Post for the day January 7th

The times in my life when I doubted the existence of a higher being, I now know that there is one. No one could see this amazing place, this phenomenal school and these fantastic people without thinking that. The semester starts off with peace circle, where the lower classes and the higher classes gather in a circle before school starts and have at least 30 seconds of silence for peace in our world. It is pretty impressive to get 70 some high school kids to be silent for the entire time.
It is a buggy day too…while I was standing at the sink brushing my teeth, I felt a creepy crawly feeling in my left pant leg, and at first I thought I was just being crazy. As a reflex, I shook my leg and a cockroach about 1.5 inches long fell out of my pants. FUN! Then outside the class room I saw a beetle as big as my thumb and when I picked it up it started squeaking at me. It was very impressive. Then in the afternoon homeroom class, a cockroach about 2 inches long was crawling across the floor and the kids were about to squish it when I picked it up and carried it outside. One of the 7th grade girls was practically scarred for life…she wasn’t too impressed with the fact that I just picked up a bug bigger than one of my fingers.
The first day:
Wow. The students have each class for 45 minutes and there is one science class for each grade. The 7th and 8th grade students are doing chemistry, 9th and 10th are doing biology stuff and the 11th graders (there are only 6 of them) are working on research projects and learning how to write scientific papers. Each class has its challenges. The 10th grade has a lot of boys, some of which like to talk a lot. Anna definitely has her hands full, especially considering she has only been here for 6 months, but she is great at it. Most of the kids respect her and knows that she is still learning.
I wish I had more experience, but after this, there shouldn’t be too much I haven’t been exposed to. I will be doing Spanish classes here on Friday afternoons with the Spanish as a second language teacher. I could understand a fair amount of what she was asking me, but I had no idea how to respond in Spanish. I just hope I learn enough. It seems like a silly thing to worry about, considering where I am and for how long, but I hope I am not expecting too much out of this experience.
A little about where I am living. I am living in a small house in Cementario, a small section of Santa Elena, which is down the hill from Monteverde proper. Essentially, as you go up the hill, once the paved road ends, you are officially in Monteverde. My bedroom is small but I have two windows. The roof is the “wavey” metal roofing you see on some barns. When the wind is really blowing (like it is right now) you think the roof is going to come off! The walls are simple and not insulated so when the dog down the street starts barking at 2 am, then the dog across the street barks, and then the small dog in my house barks at them…it is interesting some nights.
I am very tired today so I will likely post this tomorrow, hopefully with pictures too. I am so glad I can share this with you all!

K