If Only Americans Worked With "Ahorita" In Mind

VWP: ahorita (n.)—right now.  This is the traditional meaning of “ahora.” However, in Costa Rica it appears to have picked up the opposite meaning.  If someone says “Me voy ahorita,” it doesn’t mean “I’m leaving now,” instead it means “Yeah, I’ll leave sometime soon…or maybe tomorrow.” 

Before my alarm clock goes off at 6:45 am, I hear a series of other sounds in the early morning.  4:00 am is when my host brother’s crazy dog (chained up to a dog house) begins to bark ferociously.  This new mom of four perritas is extremely overprotective and therefore the being-chained-to-an-immovable-object concept does not work out well for those attempting to sleep.  Around 4:10 am I hear my host mom’s voice rings out “Cállate! Cállate!”  In this way, she is using the sass of the Spanish language to literally command the dog to shut up.  At 5:00 am the howler monkeys in the forest begin to create their menacing and eerily deep “hoo-hoo-hah-hah” sound (turns out, Hollywood wasn’t too far off in their A-list movie monkey sounds).  Then at 6:00 am my host brother begins to talk loudly with his construction co-workers and friends in the front yard, discussing their plans for the workday.  So, by the time 6:45 am rolls around, it feels odd to be woken up by some electronic, non-animal, non-human noise.  At that point, it’s easy to roll out of bed, throw on some athletic looking clothes and make my way to the outdoor patio kitchen for some morning chow.  I have become an expert in Costa Rican breakfast making, which is no easy task when breakfast resembles lunch and dinner in terms of hardiness and size.  It’s never a surprise when I see gallo pinto (the dish of fried rice and beans that appears to be eaten with everything) stirring around in the pot, sometimes accompanied by a fried egg or an onion, pepper, and garlic-topped piece of meat.  Next on the plate is what some would call a tortilla, but I call it what it is: fried dough.  Seeing a fried theme here yet?  Regardless of it’s fried status (or maybe because of it), it’s delicious and usually topped with a local fruit jam.  Fruit is usually put out on a plate in the middle of the table, ranging from pineapple (not from a can!) to melon and more exotic native fruit.  With this kind of feast for breakfast, it makes you wonder why cereal, yoghurt, and oatmeal even pretend like they belong in the breakfast food category. 

At 9 am Rosa, my host mom, begins saying “vamos a empezar ahorita” or “we’re going to start right now.”  In reality, we don’t start our work in the organic farm until 9:30, hence the VWP side note.  Our work in the farm tends to be relaxed, but also very productive.  In her backyard farm, we accomplish a myriad of chores in the course of two hours: feed the pigs and hens, retrieve the eggs from the hens, use the hen manure as fertilize for nearby trees, plant pineapple, cilantro, yucca, beans, and corn, soften soil for planting, and check up on the health of older plants, like the Panamanian chili plant (which apparently can burn your tongue off) and some papaya trees. All of this Rosa upkeeps herself, and every plant has been put into the ground, taken care of, and maintained by this one woman.  With this kind of network of food and plants in her backyard, Rosa cuts down immensely on her grocery bill since she never has to buy fruits, vegetables, or eggs.  At 11:30 we break for lunch making and freshening up time before we have to leave for El Yue at 1 pm.  We need this much time to make lunch because Costa Ricans would never dream of eating a cold PB&J sandwich or a salad with cranberries and carrot sticks for lunch.  Forget that! Costa Ricans demand hot food for every meal of the day, with maybe a once a week exception for cereal at breakfast.  Usually lunch looks like half of breakfast, almost always with rice and beans, and in addition there’s some kind of meat, maybe a cabbage salad, and always a fresco (a cold fruit drink of sorts).  I can’t say whether this is just unique to Rosa’s family, but they’re big fans of yard-to-street whooping.  Her kitchen and table is situated on an open patio within clear view of the gravel road, so if she sees one of her ten siblings walk by or a neighbor pedaling by on a bike, she yells “Oy!” like I’d heard three years ago at a South Africa v. Australia rugby game.  The patio is probably 75 feet from the road, and sometimes even with this much distance between the two speakers, they never raise their voices much louder than a normal American’s voice on a plane…and yet they hear everything.  However, with the “Oy”-ing also comes the imitations of her grandchildren.  Four-year-old Nani and five-year-old Ryan, who live on the same plot of land, will yell at the top of their small (but very full of air) lungs “Oyyyyyyy!!!!” to any car, bike, human, or dog they see going down the road. 

After lunch we make our way to El Yue, which is about a 25 minute walk from the house, and you can be assured that at 1 pm in the afternoon, we’re both a sweaty mess by the time we reach our destination.  However, sometimes we get lucky and one of Rosa’s sons will offer to drive us or one of her friends will pull over on the road and offer us a quick drive (this is an obvious violation of the ICADS rule “never get in a car with a person who is not associated with ICADS,” and yet it’s so much better than walking the whole way).  I head to El Yue to teach English classes to kids in the form of an after school program.  Literally on the first day I was handed 15 kids and told “teach them English.”  That was the sum total of guidance and structure from the organization.  From 1:15 to 2:30 pm I teach my first English class, never being quite sure who will show up.  Sometimes I’ll have a new kid who I’ve never seen before, sometimes I’ll only have one kid in the class, or other times I’ll have 8 kids all at once.  We never sit in a proper classroom, just usually around a table under a patio where you can feel a nice breeze and also earn some funky tan lines from tennis shoes.  There’s a huge variety in the knowledge these kids have when it comes to English (some know how to say “My name is ____” and know the word for “butterfly” and others appear to never have spoken a word of English).   One thing is sure though: it’s definitely easier to teach these kids basic vocabulary, like animals, colors, and numbers, rather than attempting to get a grammatical concept through to them.  I am grateful though that all the kids have a good level of enthusiasm during class, and never hesitate to shout out “hello, teacher!” if they see me at a local soccer game or at the beach.

However, even for a native English speaker and for someone who wants to be a teacher, teaching local Costa Rican kids how to speak English is no easy task, especially with a lack of guidance and structure from the organization.  The big question is simply: where do I begin?  Do I start with “My name is Katie” or with “I am, you are, she/he is” or with vocabulary like “boy, girl, mom, dad?”  Should I speak only in English or a mix of Spanish and English so they can at least partially understand me?  Additionally, it’s hard to figure out what is confusing for native Spanish speakers when it comes to learning English.  For instance, “you” looks very similar to “yo,” which is the pronoun for 1^st person (me).  Could that get more confusing?  Thanks a bunch, language gods.            

While I found teaching ESL classes difficult, I also found it rewarding to just expose these kids to a subject that is becoming more and more useful and necessary in the world.  I enjoyed my time working at El Yue, but I will be returning to San Jose next week to begin a different internship at a public school in San Jose to get a better insight into the Costa Rican education system.