“Can’t we just call it something else?”: The Halloween that almost wasn’t

 “The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom

And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller”

Over twenty years ago, these very lyrics sent me crouching for cover under the dining room table.  As a child I hated Michael Jackson’s song “Thriller” because my father, the jokester, thought it was hilarious that I was afraid and liked to scare me half to death by playing it repeatedly.  Now, for me it is not Halloween unless it is played and ironically Halloween has become one of my favorite holidays.  I love having parties and dressing up, so of course any holiday that combines the two is awesome. 

            When I started to pack for Costa Rica in January, I went through all my dvds and cds that could be used for teaching materials and stumbled across a Monster Mash Halloween cd.   Having studied about Latin America; I knew that Halloween wasn’t very popular and even considered sacrilegious in some places; so I decided not to pack it.  Instead I opted for more practical items such as stilettos and a clothing steamer.

            Although the idea of celebrating in some way crept into my head when I began planning units, a conversation with my host mom early in the year about a past volunteer who attempted and was received badly by the Director and the community, convinced me not to. Why would I ever want to give up my celebrity status? “Teacher, hello” “Look it’s the teacher.” I’ve perfected my wave and everything.

            One day, my Director gave me a ride into Turrialba and we started talking about the Culture day, which was also in October.  The students were to dress up in costumes to represent people from other countries.  I had resigned this to be my Halloween, it was better than nothing and it was in the month of October.  I told her I know that they don’t celebrate Halloween, but this activity reminded me a lot of the holiday.  She said, which completely shocked me; “Why don’t you do an activity for Halloween. I think it would be good to expose the children to American culture.  Explain what it is to the parents and see if they’ll let their children participate.”  It was announced at the Cultural day that the Teacher was going to have an event on Halloween and more information would follow.  I braced myself for the influx of angry parents.  Not long after one parent ran up to me and said: “Do they get to wear costumes? I saw lots of cute costumes at the Ropa Americana.”  Everyone else merely went home.

            Although the religion teacher had announced the event she really wasn’t a supporter nor was the Kinder teacher.  They both asked; “Can’t we just call it something else?” For many people Halloween means people robbing graves, sacrificing animals and people, casting spells and devil worshipping.  Isn’t that always the way. Along comes a group of devil worshippers and ruins it for everyone.  I fought for the name.  What else would we call it? Although I assured them that I do not believe in any of that stuff and that no one I know does; the parent letter still said that students would come to school and celebrate the day of Halloween without saying they would celebrate Halloween itself.

“It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark
Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart
You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes
You're paralyzed”

Michael Jackson sang these lyrics; he sang of a true thriller night, complete with Zombies and Werewolves.  In San Ramon, the only things that would be lurking in the dark were the toads and the frogs.  You may’ve heard a howl, but most likely it was a dog, the wolves, luckily for us, live on the other side of the mountain.  You see everything we know to be Halloween was prohibited to not offend the parents.  Not cats, no witches, no ghosts and no monsters.

Determined to have Halloween live I decided pumpkins would be our theme.  So we carved our $14 rotting pumpkin, glued construction paper pumpkins to treat bags and decorated blank pumpkin templates on the days leading up to the big day.  Most of the assignments ended up being homework because as I expected; many of the parents wouldn’t allow their children to participate.  As the days went on more and more students began to change their views from no’s to yeses.  I later learned that the majority of the students who initially said no only said so because they couldn’t afford to buy a Halloween costume.

On October31^st, Halloween visited San Ramon School and it was more than Cleopatra could have ever hoped for.  There were princesses, animals, fairies, superheroes, dolls and even a niña (my host sister mastered the Director’s look.)  Even the other teachers came in costume. The school had a Bingo in the morning to raise funds for another activity and then it was time for Halloween.  I started by telling the students a little about Halloween in the United States.  I made sure to tell them that they don’t have to buy Halloween costumes, they could create a costume from materials they already had in their houses.  I learned this at a young age, when my mom decided that I was too old to trick or treat and stopped buying costumes, so I created my own.  My very first was a rapper.  I threw on some baggy clothes a bandana, walked around with a mic and said yo yo yo!  

