This is the view from my desk at the school.

Friday, January 30, 2009
I had an “I love being here” moment today. Imagine a perfect spring day and a moment of unexpected calm and that was it. It was an absolutely gorgeous day; the clearest one we’ve had yet and it was neither hot nor cold out. I found out at 11:57am that school ends at noon every Friday. There are meetings and professional development activities for teachers Friday afternoon, but the kids are gone, so it was pretty quiet.
Kaz ran home, grabbed his laptop, and got one of the school buses to stop at the house and take him to the bottom of the hill. I do marvel at his ability to stop buses. He then walked into town to one of the cafés where he could get an internet connection. It is great that he can be so independent here.
Around 3:30, Dolly was headed out of town for the weekend, and the cab that came to fetch her at the school gave me a lift down to the town (Santa Elena) to meet Kaz. Later, Kaz and I grabbed a bite at a local “Soda,” a little hole in the wall that serves cheap, local food. At my suggestion, Kaz tried the tongue and really liked it. He is quite adventuresome.
When we got home, Kaz asked if we could watch a DVD of the movie, “Mamma Mia.” Since we do not have a TV, we just watched it on the computer. It was the third time I had seen the movie, and I just love it, although I can certainly understand how some might see it as sappy or silly. Kaz hated it, but put up with most of it and later wanted to know how it ends.
Thursday, January 29
Dolly needs her own classroom. It is so inefficient for her to be running all over the campus to teach her classes. Just trying to remember what papers, materials, equipment and supplies to take with her is a logistical nightmare and a drain on her brain. Serendipitously, there is a large area right next to her/our office that looks like a car port that would be a perfect place for a classroom. Right now, it is a cave-like junk area complete with scrap metal and broken chairs, but I could see a group of volunteers whipping it into a working classroom space in just a couple of days. I’ll try to post a picture at some point.
With Dolly’s blessing, I went to feel out the Volunteer Coordinator, Bethany, as to what to do with this idea. Her first response was that Dolly’s classroom was the campus, the rain forest and the other outside areas. I wondered aloud where the school expected her to teach when it rains like crazy for five months every year. I pointed out the inefficiencies inherent in having Dolly drag herself and her stuff everywhere. “She can use the greenhouse,” was the reply. The problem is that the greenhouse is too small for the average sized class. Furthermore, the greenhouse has been the kingdom of the environmental stewardship teacher and native horticulturist since the school was founded. And while Dolly should be working very closely with him, it would not be right for her to invade his space. I pointed out that if the school’s focus is supposed to be on environmental science, the Environmental Science Coordinator should have a dedicated classroom space. “Okay,” Bethany said, warming up to the idea, “I will talk to Scott.”
“I love you!” Dolly told me when she heard the news.
Wednesday, January 28
Everyone’s eyes look so beautiful here. I don’t know if it is because of the light or if their eyes are reflecting an inner contentment, or if it is because most of the teachers and of course all the kids are younger than me, so maybe I am just noticing the sparkle of youth. I think people generally have better eye contact here, too, and I know most people get a good night of sleep which makes their eyes look bright, white, and healthy. The reason everyone gets more sleep here is that it gets dark around 6:00 and there isn’t much to do, so even the 20-somethings report being in bed by 9:30. One intern told me this is the first time since he was a small child that he has been able to get eight hours of sleep a night.
Kaz really likes it here. He is very happy with his teachers, has made some friends, and is already telling me on a daily basis that he wants to stay through next year. He joined an Improvisation group that is run by the theater teacher from the Monteverde Friends School and that meets every Wednesday afternoon. Today he said, “School in America is a rat race and I got out before I lost. I don’t think it is a good fit for me.” He’s right. Unfortunately, schools in America aren’t a good fit for a lot of kids. Or as one of my education professors at the University of Maryland said a couple of years ago, “If you want my honest opinion- public schools destroy children.” This school does its best to educate the whole child in creative ways rather than killing children with less-than-ideal schedules and standards. I can see where this is a huge relief for Kaz, who was getting pretty burned out by his school program back home.
