CR 091809.doc Friday, 7:50am

“How would it be if everything that you thought you knew
Was turned upside down opposite from your point of view
How would you feel if the ground was really the sky and all of this time you’ve been walkin’ when you coulda been ...flying.” Ellis

SYNOPSIS: Listening to Ellis on the way to Liberia. We finally got an appointment with the principal, and Kassidy will start school on Monday. We have met an ex-pat family from the school who we have been invited to celebrate a kid birthday with tonight. No electricity all day Thursday. The Library… I don’t think that word means what you think it means. Rain is different here. THAT is not a Wal-mart. Costa Rican coffee is seducing me. Fast food lunch: Would you like a beer with that Cinnabun? Kassidy buys ice cream all by herself. The pool boy is coming…





DRIVING TO LIBERIA WITH ELLIS

I am trying to surreptitiously record Kassidy as she sings along with Ellis with a big grin on her face. I’m failing. She keeps catching me. Every time I put the camera down she starts singing again. Ellis is grabbing onto our insides and making them the color of happy. When I sing, though, Kassidy says, “You’re interrupting my experience.” I start lip synching. She is embarrassed, not because anyone is watching, but because she’s twelve and it’s her job. “What do you think Ellis would do if she were in Costa Rica?” “Drink coffee” she says. We listen to Ellis for a long, long time, because I get lost again… which makes us think of Ellis’ song about getting lost and taking the scenic route. We’ve been on this scenic route before. This is the same wrong turn I took the last time. We are in Papagayo again. While we drive Kassidy quizzes me on metric conversions. Seriously. Ellis should come to Playa Hermosa and do a concert. We have an extra bedroom.





KASSIDY AND SCHOOL

I have done something very un-tica. Reading Thich Nhat Hahn right now, I know I’ve also done something very un-Buddhist. But I’m done something very Karen. I called the school. I badgered them for an appointment. The delay, it seems, is that in Costa Rica, if you are born in 1997, you are in 6th grade this year. 7th grade doesn’t start until February. They have decided to accept her into 6th grade as an oyente (auditor) and not count her grades. However, she’ll be allowed to participate in the end of the year graduation and festivities and will continue with this same class into 7th grade. We obtained a 2:30 appointment with the Principal, who is a thoughtful and lovely woman from Oregon named Doña Gwen. These Costa Rican girls are tiny, and Kassidy towers over them and feels like a giantess. The pace, though, of 6th grade, will be a much easier transition for her. Rather than being swallowed up by high school, she will be in one classroom and her teachers will come to her class. They want her to start on Monday instead of Friday because they want to be sure that the teachers are ready for her, that there is a desk, that she transitions smoothly. She has never done this before. She has been in the same school since she was three. The principal is impressed with her entrance essay on the houses that were torn down on the beach. She says that the English class won’t be anywhere near her level. She peruses the ITBS scores I have just brought in. She’s very smart. She’s very tall. Her Spanish, though, is not strong enough to carry her through the last 9 weeks of 7th grade and they are confident that she can get her feet wet here and move on with her class in January. She reminds us that there are only 11 grades (not 12), so that moving her ahead to 7th grade would be result in her graduating from high school at 16. Costa Rican grade levels are different because there are only 11 of them. I need to relax.



We meet Patty, a mom from Canada who has lived here for 20 years and raised her kids here. They spend every Friday afternoon at Aqua Sport, on Playa Hermosa, and live across the street from us. There is a group of English speaking ex-pats here who have kids about Kassidy’s age. She brightens considerably when she learns that Patty’s son is 6 foot tall. She asks Kassidy if she can hang with boys doing boy things – playing in the ocean, basketball and such. Oh yeah she can. =) I make a mental note to get her a less revealing swim suit. Maybe a Burka. I will not be at all surprised if Kassidy ends up being friends with older kids just because she feels more normal around them. It is her younger son’s birthday, so Friday is the party and we are invited to come to the beach. As Kassidy was trying on uniforms at the school, one of the Colegio girls tripped her. Patty explains that this is the Costa Rican sense of humor – very 3 Stooges – but she slips into protective mama mode is determined to introduce Kassidy to Chantelle, who is in 8th grade, but about Kassidy’s size and who she thinks would get along well with her. This would give her a posse of people from Playa Hermosa who she is friends with and who, eventually, she can ride the bus with. Right now, I will drive her in and I may sit hovering in the parking lot all day. This feels like the first day of Kindergarten. I cried.



