::placement::

in life's opportunities and experiences, you need strength, courage, faith, and above all, love.

i heard this quote on my flight to san jose from the wise king of pop, michael jackson himself, in his movie this is it and i realized how true it is and how fitting it was to the journey i was beginning. today marked the first day of my placement in my teaching english program. i feel they use this terminology loosely, as you will soon understand...for the next few months, i will be working in a soup kitchen teaching children english. sounds a little bizarre, right?

each morning i will be traveling to the san jose soup kitchen, located up a very narrow dirt road, in one of the many poor neighborhoods of san jose. i haven't even been here 3 days and somehow i have already managed to figure out how to get around. my house mother took us (myself and my "housemate" amrita) on the city bus the first two times to kind of "show us the ropes" but this morning, she walked me down to the street level from the house and sent me on my way to venture alone. the bus stop is about a 5 minute walk up the street then it is 205 colones one way to get downtown, which is equivalent to about 50 cents and about a 10 minute bus ride. then i come to maximo nivel (which is the costa rican partner volunteer organization i'm working with) and take a local taxi out to the "boonies" of san jose which is another 10-15 minutes and about 2000 colones (roughly $4) one way. i'm hoping that i'll always have someone to share the taxi cost with or else this is going to get to be a pretty expensive gig!

this morning, my friend rachel, who is assigned to the same project, and i walked into what basically is a big cafeteria-type room that has 6 or 7 long tables with benches on both sides, all plain white walls, and a small kitchen area that stretches across the back of the room. i was taken back by this initial sight because it virtually is a large cafeteria. and they expect us to teach english here? no chalkboard. no easel or chart paper. no substantial school supplies. the children sitting there, which was about 10 of ages varying from 5-13, each had a small notebook and a pencil in front of them. i thought to myself---wow. these kids come here each day with hopes of getting a hot meal in their belly but also to learn and interact with others. what i would give to show some of the kids i work with back home this environment and show them the excitment on the kid's faces when they saw 2 boxes of crayons, a box of colored pencils and a new ball to play with this morning. not to mention that these 4 things were shared with a group of 30+ kids! it is truly amazing to go from working in two such drastically different environments with children.

as lunchtime approached, the room quickly filled and the manageable group of 10 grew to almost 50 hungry children coming in for something to eat. the 3 workers there have the system down to a science and each child has their place to sit so it was really interesting to see how quick of a process it was to feed all the children and get them outside running and playing (in the dirt road, where all the cares and trucks come zooming around nonetheless). it was difficult and frustating to me, coming from a teacher mind-set because as the number of children grew, my sense of order and control grew smaller and smaller. on top of all that and what i am at a constant battle with is the language barrier. just as i have found it incredibly difficult to communicate with my host family, it is also very difficult to communicate with the children. coming into this program, i was expecting to be placed in a classroom with a local teacher so i would have a "go between" person, fluent in both english and spanish. however (and unfortunately) this isn't the case so it is difficult for me. it absolutely broke my heart to tell these 4 and 5 year old children that i can't understand what they are saying but i did sit with my spanish-english dictionary, trying to translate and understand some conversation.

above all these frustrations with the language barriers, i can only look at the positive... even from spending just 5 short hours with the kids today, i could tell how much they enjoyed having us there and playing and coloring and talking to us and that is what makes me so happy and why i truly wanted to do something like this. if i can put a smile on just one kid's face each day, i feel that i have done what i came here to do. "it is not what you gather, but what you scatter, that tells what kind of life you have lived."