An observation- When we took the third graders on a field trip Monday, the teacher was able to call roll on the bus without a list. She had memorized her students’ names in alphabetical order. I had never seen anyone do that before.
It’s raining again. No surprise there. Even when it is not raining, there is a near constant parade of mist that blows through the area at random times during the day. You know the “misters” at the National Zoo that spray a fine mist on visitors during the summer? Well, they have natural misters here that spit on the area every day all year round.
Tuesday, January 27
My first day at the school (yesterday) ended with a 2-hour meeting of the high school faculty. The meeting began with a minute of silence; not a moment of silence, but a full minute. There are strange little Quaker traditions like that which remind me of my days at Swarthmore and of teaching at Sandy Spring Friends School. The Head of the Cloud Forest School graduated from Swarthmore, as did the Science teacher for all the high school classes. An intern who arrives next week is a current student at Swarthmore who will be doing her student teaching here, and I am here. The kids call their teachers by their first names- also a Quaker tradition. But, the school doesn’t claim to be Quaker, it just acts that way sometimes.
The purpose of the staff meeting was to identify things that are going well and things that are not, mostly in response to some serious complaints by several parents of high school students, and some general dissatisfaction among the high school faculty. The Head of School, Scott, did a great job presenting the issues, taking responsibility for some of the problems, and offering solutions. It sounds like the high school program lacks needed formal communication lines. This came to a head when Scott was out for three weeks this month after his wife had a baby and then suffered some complications.
In addition to problems with communication, a couple of other problems were discussed at the meeting. Last Fall, the school took a chance by admitting 20 students from the local public high school. Their English was generally poor, and while some students have progressed well, others have become behavior problems instead. At this point, no one seems to be able to handle the 10th grade cohort. A second issue for the school is the high turnover of teachers, who generally stay for only a year or two before moving on. Scott says the main reason teachers leave is the low pay ($500 per month).
One thing Scott will do, he said, is to spend 80% of his time for the foreseeable future in high school classrooms so he can assess the situation and make recommendations to teachers, students, and their families. He also is sending a letter to the parents of every high school student to say that all students will be evaluated this spring to determine if they will be asked back next Fall.
A list of students who are failing one or more classes was presented. All failing students had already been asked why they felt they were failing those classes, and this feedback was given to the teachers in writing. The reverse was done, too- all faculty members were asked about the failing students, and several students were identified as needing special education resources. The school does have two special education teachers who will work with the newly identified students to see if they can’t improve. I was happy to see they don’t just throw kids away here; they really do try to help them first. Other kids, however, are not making the effort, and will probably be asked to leave the school in June.
Long story short, it was a very well-run, productive staff meeting, and I think teachers left feeling like they need to band together, work hard, and make some tough decisions this Spring in the best interests of the kids.
Kaz made breakfast this morning- eggs with ham, jello and pears. He even made toast by frying the bread in a pan since we have no toaster. He also made dinner tonight- soup, rice, fried plantains, and jello. I made some guacamole as an appetizer. Everything takes so much longer to prepare due to the lack of a microwave, lack of prepared foods, lack of a dishwasher, and lack of a car to take to the store. Our altitude means that it takes longer for water to boil, too. It is hard to get and prepare food here which I guess explains why so many people are skinny.

