The school is in an even nicer suburb than the one I live in about a 10 minute walk from my homestay. It is in a gorgeous house and the neighbors even have automatic garage door openers and there is one part of the community that is gated. It appears that it is two family home with an upstairs and downstairs apartment but both are being used for the school. The kitchen is also very beautiful on the downstairs level (no granite counter tops and small, but nicely decorated) while there is cabinets and countertops in the upstairs kitchen but no appliances.
There are many classrooms in the house, all converted bedrooms. My first thoughts are that I guess I am paying for the space considering this part of the quality is way above anything offered at my schools in Guatemala. As class with Vinicio began I had the same thoughts about quality as he handed out bound workbooks and utilized several other resources in his class. They also provided us a plastic folder with some maps and information about the area.
As I walked back up the hill to find some lunch during my lunch break I found myself wondering how they remain afloat. A director, an assistant director, and a teacher all for only two students (the only other student is an older gentleman from Florida, we have a group class together in the morning, he has been to this school before and has returned for more). Then I remembered how much I'm paying and that was with a discount too. With all this space that they have, I wondered if they could just lower the price of their school and attract more students and thereby actually earn more money.
Then there is also the fact that we our left to our own devices for lunch, it is not provided in the homestay as it was in Guatemala and there are limited options out here in the suburbs in regards to restaurants. I think a reason for this is that the homestay is not most of these families sole income as in Guatemala. They are working during the day. This aspect of the culture it is different. They have a bigger dinner meal here while in Guatemala lunch was the biggest meal. However, on weekends I think they revert back to lunch being the most important family meal.
For me, this is difficult. My family here feeds me huge portion sizes for breakfast and dinner. I think I'd much rather have them separated out and have them pack a lunch for me with half of what I get for breakfast and dinner. However, I am grateful that they actually eat with me in what actually feels like a family meal though for breakfast they give me fruit but don't eat any themselves. Here I also get tons of carne(meat) but I'm very much missing all of Ordelia's delicious vegetables (if only I could take bits and pieces of each place, school, and homestay).
In any case, I ate in an expensive restaurant for lunch (one of the only options). I'd ordered spinach crepes and didn't realize that this used to be one of my favorite dishes as a child until it had been served to me and looked almost exactly as it has when I was a child. However, I have to say that the cheese sauce that my parents served with it was much better than it was here.
I then returned to school for a 2 hour private class with a different teacher (they had given me a deal for the intensive option of 4 hours group class plus 2 hours private for the price of the group classes because I had mentioned the huge price difference from Guatemala). I was sorely disappointed with my teacher. My school, Personalized Spanish, prizes themselves on the personalized aspect of their school. However, this teacher didn't listen to me, didn't try to assess where I was, didn't appear to have talked to my morning teacher about what we worked on earlier, and appeared to have his own agenda. By the end of class the white board (another resource my other schools didn't have) was a mess, he had no organization whatsoever to what he was teaching and my brain was on overload. Also, he had so much anxiety, which is something I've been finding I take on of other people's very easily.
Later, when I arrived back home, I thought about canceling my afternoon classes (with my discount I could save $50 by only taking class in the morning). All the resources and the original advice I got about selecting a school rang true, "there are no good or bad schools, only good or bad teachers." All this money I'm spending and this is what I'm getting, an inexperienced teacher just like my second school in Guatemala. It made me miss Ari so much, how he actually took time to get to know me, my needs, and fill in the gaps of what I still needed to learn ever so slowly as to not overwhelm me but give me a chance to practice what I'd already learned. But it also made me grateful for my morning teacher and his ability to take 2 people of varying abilities and interests and teach them cohesively.
In any case, after a short rest at home I set out to find the grocery store to get something to pack for my lunches for the week. During my walks I find several storefronts with activities for kids like dance, tutoring, birthday parties, etc. I am surprised at how similar life out here is to life in the suburbs back home. Walking around it feels very similar to my home on the outskirts of a medium sized town in Germany when I lived there so many years ago. The grocery store as well is worlds away from the ones in Guatemala and even in San Jose proper. It felt just the same as any of the nicer grocery stores in the states with all the same products and similarly neatly arranged rows. I was even offered a food sample in the produce department!
Back at home we had a coffee meal. It was around 6pm and was just tuna salad and crackers. I was wondering if I hadn't understood right and that this was supposed to be my dinner. However, at 7pm another meal was served, pasta with carne. The kids (Christopher and another grandchild) poured some sauce over theirs from a plastic container and I followed suit. It wasn't till after I'd poured it on that I realized that the product "salsa de tomate" was not actually tomato sauce but ketchup. I tried convincing myself that it was the same thing, both a sauce made from tomatoes, but my taste buds didn't agree.
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