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As I was walking down the Inter Americana highway last night, heading home after an exhausting adult English class, I discovered fireflies. Growing up, I was 99.9% sure that this magical creature was made up, a tactic developed to make me more comfortable around bugs, much like the many tricky tales I was told about how tasty green beans and onions were. A bug whose rear glows? I mean, what do they have in there, batteries or something? But sure enough, on a pitch-black night, where the only illumination was a star stricken sky, I saw the little suckers flittering to and fro, almost as if their golden bottoms contributed to a severe nervous twitch. My face lit up, much like the bugs’ bums, and in the distance, I spied my youngest host brother sprinting towards me. Delighted, he pinched a poor firefly between his two sticky fingers and waved it centimeters from my face. No doubt a very satisfying ending to my day.

Fireflies weren’t the only surprise I got this past week. Here in El Empalme we had our annual fiestas, which consisted of karaoke on Friday, an evening dance on Saturday, and Bingo and a local “band” on Sunday. On Friday morning at 8 o’clock, I gleefully arrived at the salon, after having spent the night before having dreaming of a grand metamorphosis from kitchen novice to master chef. I was immediately put to work cutting and washing large hojas, leaves, and preparing other components needed for tamale perfection. While I was playing apprentice, my director came into the kitchen with a kind of relaxed scuttle, a most distinguishable characteristic that only he can pull off, and adamantly began to insist that I buy a raffle ticket. In the interest of saving time (his ramblings tend to last for hours), I handed him 500 colones and haphazardly shoved the ticket in my pocket. I hadn’t given the situation a second thought; I soon launched into a show-stopping performance of the theme from Titanic, which I was forced to sing and was the only song available in English, but then the raffle began. I looked everywhere for my ticket but couldn’t find it. When they called out the number and nobody claimed it, I cursed myself for losing a potentially fantastic award. The kinder teacher called for the prize and a cowboy paraded in, hand raised high in the air, holding a pig’s head. It was at that very moment that I began to really appreciate my absent-mindedness.

Saturday my host mom handed me a soup dish and without thinking, I began to eat it. A strange consistency invaded my mouth, so I decided to further investigate the contents of my meal.
“Well,” the cook said, “there are garbanzos, meat and slalkdjhok.”

“Huh?” I said.

“Bskwojssh”, she replied.

“Hm, okay, can you explain to me what it is?” I asked.

“Sure”, she said. “It’s not the pig meat, and it’s not quite the pig’s skin. Precisely, it’s the fat that’s in between the two, although some of the pieces include a bit of the skin.”

“Be careful not to eat too much,” my host mom added, “It’s kind of fattening.”

Later on in the afternoon was the Cinta de Carrera, where cowboys from surrounding pueblos come riding into the region to gallop back and forth, for four hours, trying to put a small stick through a small hoop that was hanging from a small clothesline. Though quite entertaining, I chose instead to help prepare for the baile later on that night, which proved to be a success, especially in terms of shocking several Latinos who previously believed that gringos could not dance. Oh, but I forgot to mention that I was dancing with my host dad, who recently fell off a horse and broke his arm. So, there you have it. The gimp and the gringa, tearing up the dance floor. I’m sure many were confused.

Sunday featured a thrilling game of Bingo, followed by some good old local music. It was awesome, dancing to the traditional cumbia and salsa beats of the pueblo. I even grooved to a dance called “the Paso Robles” (my hometown in California). All in all, the weekend festivities were a hit. I made new friends and got to play the ‘what family goes with what child’ game, the school and the church made loads of money, and, most importantly, for me at least, I got to dance.

Selected as Honorable Mention, WorldTeach Winter 2008 Journal Contest

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Machete. The word has always conjured up images of wild, jungle explorers, danger and ferocity.  In my pueblo, however, it's practically a staple, an afterthought, mild as a Swiss Army Knife. And granted, when the taxi driver turned off the InterAmerican highway and onto the rocks that led up to my mountain village, I knew I was in for an adventure.  Two dark-haired girls and a boy ran from the river where they were bathing, through the tall grasses and into a ramshackle hut.  "Indigenas" he told me, but still I was unprepared to deal with the reality of machetes in my classroom.