Ants!

The picture above shows the storage room for all of Dolly's "stuff" at the school. It really needs shelves and some organizing.

This is the view from the main porch at the school. The lighter blue strip in the distance is water, and the farthest dark strip of mountains are a peninsula. The picture below shows Eduardo, the groundskeeper and maintenance man. The school does not own a mower, so he is cutting the grass with a weed whacker. Took him all afternoon. The school owns 106 acres of land which it purchased from the Nature Conservancy for a very good price. the land came with certain easements that require the school to reforest much of the cleared land and that prevent the school from selling any part of the land to a for-profit enterprise.

Dolly (below, right) and a group of students stand at a lookout at the Children's Forest, a HUGE area of the rain forest that was purchased with donations from children all over the world. The area is easily 20 times as large as the Monteverde Reserve.

Outdoor Ed.- who needs a classroom?

I found this painting and posting in an obscure corner of the main office area today. Someone told me both were done by students. I think they capture very nicely exactly what the school is trying to teach the kids.


You know, it's really windy here. They tell me it's worse in December, but geez, I feel like I am in a wind tunnel sometimes. I wondered if the wind was causing some of the bumps we hear in the night, but was informed today that many of the noises are caused by nocturnal animals who drop large pits or seeds or other things on the roof.



This picture was taken on Monday when we took the kids to the Monteverde Rainforest Reserve.
One of the kids found a small, thin avocado, about the size of her pinky, and the guide was telling us how the Queztal bird swallows the avocado whole, digests the skin and pulp, and then regurgitates the pit. Apparently, if this process does not occur, new avocado trees will not grow. In other words, you can't just take an avocado pit and throw it into the rainforest and expect it to grow. There is an important chemical process that happens in the stomach of the bird that prepares the seed for germination. One kid asked why the bird doesn't just expel the pit out its other end. I think the answer is that it is way too big to pass through the bird like that, but I didn't quite catch it all since the guide was speaking in Spanish really fast.

This is the classroom at the Reserve where a woman guided the kids through some skits and some slides of animals they would not be likely to see, either because they are extinct (like the Sapo Dorado frog- the last one was seen in 1988), rare (the Quetzal- but we saw one!), or nocturnal, such as mountain lions and owls.

Sorry this picture is a bit blurry, but I love this kid (the one in the blue sweater). His name is Daniel, and his mother is the school secretary. He is 100% Costa Rican, as are 97% of the students at the school.

Here, Daniel and his classmates are trying to find the 24 rainforest plants and trees on the "placemat" the rainforest educator gave them. They were able to find almost all of them, and they got to bring the placemats back to school with them. the next day, we walked around the school campus looking for the same plants. the kids ere able to find a bunch of them.

As an aside, it looks like we might be able to rent a different house from Daniel's uncle beginning sometime next week. In the meantime, I am still heating water on the stove every few days to wash my hair and take a sponge bath.

My "Office"

Here it is- my office at the Cloud Forest School. They replaced the child's school desk with the little table you see to the right. I actually liked the child's desk better because it had that cubby in the front into which I could store things.

Pat Foster, The Reserve, and Wilf

On my first day at the Cloud Forest School, we took the third and fourth graders to the Monteverde Reserve. The kids got off the bus and immediately ran off to crowd around this old guy sitting at a picnic table eating a brownie. I asked another teacher, "Who is that?" Turns out, he is Wilf, short for Wilfred, one of the original 11 Quaker settlers in Monteverde. The kids all know him, and he seems to know their parents and grandparents. When the kids finally left him for some instruction, I talked to him for awhile. What an interesting guy. He says in 1950 when they arrived, they bought some land from the government that had some dairy farms on it. They built the Quaker Meeting House and school and raised sugar cane. They also made some cheese and took it to local towns to sell it. Three of his sons grew up and moved to the U.S. and sent money back. Some of that money was used to buy the land that is now the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve.





We saw a Quetzal on our hike through the reserve. It is a beautiful and rare bird. I doubt the kids will ever see one again. We also saw a sloth. Pretty cool.

This is Pat Foster in approprite rain gear at night on the road by our house. Remember I said the road was about a 40-45 degree angle? Pat says I am wrong- that it is around 60 degrees. We decided to get Kaz to figure out a way to measure the angle since he is taking Geometry. (He is in 7th grade at home, but they have put him in 9th grade here).

This next picture shows Pat Foster dancing and singing at the Beatles concert last Saturday. I just want the folks at HHMI to know that I showed her a good time. The picture below shows Kaz making candy from boiled sugar cane juice at the farm. He added some coconut, and we took it with us to share with our dinner hosts on Sunday night. It was both fun to make and good to eat.

This last picture shows Pat and Kaz in an oxcart at the farm. The ox right in front of Kaz pooped a few minutes later while it was pulling us. Kaz had just been talking about how most animals "just go whenever and wherever they want," so we were all pretty amused.

