I had a crazy long day yesterday and a crazy day in general! I taught my first class at 9:30am and it went pretty well. The students seemed interested, they helped me with my Spanish, and the professor for the class also helped me when I needed it. It was a fun experience. There were 10 students, which was a good number to manage.
The second class was much more difficult. There were 28 students, and they were much more talkative. That could have been fine, but there is an older, returning student in that class. He talked almost the whole time, spoke very quickly and I didn’t understand anything that he said. That’s really unfortunate, because I know he was saying things that I needed to respond to. At one point, he suggested members of the US government were members of the neo-Nazi movement. That might be true, but I haven’t heard anything for sure. He also wanted to know what political party I was part of, and whether I thought Costa Ricans were white. That seemed like a trick question. It took me a long time to figure all of that out and that’s the small part that I understood. The other students were taking out phones to do other things while I failed to manage this student. I really didn’t blame them. The professor of the class didn’t help me at all. He just let me flounder. I skipped a few slides so I could finish. At the end of the class, one student came to apologize for calling white people gringos. I wasn’t upset about that at all. He seemed like a good kid. He was just trying to be funny. Two other students came to apologize for the behavior of their classmates and to tell me they thought it was going to be a long semester. It probably will be a long semester. At least I only have to do one more class for this section.
I had to run from class to join an English Zoom conversation group at 4pm. I did it outside because I didn’t have time to go back to my apartment. I have mosquito bites and a bird pooped all over my computer. Most of it hit the track pad so that was at least easy to clean up. Marlon told me the conversation group was at 6pm but it turned out that there was one at 4pm and another at 6pm. I had to reschedule with my taxi to pick me up at 7pm. Everyone there really seemed to appreciate having a native English speaker to talk to so it made my day long but not bad.
My taxi picked me up at 7pm. The driver is young with a tiny baby at home. His sister is expecting triplets! We had a good conversation and he let me stop at a grocery store to get a snack for supper and some yogurt for the next couple of days for lunch. The food at the hotel is really good, but I don’t need three huge meals a day. I made it to the hotel at 8pm. I’m so happy to be here, although currently there’s no electricity. Hopefully that gets fixed soon.
There was a bat in my room early this morning. It woke me up at 2am trying to get out. A thought it was a moth at first because I was barely awake so the bat and I were both confused. I opened the door and let it out so everything was fine. It’s nice that there are bats here! They eat mosquitoes. There is a colorful Costa Rican squirrel in the tree beside my room.
I don’t have any big plans for today. I’m reading this morning and I’m planning to practice my presentation, swim, maybe go hiking, and do hot springs this afternoon depending on the electricity situation.
Traveling with Emily! 