Back to School

Folks,

Rita finished her holiday this week, and headed back to Ireland on Friday. This week it was also back to school, with teacher training ahead of classes starting again tomorrow.

Rita’s departure
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Rita’s was here for over three weeks, but it seemed to fly by all the same. She enjoyed it, with the highlight being the volcano and the hot springs. I think she found Heredia difficult to get used to at first. There is absolutely nothing attractive about it as a town. It’s shabby and dirty and very Tico! But in the end I think she’d even become a little fonder of it, having adapted to the rhythm. She mentioned several times about the laid-back, unhurried nature of life in Costa Rica, which I guess I’ve become used to.

Back to school
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There were four days training this week. Two days for the seven new teachers, and two days for everyone together. It was great catching up with everyone. I was in great form, and I have to say I really love working in that school. I was involved on the training side(!) of the new teachers. They are all from the US and Canada, so I’m now the only teacher not from those two countries, following Tom from London’s departure. Taylor, one of the American guys, was offered a big trading job on Wall Street while he was home. He handed in his resignation to us, and took the job. It’s very well-paid, with the expectation that he’d be a millionaire by the time he’s 30 (he’s 24 now). After meeting his fellow workers, but before starting actual work, he realised that he’d made the wrong decision. So he phoned the school, got his job back, and quit Wall St. He’s now back earning buttons in the school.

Fugitives from justice
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I regularly see notices in the paper that fugitives from justice in the US are found here in Costa Rica. It’s easy for them to get to, and the lack of addresses means that it’s more difficult to track them down. You can practically make up your own address. For example, I’m 300m west of the Post Office and 10m North / or 210m North of the Video store / or 200m east and 10m north of the Sports Complex. A recent Oprah Winfrey show highlighted ‘America’s most wanted fugitives’. One guy, a paedophile with over 120 convictions, was one of the guys highlighted. A viewer recognised him as a teacher in a neighbouring school here in Heredia, and he’s now been extradited back to the States. It’s really shocked people. He worked at Interamericana, the school where my friend Shane worked before returning to Ireland in July. It turns out he shared an apartment with Shane for 10 months.

Palmares
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There is a big festival held every year in January in Palmares, about 45 minutes north of Heredia. It’s held in a huge tented city with many bars, amusements and fast food restaurants, along with dancing, live music and karaoke. We organised a trip out to it. It was a great way of getting the old and new teachers to mix and get to know each other. We hired a bus to and from the school, and spent the day there yesterday. I feel that I’m still recovering!
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So that’s it for this week. Classes start again tomorrow. It’s been a long holiday (since December 15th) and I’ve enjoyed the break. But I do feel I’m ready to get back to work. I could do with a bit of structure put back on my life!

So until next week,

Pura Vida,

Éamon

Today’s headline in La Nación: Youths pose questions for election candidates