                                                                                                     

After teaching them the official way to ask for candy we started our games.  The first was a scavenger hunt.  The students were divided into three teams and were sent off to find the things on their slips of papers: 5 pumpkins (happy, sad or mad), 5 apples (red, yellow or green), 6 spiders (3 green and 3 orange) and 6 rings (spider, pumpkin or bat).  When I gave the okay I nearly got trampled.  I thought recess was bad, but this was definitely scarier.  After we declared the blue team the winner the rings and spiders were divided up within each group.   Next was "Pin the nose on the pumpkin".  I made a giant jack-o-lantern and used white-out for where the nose should go.  About four students got the nose exactly perfect.  I was later informed that they told the others to just feel for where the white out was and put the nose there.  Those little cheaters!  Finally, there was the balloon popping game.  We kept the students in teams and made students race to a chair and sit on a balloon to pop it.  Then they had to read the paper inside that said dance, act or sing.  I loved hearing them butcher “Days of the Week” and act like farm animals.  But watching them bouncing up and down on the balloons unable to pop them was by far the highlight of the game.  The event concluded with trick-or-treating to the teachers.  For some reason, all thirty something students decided to mob the teacher first.  When the parents came to pick up their children, the director made an announcement saying that she would never do anything to go against their beliefs and our version of Halloween did not. That I come from another culture and they have to respect other cultures.  She wanted the children to experience a part of my culture.  I couldn’t have smiled harder.

There may not have been ghosts, vampires or witches at our little Halloween at our Escuela de San Ramon, but it didn’t matter.  The trick or treaters and teachers had a blast and I developed an even greater love for my school and community.  Of course, in keeping with tradition; I went home and played “Thriller.”

Ahahahaha   ahahahaha ahahahaha!!!

How to win an argument: “Tome chichí"

In my almost ten months here in Costa Rica I’d had nothing but pleasant experiences.  I feel like my Spanish is growing almost every day; I have ordered food in restaurants, asked for directions, gone through immigration (twice and never been detained) been to customs to pick up a package, and even spoke at a parents meetings.  However, the one thing I had never done was argue, well that is until yesterday. 

This weekend I went to San Vito, a town in the South of Costa Rica, close to Panama, with a bunch of the other volunteers.  We went to visit one of the volunteers whose Site Placement is very close to there.  My travel buddy AnneMarie and I left our town Turrialba on Friday and headed to San Jose.  When we got to the station in San Jose we had to take a taxi to the second bus station that would take us South.  We ended up with a very nice taxi driver who practiced his English.  While in the taxi I noticed the meter was stuck on 590 colones and we had already passed several blocks.  Normally when I get in a taxi, the numbers pass rather quickly, so I instantly assumed that it was either broken or turned off, so I asked him about it.  He reassured me that it was fine and we arrived at our destination with a fare of about 640 colones.  As we left he wished us well and warned us not to talk to men.

Fast forward to yesterday when we came back North.  When we got to the station in San Jose we looked for a taxi.  The taxi drivers usually bum rush you when you leave the station and being a seasoned traveler I knew the guys who wait outside on foot are usually the pirate taxis who charge whatever they want since they don’t have a meter.  After bypassing all of them, AnneMarie and I walked to a marked taxi and got in.  I told him we were headed to the bus station for Turrialba.  He drove off.  The meter was turned off and said to him, could you please turn on the meter.  He replied, “no, this trip cost 1000 (colones).”  I said, “That is not fair, you know that if I ask you to put on the meter you are obligated to do so.”  He replied once again with “no this trip cost 1000 (colones).”  I replied, “No it does not.  I just took this trip and it did not cost 1000 (colones).”  He replied smugly with, “So how much does it cost then?” Being that I couldn’t remember the exact amount, and refused to give in, I responded with, “about 600 (colones).”  He turned on the meter and said, rather sarcastically, “Ok, let’s see if it costs 600 (colones).” 

Poor AnneMarie sat in silence as the driver and I argued.  I would call myself fluent in Spanish, but sometimes when I get excited my words get jumbled; this was not one of those times.  I was firm, and did not back down.  I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing until I realized we hadn’t exactly arrived at our destination, and sat quietly praying that he wouldn’t take some random back alley route to make the fare higher. Luckily he wasn’t a complete monster and we arrived shortly after.  I looked at the meter and the fare came to about 650 colones.  I know I didn’t have to but I couldn’t help saying, “Oh yeah that really is a 1000 colones.” However, in my head I was thinking “Tome chichí” a popular phrase used in Costa Rica, which means take that.  AnneMarie hopped out and I handed him 700 colones.  As I was getting ready to close the door he went to hand me back the 50 colones change and I said “No, you keep it,” and slammed the door.  I brought out my inner New Yorker and victory was mine.  AnneMarie gave me a high five as we walked to the station and congratulated me on my success.  She later said she was secretly praying that he didn’t have a gun, I didn’t worry about that in Costa Rica, but had we been in the U.S. I might not have been so sassy.