There used to be more English speaking families at Ciudad Blanca, but Doña Gwen tells us that many of them left last year because the tourism business tanked and property values declined. There are now very few English speaking families, but several “mixed” families.



This afternoon we will go back to the school to buy books and uniforms. Monday morning, she will start.



UNRELIABLE ELECTRICITY

Wednesday night, apparently, an ICE (Instituto Central de Electricidad) truck drove through Playa Hermosa with a mega-phone saying that they would be working on the lines on Thursday and there would be no electricity from 7am-4pm on Thursday. Had I heard this announcement, or understood that this is the standard way to communicate critical information, I would have pulled the car out of the garage. We manually grunted the door open and spent the day in Liberia.



THE LIBRARY

Using the Pool Boy’s map, we went to the library. Oh my God Stephen Krashen would have a heart attack. Libraries are where I developed my passion for books. My mom took us every week to check out 5 (only 5!) books apiece, which meant that we only had 20 books to read once we had all read each other’s before our next trip. The Chicago library is where my mom set a Richard Scarry book on top of the car and drove away. She had to buy it and we had a beat up, tire tread copy that we got to read over and over again. My first time in the downtown library in Colorado my mom pointed out the first Nancy Drew book. I read them all.



This library had signs that said “No pase” where the books were. Another sign read “Libraries are sacred.” Fortunately, we knew which books we were looking for, so she looked them up, brought them to me, and then took my passport and had me sign for them so that I could read them right there in the library.



I did get an awesome picture of a card catalogue, though. Remember those? She didn’t use the card catalogue to find the books, though, she used a computer.



I am beginning to figure out why some books are so hard to find in the U.S. No ISBNs. They are filed by Dewey Decimal System number, but don’t have ISBNs.



We peruse the books for a few minutes and then decide to try to find them in a book store. It’s sad. This will probably be the last time we come to the library. Their collection is small, and there are only two girls there working on a computer.



There is also no bulletin board announcing local cultural activities. Kassidy is pretty fascinated with the Old Jail, though, so we’ll come back and take pictures.



A DIFFERENT KIND OF RAIN

We look like we have stepped into the pool fully clothed with an umbrella. Rain here is not rain. It’s not even that it’s raining sideways, although it might be. It’s that it’s like buckets, not like drops. You’re sloshed with multiple buckets of water and then stand there with your sopping wet clothes stuck to your body and your hair dripping like you’re getting out of the shower. People don’t even seem to bother with umbrellas. They go inside and wait until it stops. It rains frequently when it rains, but not for very long.



WAL-MART

I don’t feel guilty anymore. Maxi-Bodega is not a Wal-Mart. It is raining in the “Wal-Mart.” There are buckets collecting drops from the ceiling. It is raining on the televisions. They do not have Oil of Olay. I buy a book.



COFFEE

I make an important life decision. I am healthy. I sleep well. I have recovered from an extreme bout of work-aholicism. It has been 3 years and 2 months since my last cup of coffee. If it turns out that I am like an alcoholic and cannot handle this, then so be it. I’ll quit again. But I’m in Costa Rica… and I cannot find Chai. But coffee’s odor calls to me from every grocery shelf and it’s price… less than $2 for a bag of ground coffee… it seems almost sinful not to have some. 4 years ago I used coffee as a replacement for sleep. Now I will use it as a replacement for Chai. If it turns out that I don’t still like coffee… I’ll just smell it.



FAST FOOD LUNCH

We have about an hour until Kassidy’s interview at school, and I really want her to be happy before we get there. When we get there we will learn that the school psychologist will not meet with her because she doesn’t speak English. We go to the “mall” which is just a food court. I took some pictures in case any of you are even in the mood for a Cinnabun and a beer. The Papa John’s, the Burger King, the Chicken place, the Cinnabun… all have beer taps or cans of beer next to the water bottles. A personal sized pizza is 3000 colones, so just under $6.





KASSIDY’S INDEPENDENT SHOPPING

After we leave the school, Kassidy checks on movie times and buys ice cream entirely by herself. She has no idea why they wouldn’t sell her a movie ticket. She thinks it’s because they have fewer showings on weekdays. She also gets in the car with an ice cream cone and doesn’t know what flavor it is. I think this is funny. She thinks it might be coconut.



SETTING UP THE OFFICE

We also stop into the place where we bought her paints and buy a desk, a desk chair and little stacking file holders. They only have the floor model left, so we wrestle it into our tiny car and don’t have to build it when we get home. My aching back is happy. We have a practical solution to trying to run an office from a beach.



It’s Friday. The Pool Boy is coming today. I must get dressed.