Clowning Around

Many weeks ago, before the end of February, one of my schools was treated to a thrilling spectacle. A Television personality, from Costa Rica's Channel 13 came down to one of my schools, perhaps my favorite, and put on a performance for the children. He was good, and his slapstick routines were impressive, his stories had nice morals and he performed an exceptional 'Little Red Riding Hood', the best part was that when he left he stayed in character and just disappeared. Everyone in the room enjoyed it, even the stodgy old teacher (with a heart of gold). That school is probably my favorite because I go there Thursday and Friday, it is around 14 kilometers away, so I take the bus although some day I hope to start going by bike. It has around 80 students, and the town is really small. What I most love about it is the shady school-yard, and the sewage ditch that the soccer balls always fall into. The students take off their shoes and jump into the murky, ankle-deep water, bring the ball up and promptly have to dive in again.
In other, and perhaps more exciting news, we have discovered a Chinese Restaurant in Puerto Jimenez, and it serves egg-rolls! Kristen is my Peace Corps buddy in Osa, and she loves egg-rolls (Tacos Chinos in Costa Rican spanish), so this find radically changed how much we enjoy Puerto Jimenez, and has cut down on our ice cream journeys.
Also, our Library Project is off to a good start! The people over at the Iguana Lodge built a library in Puerto Jimenez, but it has been closed for months because their long-time employee quit, and the new-hire only lasted a few weeks. We went out to the hotel (were treated to a fantastic lunch) and began negotiations to find and train some new employees and get some keys so that we could begin to organize the library. It is currently separated into languages, and after that alphabetically by author's first name. This will be a lot of work, but hopefully we can use it as a resource to start reading programs in our schools, and to get some English books into the classroom. We may begin asking for book donations soon, but not until we're sure we can get this running!

Note: these pictures are of a family trip to Matapalo a few weeks ago, and have nothing to do with the content of this blog.