Aquí estamos en Monteverde

I arrived August 1st and Ethan and the boys followed on August 10th. We’ve been settling into our home, learning the new routines and rhythms of life here in Monteverde.

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Our home is beautiful filled with paintings and stained glass. It sits on a hilltop with views leading out to the Gulf of Nicoya. Hummingbirds abound. This morning I woke up to the sound of howler monkeys barking at one another. The road leading up to the house is long and a little rough. When I arrived late on Sunday night, my landlord was nice enough to meet my taxi at the bottom to bring me and my luggage the rest of the way. The key is to go slow, he says. In the first few days, carting suitcases full of books back and forth between campuses, I memorized all the little ledges and potholes in the car we bought from an outgoing American. The car’s interior was furry with mold after just a few weeks sitting idle between owners — moho: an issue here on clothes, books, deadly on leather due to the frequent rain and humid climate. Moho also hides in kitchen cabinets and drawers. I was horrified at first, but a few squirts from Mr. Musculo seems to keep it at bay.

The community here is welcoming and kind. From day one, I launched into my work preparing for the school year. We have had two weeks of professional development, and getting-to-know-you’s, plus a few extra days this week due to MEP’s change in protocols. Students can now be a bit closer together indoors (three feet instead of six, masked) which allows us more flexibility with larger groupings. We have been busy rearranging schedules and spaces. As a parent, I’m thrilled. the boys now get to go to school five days a week in stead of four, and in the high school, we now have room for a bonus library / Meeting For Worship cabina. 

For two Saturdays in a row, the school has hosted a día de limpieza – a morning for families to come and clean to help get the classrooms ready. It’s been a wonderful way to get to meet some of the students and their parents before school begins, and as a teacher it’s just a lovely tone set: we are in this together. Parents moved furniture, dusted, mopped, washed windows, and waxed floors. As usual, Solomon wanted to help too.

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While I’ve been in meetings, the boys have been adventuring and making their own neighborhood discoveries. Along with four other staff boys all around the same age who also happen to be from Philadelphia, and with their former Spanish teacher from Greene Street Friends (it’s a small world…), they have encountered massive strangler figs, monkeys, toucans and, with Ethan, they even figured out a way to bushwhack behind our house to a trail system that takes us directly to Monteverde Friends!

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The kid culture here has drawn them right in. Our landlords live next door and have two boys who have been over several times to play already, and Jude and Sol have been over several times to see their tiny kittens. “Paula says we can keep one,” Jude reported. Acorn may need a gato-Tico friend. Two other families are just down the hill, adding three more children and good friends to the mix. And at the bottom of the hill lies the little town center with a restaurant and cooperative, bakery, small grocery, and the cafe which borders the green play space.

We are figuring out our family flow. Finding the grocery stores and the farmers markets which include empanadas and tamales vendors and even homemade coconut milk packaged in reused coke bottles. Yesterday we tried a grocery delivery service who drove our veggies and fruits right to our door. Translating the grocery list while also converting kilograms to pounds resulted in some interesting purchases, but we are now well stocked and ready for a busy first week of school. Last night we made ginger carrot soup, yucca fries, and attempted patacones for the first time from the big bunch of green bananas our landlords gave us. 

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The boys have been pretty open to trying new foods. Mamon is an early favorite, as is the fried semi-duro queso. The patacones vanished fast.

This weekend one of my colleagues hosted our first staff party parrillada at the top of the mountain by the reserve. Everyone brought something to share, and the kids bounded around playing together, climbing trees. We ended the evening roasting marshmallows.

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There have been lots of opportunities to get to know community members outside of school as well: Meeting For Worship in the gorgeous, wooden-beamed meeting space, ultimate frisbee every Saturday (a pick up game that has been going regularly for thirty years).

Two more days of meetings, protocol review; bilingual staff meetings add an entirely new time constraint for teacher meetings. We are ready to begin. Ready for new friends, new classmates, new students.

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