I did not come to Costa Rica thinking that I knew how to teach. If anything, after three years as an assistant teacher, I came here knowing that I did not know how to teach— but also that I had a talent for winging things, learning fast and working under pressure. I knew that I thrived on challenge, could learn languages well and rapidly, and that I liked adventure.
It’s true that I had lived abroad before, for years at a time. I had had language immersion experiences before and had emerged from them with fluency and confidence, and I had been away from my family before for long stretches of time. I was confident that all of those things would help me during my time in Costa Rica, and as it turns out, I was right.
But it’s also true that I had never lived in a culture so vastly different from the one I was used to. I had never lived in a climate so vastly different from the one I was used to, and I had never worked a fulltime job before. I had never agreed to live as a boarder with complete strangers for a year, giving up my daily personal independence along the way.
And now, here I am in this 700 person pueblo in Costa Rica, listening to the rain pour down and digesting a bellyfull of yucca and mango. I’m here in Costa Rica, living this life that I have chosen, waking up before 6 AM each day and starting to teach at 7, eating three plates of rice and beans and taking cold showers and going for runs in the sweltering Tican sun on a dirt and rock path through a jungle full of palm trees and jicara, speaking Spanish to my family and colleagues and neighbors, planning and teaching lessons and writing and giving and grading exams for 150 students, and all the while trying to forge new relationships here while cultivating those I have in the other homes where I’ve lived and loved.
……..and I still haven’t been able to find the words to describe it.
The thing is that every single aspect of this experience has been a challenge. It’s tough. It’s a neverending riddle. It’s fantastic, and intense, and awful, and I have had days where I wake up with a smile on my face and joy in my heart and days where I wake up and just want to groan and where the last thing I want to do is eat gallo pinto and go face a hoard of 26 2nd-graders all screeching TEACHER TEACHER TEACHER!!!!.......... I have had moments of intense pain and loneliness, moments of overwhelming happiness, moments where I feel like an inept failure and moments of accomplishment and confirmation where all I can focus on is the sheer thankfulness in my heart for having had the amazing luck to land here, in this place, with these people, doing these things.
So, yeah. It's tough. It's amazing. I feel lucky, I feel crazy, I feel lonely...so I guess the moral of the story is:
I’m here.
I’m alive.
I’m doing my best.
Thank you for caring.
Love!
R