It’s an earthquake; quick get the water bottle

As you probably already know, yesterday Costa Rica experienced a 7.6 magnitude earthquake.  This will make the third earthquake I’ve experienced since I arrived; the fourth in my life having experienced the random one in NY last year (of which my neighbors were sure the construction workers outside had knocked into the building).  Anyway of the four this one was definitely the scariest. 

We had just finished recess, my two fifth graders had settled in and I was getting ready to start my lesson.  I was standing in front of my desk when I felt extremely ill.  I felt really dizzy and thought that I was going to faint.  My vision was blurry and I was really scared.  If you’ve ever felt dizzy you know that usually you can sit down or just stay still and it goes away.  I kept waiting for this to happen and it wouldn’t.  All I kept thinking was please don’t let me faint because I know all the nurses and doctors in training (aka my students) would arrive in two seconds flat to observe me lying there on the ground.  In the distance I could see the blackboard, which hangs from the ceiling, rocking back and forth and in my haze I realized it had to be an earthquake.  I looked over to my students, who with their terrified faces confirmed, as we all said at the same time, in my English only classroom, “temblor.”

The two girls quickly walked, well really ran out of my classroom and I followed, though it was a bit difficult.  It was like one of those amusement park rides where you can’t stand up straight because some force is pulling you in another direction, only there was no ticket booth, there was no cotton candy and there was no laugher.  This was real life.  I arrived in the front of the school in time to see the rest of the school evacuating.  I instantly grabbed one of the kindergarteners’ hands and proceeded to the exit.  When I got just about to the gate, one of the teachers shouted “Teacher get the water bottle.” I still don’t understand her thinking on this one, but she wanted me to walk back and grab the bottle of water that was sitting on a nearby table.  I, like an idiot obliged.  The kindergartner, who obviously had more sense than I did; realizing that I was going away from the direction of safety dropped my hand and followed the group.  I guess he learned at an early age, every man for himself.  I later learned that the teacher was in such a panic that the principal actually had to calm her down.  She frantically kept shouting “It’s an earthquake, it’s an earthquake.” 

We walked behind the school to the little concrete playground to wait it out.  The principal was very calm and collected the entire time.  I really did admire her leadership.  She gathered all the children in a circle and explained to them, especially the younger ones (all the Kindergarten and First graders were there at the time), the situation and how proud she was of all of them for remaining calm.  In the background you could hear the custodian shouting on the phone and frantically pacing because she couldn’t get through to her sons.  The principal had to stop her speech to let her know that her sons were fine.  I still felt a bit dizzy and realized we probably would be out there for a bit, so I decided to sit down on the ground.  I guess the principal liked this idea because she told them all to sit down with me and then all the teachers walked to the side and conversed.  Well, listening to about twenty students tell you how scared they were and recounting their version of what happened wasn’t exactly what I’d call a good time so I decided we were going to sing a song.  What better song than “If you’re happy and you know it.”  They all sang, though those were the most pitiful happy faces I’ve seen in my life, poor things were probably scared to death.

The rest of the day was spent recounting the tale; how mothers and grandmothers smothered children and began praying, how people were on farms, or dizzy, or didn’t even know that there was an earthquake.

I’d say the whole account only lasted about twenty minutes, but it definitely felt longer.  In those twenty minutes I learned a couple of things.  1) In a crisis, don’t go back for a water bottle, life is do short and I would like to not risk mine for a water bottle, I don’t care if it was made of platinum I’m going to keep it moving; and 2) Adults act worse than children in times of a crisis.

