First Box of Books!

About an hour after getting off the phone with Allegra she called me back to say that she had received a package of books that she had packed for herself months before back home.  She explained that they were books she had gotten from a friend's garage sale and wasn't sure how much use I would be able to find them.  I quickly contacted several people who enter San Jose regularly to see if they could stop by the Peace Corps office in the coming days to pick up this package for me.  I recently became friends with a motorcycle messenger that lives near me and he did me the amazing favor of bringing the books straight to my door only a couple days after I got the phone call!

Saturday morning was like my first Christmas morning of the year.  I sat there pealing off the price stickers and glancing through the books.  It turned out to be a small enough box that I could have brought back with me no problem but saved me a trip.  I separated them into age range and decided which I would give to each school.  I was literally glowing all day that my initial push for books came through SO QUICKLY!  The school that I'm teaching at by myself til the teacher comes back from maternity leave has gotten a chance to watch English learning videos on my iPad and seemed to enjoy story-time with these books just as much!  One of my personal favorites being Eric Carle's From Head to Toe because the photos are great and it's a fun way to practice body parts while teaching "I can do it!"  I've found so many older students who don't know what the word "can" means.  I'm teaching it to the young-ins from the start.  That and FUN! 

I've spoken to Dad about progress on a large scale book drive and am just so excited. The kids really enjoy reading with me and I'm so in love with the book I'm reading now that it pushes me more to make reading fun here.  Oh man, just had an idea although it might cost me a pretty penny.  READ posters!!!  Off to finish my book on this gorgeous day that I don't have classes on since my teacher has yet another workshop.  Oowee, READ POSTERS!  I'm so excited!

Recycling Project - Pushing Along

All four of the schools I've chosen to start working with on recycling have started receiving recyclables.  I was taking a tour of the University of Costa Rica when I got a phone call from a student asking me about some details of the program.  I was confused at first and learned that the final school had started receiving without even letting me know.  I literally jumped up and down in the middle of the campus because they had taken the initiative without me.  I mean I had already done workshops with all of their students and some community members but it's still so impressive!  

Yesterday I attended a personnel meeting the school had.  The director had invited me to, well I wasn't quite sure but went anyways.  I thought I would have about ten minutes and it turned into over an hour of talking about recycling with the teachers.  We discussed all of the ins and outs of the program and we learned more about the county working on starting a recycling program.  Everyone asked me questions and the one who has recycled for a couple years added some amazing insight on building a recycling culture here.  It was inspiring.  

Then, Don Victor brought in a box full of tetrabrik milk cartons all clean and flattened.  He was concerned that community members weren't bringing the materials in the same manner and showed us one mom's handy work with this beautiful box.  It was hilarious as all of the teachers and I marveled at the 60+ milk cartons that fit into this tiny box.  Next, he showed me the recycling they have already received and we decided I would head back on Friday to work with the sixth graders on organizing it all.  This is one way to get the word out to the community to bring stuff in already flattened.  Two teachers offered to work with me so that we can figure out the quirks of the organizing process.  

This school doesn't have recycling bins yet and we're figuring out how to work around that.  I got to thinking yesterday.  It would be so much easier if I just had a ton of funds easily at my disposal and a car that I could buy and pick up these bins for each of the schools.  But realized yesterday that the director delegating a job to one of the teachers to stay in contact with the person donating them and working with him to get them to the school gives this teacher ownership of the program.  The same for the teachers working with me this Friday.  Some even had great ideas for making props with the students for Independence Day out of recyclable materials!  We worked together for about 90 minutes on how to get word out to the community that recycling is here and how best to do it.  Just like the playground in my town that's never used.  If you don't actively involve the town in a program it won't succeed.  But of course I've had to have a ton of patience for word to get around about this program!  But it is, and I couldn't be happier.

Not only was it beautiful out, and I've had a great few weeks but I just left so inspired by all of the progress they had made on their own and was so thankful for the chance to finally brainstorm with the teachers.  I headed into Acosta to run some errands, sat in the park arranging some stuff for other projects and life and caught the bus to the school I work at on Tuesdays.  I got a chance to work with the afternoon students which is rare and we had an amazing time reading Dr. Seuss.  It feels like fall here and I couldn't feel giddier.

Books!

So I’ve mentioned reading Dr. Seuss to our students lately and it’s going great.  We haven’t exactly installed it as a weekly thing but it’s a process of course.  I love to see the cool third graders not want to join the circle and then get absorbed by the cool pictures and reading out loud the minute they do.  It got me to remember how great story-time is.  Plus, scanning for pages with vocabulary we’re showing for the first time in a Dr. Seuss book is incredibly easy.  And since the stories are so scattered there’s no need for sequence and we can just pick and choose applicable pages.  

Talking to Jess yesterday we marveled at how awesome the world of Dr. Seuss is and I realized that sending books overseas is way too expensive to ask of my friends in family so I’ve been waiting patiently for someone to come and visit me and just bring a suitcase worth of books.  But today I figured I’d start in country.  So in between classes I e-mailed my boss for advice on organizations in country he might know of that donates books.   Then, I got a call and text from the Peace Corps Regional TEFL Advisor for Latin America and the Pacific Islands who gave me tons of great advice.

Allegra explained that USPS has an international M-Bag that ships media mail for relatively inexpensive overseas.  Finding that this program was actually continued after it had been discontinued for several years I am now super pumped to bring books to my schools!  I’m hoping that Dad will run the book drive for me.  Basically, we’re looking for English learning books.  Kids’ books are great, and easy and young-teenage novels as well.  And Spanish books are welcomed too!  Preferably lightly used and not out-dated.  We’re not looking for outdated computer manuals or anything.  

I’m so excited and have literally just been planning this for about two hours so it’s in the very beginning steps but I’m hoping all of you help out!  

Going for a walk now in the rain because if not I’ll never exercise!  Three days now of cold rain in the afternoon – Rainy season in Costa Rica Woot!