I WILL ADD PICTURES SOON- am having technical difficulties at the moment and have to run teach the 3rd graders.

Monday, January 26
Our first day at the school, and it has finally stopped raining for a few minutes. The 15-minute walk up the mountain is really hard- the road is thin and made of dirt and rocks, but the hardest part is the incline. It has to be between 40 and 45 degrees. I'm serious- it is REALLY steep. Pat came with us to see the place, and we had to stop at least once along the way as all three of us were out of breath.

The view from the school is fabulous when it is not raining. Five minutes after I remarked that the weather was often sunny and rainy at the same time and I was surprised never to have seen a rainbow, someone pointed one out right above the biodiesel shack where the high school students make biodiesel fuel for the school buses.

At 10:00, the school secretary had to take a cab down the hill to the bank to make a deposit and to the post office to retrieve the mail (there is no mail delivery in this area). She took Pat and me along and we stopped at two houses available for rent. The first house was as much of a dump as the house we are living in now. We could not look at the other one because no one was home. She went to the bank, the post office, and the store, then back up the mountain to the school. She apparently does this every day at least once.

My office consists of a child’s desk in a corner of Dolly’s office. Dolly brings her own laptop each day and so do I. The school does not provide computers for us. We do not have a printer, either. Anytime Dolly wants to print something, she saves it to a flash drive, then walks outside and up a small hill to another building where she can use the one printer that serves the entire school.


So, my first request is that y’all take up a collection, send the money to the next person who is coming down for a visit (Kamila?) and have him or her buy us a printer and bring it down.

Other observations- Dolly has no classroom of her own. She teaches in her office, outside, or in a shared space way across the campus. She does have a storage room next to her office, but it has no shelves, just has bins of stuff all over the floor. Shelves would be a godsend; buying them and getting them here is an issue. "Organization is a real issue here," Dolly just said as she rifled through her crate full of file folders looking for a list of students for a field trip.

We met today with a scientist who works at one of the local research stations that is studying the rain forest. We talked about getting some of their daily temperature and rainfall data that goes back to 1977 for the kids to evaluate. She described for us seven “interns” from a program they host for American undergraduates who will be doing projects with us for four weeks this spring.

The school was buzzing with activity all day. There are 240 students plus all the teachers, administrators, bus drivers, maintenance people, interns and volunteers running around. You’ve heard of Mary and her little lamb? Well, here they have a dog named Baxter who follows his owners (three children and a teacher) up the hill when they miss the bus. I first met Baxter in the front office today. The front office has no actual door. I saw Baxter several times later at various locations. Seeing Baxter running around reminded me that when we visited the school back in September, the horses had gotten loose and were running through the grassy area in the middle of the campus. Word has it the environmental stewardship and greenhouse coordinator is buying a goat and some chickens for the school. Never a dull moment...


January 25
Neither wanted to go, but I dragged Kaz and Pat with me on a 2 ½ hour tour of a local family farm that grows coffee and sugar cane. The farm also is experimenting with raising tilapia (the fish). We got to see and learn about how coffee and sugar cane are grown and processed, including seeing up close how all the machines work. In the U.S., they would never let visitors get so close to all the dangerous equipment and boiling sugar. We all LOVED the farm, and now Kaz wants to volunteer there on weekends. The son in the family asked Kaz to call him later to make final arrangements to do that. Now, all we need is a phone. We have been promised a phone, but none has materialized.


Sunday night, we were invited to dinner at the home of Dolly, the woman with whom I will be working for the next four and a half months. She directs the environmental science program for the school and teaches environmental science from Pre-K to 11th grade (there is no 12th grade in Costa Rica). Dolly also invited another teacher and her three sons. The boys got to know Kaz and Dolly and the other teacher tried to bring me up to speed on what is happening at the school. They also told me I was being ripped off after they heard about our house and how much we were paying for it. I will definitely have to do something about that.