Twighlight Zone/ Nature Gone Wild

Vulture

Grasshopper

 

At about 5:30 this morning I entered: The Twighlight Zone. (Cue music) So today started off with a bang; with me waking up late.  Apparently using my cell phone for my alarm was a bad idea.  You see, since I have a prepaid phone there is no network and therefore I set the time myself.  Needless to say if I wanted to wake up at 4:00 this afternoon it would have been perfect.  Once I got to school I thought that everything would be fine.  I taught my sixth graders and later learned that there was a school assembly.  I thought oh well so I’ll miss one class.  Today’s assembly was about the National Parks.  Since today is National Park Day, we talked about how important it is to preserve nature: plants and animals.  The assembly went a bit longer than expected because one of the sixth graders fainted.  It was pretty scary.  She fell down in front of the whole school, including her two very young sisters.  Thanks to God she is okay. She was taken home to rest a bit, but being the great student that she is, she returned to take her exams. 

               

Due to the assembly and students taking exam in their other subjects, I ended up not teaching any other classes.  Although it wasn’t the school day I had quite planned it worked out because I used the time to grade projects.  My sister and I walked home and that’s when nature went wild.  We arrived to find a cricket sitting in front of the door.  It didn’t really faze me.  I just gently moved him out of the way with my foot and entered the house.  My sister who followed behind noticed that my head nearly touched a locust that was sitting on the wall, yuck!  After a few uneventful hours in the house my mom came home.  Since she was tired she went to lie down.  A little while later I heard my sister yell “Mommy come look.”  She is kind of like the boy who cried wolf so naturally neither her or my mother went to see.  Her mother only asked what it was, and she replied she couldn’t really explain it, so we just forgot about it.  It wasn’t until I went outside to wash clothes that I understood why.  It really was incredible.  The grass between our house and my Aunt’s was covered in ants.  No exaggeration there had to be about a thousand.  They crawled up trees and rocks and everything in between.  After so many of my run-ins with the ants naturally I was scared, as was my sister.  She ran to get a bucket of water, but after throwing it we saw even more, so we both took off running and screaming. 

When I ran back to the house screaming my mother asked me what it was and I told her more ants than I’ve ever seen in my life.  I asked her quite frantically, “what do we do?”  She replied, “Nothing.”  I figured that she didn’t understand the question so I repeated; “what do we do?” She then, a little to “tranquila,” I might add, responded, “Oh they come in the house once a year and eat all the insects and food that’s around.  They stay for about an hour, and then they move on.  They don’t do anything.”   Realizing I was on my own, I had to figure out a way to combat all the ants and save the house.  I ran in the room and found the only weapon I knew of that would ward off those monsters; baby powder.  I came back outside and they were already crawling their way to the house.  I start sprinkling the baby powder like a line of defense.  Like I expected they would not cross it.  My sister and I worked as a team.  She told me where and I sprinkled, well really poured the powder.  It wasn’t until a few rogue ants decided to be brave and cross the line, that I had to bring out the reinforcements; the broom.  I just swept them off the ledge.  I fought a good fight, however there were just too many of them and they found other ways to enter.  The last room in the house is under construction for next year’s volunteer.  Well apparently the ants didn’t get the message that this room was for the World Teach volunteers, because that is where they set up camp.  My sister and I watched in horror as they crawled throughout the room.

I guess my mother got tired of hearing her screaming daughters and probably figured that she wouldn’t get any rest until she created a solution, so she got up and came to help.  She didn’t look too pleased to see the floor covered in powder, but desperate times called for desperate measures.  She then grabbed her spray bottle of poison and went around the outside of the house spraying the poison.  It was if the ants were laughing at her as they continued to make their way through the house.  After spraying until she eventually got dizzy from the fumes she sat down on a rock.  While we were outside my sister pointed out that there were about eight vultures flying overhead.  I said, “Oh my God, nature has gone crazy.”  My sister responded with, “well they heard today was National Park day so they all came out to say hello;” you got to love her.   There was even a little lizard outside looking at the ants.  I don’t even think he wanted to take his chances, which was good because I’m not so sure he would’ve made it.  Eventually after conceding I just watched them.  They covered the outside walkway to the house and the wall outside the door.   

I finally got bored and went inside for Coffee hour (well tea for me).  About a half hour later my sister shouted that they were all visiting my Aunt’s house.  I said to my mom good thing nobody is home, because I was worried about my two year old cousin.  She agreed and said that she was would’ve been worried about Anderson (my cousin).  I said, “oh really and why is that,” ready to catch her since she said the ants didn’t bite.   She replied, “Because Andy would’ve tried to eat them.”  So there you have it, apparently the best solution to our ant problem lived next door the whole time.  

Today was definitely a strange day; a little too much out of the normal for me.  Luckily I lived to tell the tale.