Wednesdays were community service days and the Telescundaria.  The boys helped maintain the roads and foliage of the colegio while the girls walked along the road collecting garbage.  Now, lawnmowers, despite my director's wishes, are not a part of life in my town.  Given the steep slopes and soft ground from the daily aguaveros, they wouldn't make a lot of sense.  But little did I suspect what these chores would therefore entail.

Wednesday, all the boys came to school swinging machetes.  All of the babysitting panic signals in my brain went off: 7-9^th grade boys with knives, especially 9"-15" ones, have never been a good mix by any standard I have known.  I must have physically cringed when Manuel chucked his machete across the lawn as part of a game with all of the other boys.

Once classes began, all of the machetes were placed along the walls or in the corner; I had almost forgotten about them till after lunch.  When I entered the classroom, my heart jumped.  The normal disorder was coupled with foot-long knives.  "There are machetes in my classroom" mused the logical part of my brain.   The humerous side burst out laughing nervously and the emotional side cowered.  I managed to eke out my daily "Good afternoon, class," yet the craziness continued.  "Please site down, I directed, hoping the machetes would disappear but the boys were more unruly than usual.  I couldn't discern why but I feared stepping any closer.

"Nelson!  Please sit!" I implored.
"But teacher," he responded in Spanish, "he has my machete!"

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Looking out from my window seat on the bus from Jacó back to my site, I was able to see neither a guardrail nor the bottom of the valley far, far below. I held my breath through each torturous S-curve as the bus relentlessly climbed and swayed, and the abyss grew. I finally realized I had no recourse except to Zen-out, especially after reading the roadside sign:

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Two entries in one day! With this kind of craziness, I may soon be telling you that it hasn't rained here in the last 45 minutes.

The List (incomplete)

1. Two 8-year-old girls sharing an umbrella, white uniforms, walking gingerly up a road on the way to school.
2. The nationwide habit to shake your hands near the sides of your head in a way that looks like you're trying to detach them during a situation involving inappropriate humor or tension.
3. Eating mangos, nisperos, sugar cane, huacates, and more fruit straight from the tree.
4. Kids with dirty clothes and spotless eyes.
5. Chunky cotton pillows
6. Invites galore to pass the day talking, eating, and drinking pure coffee with a family.
7. Children who clean without being asked.
8. Chickens walking through kitchens, which, it should be noted, may be the only sentence that translates perfectly - and rhymes! - in both English and Spanish. Check this out. Chicken in the Kitchen. Gallina en la cocina. That rocks.
9. Someone telling me I have Gripe (the flu) everytime I cough.
10. Playing cards in candlelight.
11. Smaller fruits than we have at home.
12. Where are you going? Arriba. When are you going? Ahorita.
13. Hitting my head in doorways and on low wooden beams.
14. Being fed everywhere, always, and sometimes twice.

Just the other day, back in Llano Bonito, I spoke with a farmer named Carlos who wore his button down dirty and open. He showed me his calloused hands and explained to me how, when you start working in coffee fields (he had been to school up to 3rd grade, started working with coffee at age 11) that your hands bleed and blister, but after 30 days, God gives you the gift of stronger hands. Oh, the miracle of calluses. He told me how said calluses come from using the machete and explained to me the great demand for adult English classes in Llano Bonito. In 2 years, Llano Bonito will change forever as tourists flood in to view the new man-made lake. Carlos says this will be good for him because he can sell his fruit directly, but bad for the general ambiance and environment. As such, he explained the need for adult English classes, and told me what a help it would be if he knew how to describe his fruits in English. The woman across the dirt road sitting on her front porch had apparently been listening in. She brought us 8 beautiful and fresh small bananas that melted in my mouth like ice cream.

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One day I was explaining to my students how I live on one side of the country in California, but go to school on the other in Massachusetts.  It's six hours by plane, I told them. 

"And by car?" one asked.

"Um, about a week."

"¡Jue!"

"Teacher, and by walking?"

"A really long time, months?"

"¡Jue!"

"Teacher, and by donkey?"

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