Saturday, January 24
You know, it RAINS a lot in the rain forest. I could barely sleep last night (Friday) between the neighbor dog barking his head off as each of their guests arrived, the guests shouting and laughing drunkenly, and the rain pelting the tin roof all night. I was also cold- the house is quite drafty and it is very windy up here on the mountain. I had on a short sleeve shirt, long sleeve shirt, fleece, cotton sweatshirt, pants, socks, and two blankets, but still awoke freezing at 1:10am.


Kaz’s first words when he awoke were, “Mom, someone parked their bicycle in our tree.” Sure enough, there is a rusty child’s bike up in a tree behind the house. In another tree, there is a washing machine. Then Kaz called me an “Ugly American” because I complained that our supposedly furnished house has no forks, no cooking utensils, no usable pots or pans, no decent furniture, a few rags we believe are a sorry excuse for sheets, no pillows, no towels, no phone, no closets, bare light fixtures (no light bulbs), no hot water anywhere, and a toilet that does not flush. I repeat- no phone, no hot water anywhere, and a toilet that does not flush.
I can accept that we do not have a toaster, a microwave, a TV, a dishwasher or a dryer. But forks? You gotta have forks. My colleague, Pat Foster, arrived and helped us drag what looked like an overturned outhouse out of the woods and onto the front porch to use as a table. She tried to change the time on the one clock in the house, but could not do it, so we are trying to remember that it is 42 minutes fast.
At some point, we realized we could either continue to boil water to wash our faces and fill a bucket before using the toilet (to pour in and “force” a flush) and call this an adventure, or we could ask someone to fix everything and actually furnish the place. Pat says, “This is going to get old fast.” Instead of making any big decisions, we walked into town, grabbed a bite to eat, and bought forks and food and other stuff which we then lugged back up the mountain.
In the evening, we went to the local Community Center, where a large group of people were taking turns playing instruments and singing Beatles songs. The event was a fundraiser for the school with an entry fee of 1200 colones (around $2.50) for Kaz and me and 2500 colones ($5) for Pat. The concert went on for over two hours, and nearly everyone was dancing by the end. The musicians and singers were absolutely wonderful. At one point, there were ten performers on the stage playing two violins, a cello, a piano, keyboard, a bass, drums, guitar, an electric piano, and a vocalist. Dave, you would have absolutely LOVED this. Apparently, the lead guitarist was part of a quite famous British band called “Japan” back in the day, but gave it all up to move to Costa Rica and become a biological illustrator. He has just finished illustrating an entire book of birds.
Kaz had fun reconnecting with a bunch of kids from the local Quaker school whom he met when we were here for a short “reconnaissance” visit back in September. I reconnected with many of the school’s staff members, and Pat got to see what a hippie sort of place this is. You really get the feeling you are back in the 1960’s here. Everything is “behind” in various ways.
The original settlers of this area were 11 American Quakers who brought their families here after serving jail terms in the U.S. for refusing to fight in the Korean War. They sold their homes in Alabama, drove to the middle of the rain forest, bought some land from the Costa Rican government, built a Quaker Meeting House and an attached Quaker School, and began to settle down. This end of the dirt road is now called Monteverde. Eventually, native Costa Ricans found them and settled nearby along the dirt road that is the main thoroughfare here along a stretch of the road now called Cerro Plano. A little further from there, the road forms a triangle with a bank, store, church, and some restaurants lining it. That part of the road is the “town” of Santa Elena. It takes roughly 45 minutes to walk from the Quaker Meeting House in Monteverde to the market in Santa Elena, and yes, people do this. Going the other way takes longer due to some amazingly steep hills.

