. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the sweaty sanctuary of meat-head grunts and ladies in sports bras, but I really did. It’s also really fun to always whip out my phone to Google the conversion from kilograms to pounds, so that I know how much weaker I’ve gotten in the 2 months I’ve gone without lifting. Granted, I would work out at the free gym in the park, but there’s only so much you can do with monkey bars and body-weight resistant machines.
Sixth, I’ve decided that I’m definitely going to move to Spain at the end of October. I’ve already started looking into teaching jobs and what the process is going to look like to find an apartment in Barcelona. I was also really disheartened to know of the tragic events that unfolded in Barcelona in August. But I’m optimistic about the future and the beautiful nature of human empathy that brings people together after a tragedy. A few people have asked me if I feel scared moving there after such an episode of outright violence, but the fact of the matter is that those things happen everywhere. Should I feel scared to go to a movie theater because someone opened fire on an audience? Should I feel scared to go to an elementary school? The park? A university library? No. So I don’t feel scared moving to a beautiful city like Barcelona.
Seventh, I miss people back home. I miss my family, my friends, my old coworkers. I knew I would miss people, but I wasn’t expecting to feel left out of a lot of things: my cousin giving birth to her second son, the announcement of one of my friends being pregnant, a future Thanksgiving where my entire family (minus me and my sisters) were going to be present. Yes, I’m excited to be here fulfilling my dreams of living abroad and making traveling my full-time experience, but sometimes I miss the stability and ease of everyday life back home, being able to drive rather than take the bus, or speak to locals without sticking out like a sore thumb.
But overall, Costa Rica is an amazing country and this has been a phenomenal experience. I have a feeling I’ll be back here sooner rather than later. I only have a week left. I’m sad to think of saying goodbye after what only feels like a short time, but I’m incredibly excited for what’s to come!
