A Month in Costa Rica, May 2012

Part 1 - Teaching | Part 2 - Coffee Farm | Part 3 - Puerto Viejo | Part 4 - Final Thoughts

This series of stories is not only a way for me to archive my personal travels but also a way for me to share my experience with the Steemit Community to enjoy. Many people think travelling is fun, easy and relaxing, which it is! But there are many unexpected difficulties as well and I hope to show both sides of my trips

If you like my stories, please like, comment or follow me @chuazm!

Before the Trip

Travelling from West Lafayette, Indiana to San Jose, Costa Rica

I'm finishing up my first year of university in the United States and summer break was coming. Home was halfway around the world - Malaysia - and I wanted to make the most out of my 4 years here. So, I decided to take a trip down to Costa Rica to volunteer as an English teacher for a month. With one semester's worth of SPAN101, what could go wrong!

With summer vacation coming close, I bought my tickets, made my plans with a volunteer agency - Maximo Nivel and I was soon on my way to San Jose, Costa Rica! Being the responsible teenager that I was back then, of course I would only tell my parents about this decision while I was in line to board the airplane.

I was using a film camera most of the time then, so I don't have many good quality pictures that I took on my phone

Arriving in Costa Rica

Host family's home

As soon as I arrived at the airport, my worst fears were realized! I was told that was an issue with my visa and that I have 3 days to rectify or I would risk deportation. I was sure I checked various sources that I would have 30 days, but I couldn't explain it in Spanish and the immigration officer couldn't understand English!

I took a cab to the Maximo Nivel office to learn about my school assignment and to wait for the van to send me to my host family's home. I was assigned to teach at Escuela de Rio Azul (School of Blue River) about 2 hours bus ride from where I stay and would have to arrive back in the office at 4am the next day to learn how to get there! But before that could happen, I had to get my visa fixed.

Long story short, it took me 6 hours, a lot of confused non-English speaking Costa Ricans and USD100 for me to find out it was the immigration officers mistake and I actually CAN stay there for 30 days like I have planned. - Great start to the trip so far!

First day as an English teacher!

First day of class

After a 2 hour bus ride to the school, I was introduced to the only English teacher there who could barely speak a word of English herself! I sat through her class as she taught the 9 year olds objects in a living room.

Teacher : "What is number one?"
Students : "Couch!"
Teacher : "What is number two?"
Students : "Window!"
Teacher : "What is number three?".....

After watching that repeat for about 10 minutes, I asked if I could give it a try. I thought there wasn't a point in following the same routine so I decided to switch it up a bit!

Me : "What is number two?"
Students : "Window!"
Me pointing at the window in class
Me : "What is this?"
Students : ....
Me : "What is number two?"
Students : "Window!"
Me pointing at the window in class
Me : "What is this?"
Students : ....

It left me speechless! Before I could try to figure out a solution, the class was dismissed. I tried to have a conversation with the English teacher to see if she saw the problem with what just happened but she didn't! She insisted that she has been teaching it the same way for decades without any problem.

I spent the rest of the day repeating the same routine with the teacher in every class because students learn the same lessons whether 7 or 12. I went back to the city deflated, demotivated and disappointed but I wasn't going to let that ruin my trip! I want to positively impact these students in some way!

What I learned

To give you guys a bit of perspective, Escuela de Rio Azul isn't as beautiful as it sounds. It is actually located in the slums of Costa Rica, literally next to the city dump. It definitely was a huge eye-opener for me and even for the local Ticos (colloquial term for natives of Costa Rica). While there were some great things that made me happy, like how diverse my students were, kids with African/Caucasian/Asian/Latino descent and how they all play and have fun together - this is a huge contrast to Malaysia where the Malays/Chinese/Indians are rarely seen together. There were also some shocking discoveries, like how I had many pregnant students - the oldest were only 12! This was a shock even the Ticos I talked to in the city.

Seeing as how poor these kids were, and how they enjoyed spending their break time playing dolls or football (soccer for our special friends from the U.S.). I decided to do some shopping before going heading back to my host family. I bought some English story books for the library, some toys for the school and also an actual soccer ball because the kids were using plastic bottles or tin cans instead. Most importantly, I bought an English-Spanish dictionary.

Following Days as an English Teacher

Things started picking up a bit after the first day. I started getting more familiar with the kids, they called me Chino. I tried, horribly, to speak to them in Spanish which was really funny to them. I started to really connect with some of the students. We played football together between classes. Some students would try to speak with me during the breaks. I even manage to teach some of them how to speak Mandarin.

The teacher also left me alone to teach some classes which was scary but exciting at the same time. She gave me 0 materials to follow, so I had to improvise. We sang some nursery rhymes which I had to write the lyrics on the board. They taught me the Spanish versions. I tried teaching them Math in English - "What is two + two?" - What can I say, it's the Asian in me.

Although I started to get more comfortable teaching, the overall experience left my very empty. I'm going to be honest, I felt that I've failed as a teacher. I spent some nights crying my room over how useless I felt not being able to positively impact these students because I don't feel like I'm doing any long term sustainable improvement. Two weeks into the program, I quit and asked to change to a different program.

On my last day in the school, the last class I taught was the most difficult. Some students were crying and I felt like crying too. But I wanted the last day to be fun and memorable, so to keep the students active and happy, I decided to do a class on emotions. It was also so I can get them to stay still to take group photos with them which I will share below. Before I left the school for the last time, a little girl came up to me and told me she wanted to be an English teacher just like me and that made all the difference in the world for me.

I'm going to end Part One here, please enjoy the group pictures I took with my students. Phones didn't exactly have the best cameras back then, so please bear with me!

Shocked! :O

Angry! >:(

Happy! :D

Sad ='(

Twilight New Moon - Random DVD I found in my room

Typical Costa Rica Breakfast - Very healthy! and Coffee at every meal

*After reading through the whole article again, I realized it sounded like quite a negative experience. But I hope you guys don't see it that way! The way I see it, it is a learning experience. Am I unhappy about the outcome of my teaching experience? Yes. But this is reality. The only thing I can do about it is learn from the experience and try to be a better me, or change the system around me for the better. Which is why I have recently quit my lucrative job in Oil and Gas and moving to the Education industry to hopefully be able to change the world for the better.

If you like my story, please check out my profile (@chuazm) for more! I would really appreciate some likes, comments or feedbacks. I'm very new here and would like some help and advice. Cheers!