Friday, January 23
As we headed out the door at 6:30am, Kaz’s bus was going by the house. Kaz waved it down to see if he could get his card. The bus driver stopped, opened his window, and told Kaz he had left his card on the bus. Kaz ran on, got the card, yelled goodbye to everyone, and jumped off.
Our flights down were uneventful, and this time, our luggage arrived with us. A gentleman named Leslie who has three children studying at the Cloud Forest School picked us up at the airport, allowed us to stop at the parrot garden he introduced us to when we had visited last September, and delivered us to our house. The first 3 hours of the drive were pretty easy. we were not stopped at any of the checkpoints and only came upon one bridge that was out
Now, I am no stranger to dirt roads- my family’s home in Wellfleet, MA has a dirt road across from it and another behind it. Heck, the town is still full of dirt roads, and for about 40 years, I have walked, ridden my bike and driven on them. But, the last 45 minutes of the trip today from the airport in San Jose to our house in Monteverde was on a dirt road I can only describe this way: Imagine you have a washboard and you bend it into a soft “W” shape. Then bend it in half the other way to make a hill with 45-degree slopes on both sides. Then, take big globs of rubber cement and randomly plop them onto the washboard and stick big rocks on the cement. Then, take a Matchbox car and drive it up one side of the mountain and down the other. Did I mention that it is dark and there are no streetlights and rabbits, cows, dogs, and cats run across the “road” when you least expect it as you negotiate the hairpin turns, and that there are high cliffs periodically to the right with no guardrails?
Somehow, we made it to the house by around 7:00pm. It really does get dark here at 6:00 every night nearly year-round, and the sun comes up at 6:00am nearly every day. No need for sunrise and sunset charts!

Thursday, January 22
Kaz had a really nice send-off, including receiving a 2-foot by 1-foot card signed by around 50 of his friends. Of course, he left the card on the bus. Dave’s parents both came by to say goodbye tonight. Dave gave me a wonderful send-off, too, but I won’t say anymore than that for fear of entering the “too much information” zone…

We're here

Kaz and I are here. Kaz is going to post something to the blog, too, I think. It will be interesting to see his perspective. My colleague, Pat Foster, has arrived, too. More later...

we're here!!

Mom and I, or Kaz and deb, have gotten successfuly to costa rica. I took a little look at cuba as we passed and was like wooooohhhh.... cuba! It is real hot down here, and it gets dark pretty early. the view from our house is nice, but everything is down a REALLY steep hill., our house is cool, and the wildlife is... loud. bassically a lot of questionable things go "bump" in the night. but it's nice!! the plant life is very different from in america, a lot greener and fuller.`everybody, get SKYPE, and tell the teachers at Eastern middle school (if you go there or knowe what it is) to get skype. seriously, the things they make here are all wooden, fresh and cheap. I LOVE COSTA RICA!!!

I am still in Maryland. Kaz and I leave for Costa Rica on Friday morning (January 23). I've uploaded a picture of Janet just for fun. I'll miss her while I am away, as she and Dave are staying here while Kaz and I head south.



Happy Inauguration Day! I awoke to the sound of helicopters and small planes flying overhead every 15-20 minutes. I don't know if they are security for the Inauguration, or the rich and famous dropping in for today's festivities, but in any case, what an exciting day it is to be on the edge of Washington, DC.



Dave went downtown Sunday to see the inaugural concert "with 350,000 of his closest friends," he says. Some of Janet's classmates were backup singers for Bruce Springsteen and others. They say it was just an amazing experience. Dave says everyone was walking in the streets, like a big celebratory parade, and they were all smiling and happy and hopeful about the new administration. For the past week, people around here have hardly been able to talk about anything else.

I wonder what the country will be like when Kaz and I return in June?

Kaz Says His Goodbyes

Kaz says goodbye to his musical theater friend, Ellie, after his performance Saturday night at the Olney Theater. Kaz and Ellie will not be able to be in a show together or see each other's performances again until Kaz returns from Costa Rica in June.

I know, I know- this has little to do with my upcoming sabbatical in Costa Rica. I am just messing around, figuring out how to download pictures, add text, etc.

Kaz says, "Can I have a space on your blog, like 'Kaz's Corner?' or something? Okay then, just add this: The cold surrounds me, and I cannot wait to get to Costa Rica. I'm glad I got to see a little snow today, though, before I go."

Still Packing

So, I haven't left yet for Costa Rica, but I wanted to set up a blog so I can post my thoughts, photos, and so on for anyone who wants to go on this journey with me.