TRAVEL
common!”, I tried to defend myself, pathetically. This was when I
realized that Costa Ricans were very well educated.
Later I would meet an incredible amount of people who admired
Dostoevsky, and God was I impressed by it! Having those long
conversations when we were trying to guess which one of the
Karamazov brothers each of us identified with… This was blissful!
At the same time, there were people whose overall knowledge of
the world we live in was not so profound.
My students sometimes shocked me to my very core with some
of their answers in class. When trying to guess who William
Shakespeare and Charles Darwin were, one group assumed
that the first was a great detective (assume he was going for
“Sherlock Holmes”, a slight mix-up) and the second – a sculptor.
Other times they entertained me a lot with their great sense of
humor.
Once we were playing a game where one of the students is sitting
with their back to the board and trying to guess the word written
on it with the help of the classmates, who are trying to explain it
the best way they can.
The word on the board was “huge”. A girl was waiting for the
class to start giving her hints.
You would expect that the best way to explain it would be saying
“very big”, but my student found a better one still.
She said, “Oh, your butt is like that!”
The word was guessed correctly in a matter of seconds.
It was really amusing trying to follow their logic!
The word on the board – “fantastic”.
“When you drink a lot of alcohol, you’re an alcoholic; and when
you drink a lot of Fanta, you are…?”
Another correct guess, of course.
My students I could spend weeks talking about. I loved my
job immensely, lots of my students have since become my dear
friends.
I remember one time I was teaching a chapter about life
experiences. I gave my group an assignment: they had to make a
presentation about a significant life experience of theirs. Little did
I know that the next class would make me bawl like a baby.
I was ready to hear stories about fun trips, graduations and
weddings. What I heard was quite different from that.
The first student to give her speech was a girl who always looked
happy in class, always laughed and made others laugh.
She started off by telling us of her childhood. Her dad left her
when she was little, she never knew him. Her Mom, to be able to
make ends meet, had to work several jobs, and was almost never
home to take care of her daughter. Most of the day she was left
alone. She had few friends, and no close family, and by the age of
sixteen she was so lonely and so desperate for human company
and affection, that she got married to the first guy she ever went
out with – who turned out to be a troubled drug addict. She had
a baby with him. Soon the guy was arrested on a drug-related
charge, and last she heard of him, was killed in prison. But she was
trying her best to keep on going, and not to let her baby suffer
the same destiny she had – she was determined to never let her
baby feel lonely. By the time she finished, I couldn’t speak. All my
energy was going into stopping myself from bursting out crying.
I managed to thank her briefly for her speech, and called on a
younger student to continue.
He was a boy of about 13. Could his story be this tear-jerking?
Oh, yes, it could.
His Mom was also rising him and his siblings alone. Life was
tough.
But then, several years ago, she met an American guy, who
wanted to marry her and live with her in the States. For some
reason, legal or otherwise, I’m not sure, the kids couldn’t come
with her.
The boy was telling me about the day his mother left. They were
at the airport, and his Mom was hugging him and telling him that
it could be the last time they saw each other.
I am not sure if there have been many more times in my life when I
was quite as depressed.
Another story worth telling occurred when I was just starting to
work in Costa Rica. It was my second week, and in my Saturday
class there was a young girl who hadn’t come the week before.
I greeted everyone and asked the girl why she had missed the
previous class. She looked at me, and I saw her huge eyes fill up
with tears.
She said, “I went to see a doctor, teacher. And he told me…He
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told me that I was... pregnant!” I could barely understand this last
word, cause she started bawling.
I was shocked and swore to myself that I would never ever make
inquiries about why my students miss my classes.
I’m happy to say that Jennifer continued studying in that group
until the day of her graduation, which she attended together with
her newborn child.
Another impressive aspect of life in Costa Rica is, of course, its
tropical climate. Which means that the seasons as we know them
do not exist there; instead, there are other two – the season
of rain, and the dry season. Each of them lasts approximately 6
months. The temperature stays the same, around 25 degrees.
The dry season lasts from November till April, and is sure lovely.
You could go to one of the country’s gorgeous beaches every
weekend, or enjoy the beauty and freshness of the mountains.
As you can imagine, I loved going to the beach and went as often
as I could. My favorite one is called Manuel Antonio; there you
can find a public beach and a beach inside a National Park reserve.
This last one is a true little paradise where you can escape from
the civilized world for a while. To get to the se