What is a picture of a machete doing in the entry about school? Well, on the Saturday before school began, at a moment when I was already feeling a bit frayed from the 24/7 time with my kids, our machete met the water pipe at the hands of toolboy Henry and his accomplice, Anna. The machete is, by the way, a common household tool here in CR . We had quite a slash and splash going on in our woods and eventually not a drop of water going into our house. Apparently, Henry was trying to clear some path and missed his intended target. (I can hear some of you saying - only Liz's kids - but I had been really clear about this water pipe - take care not to whack, step on, or mess with it, because as you may see vaguely from the picture below, it is exposed and flimsy - 1/2" PVC. I admit, I hadn't had the machete talk yet; I honestly didn't think even t
hey'd take that whomper out for a ride without asking...)
hey'd take that whomper out for a ride without asking...)Neighbors to the rescue! George, a longtime Monteverde resident, knew where the water shut off was and had a car to get to town and the hardware store; and Ryan, a landscape architect, familiar with irrigation-type pipes (and how to fix them), had just arrived to join his family the day before. It was his water supply too... welcome to Monteverde! We blew the pipe at about 2:00pm and it was handily fixed by dark, 6pm here. We didn't have water until the next day however, because we understood the spanish glue instructions to say wait 24 hours. Funny thing was, I had written someone earlier in the week that I might miss the kids when they went off to school... ha!
The kids began the Cloud Forest School, also called Centro de Educacion Creativa, on August 3rd. They would've begun on July 21, but there was a nation-wide swine flu precaution which called for a 2 week delay. The school is on a year-round schedule which is wonderful for visiting families who want to travel. The kids go to school in 6 week blocks with a whole week off in late Aug/Sept and another in late October and then 4 weeks at Christmas.
We are one of 8 US families new to Creativa this year/semester, so we have a fun, and very interesting community of people with whom we share our new venture. Several of the kids are in class together and are forming friendships. The student body is around 95% Tico (Costa Rican), and we are looking forward to friendships with Tico classmates in time.
If you are interested in reading about the school, the website is: http://www.cloudforestschool.org/. I have pasted the Creativa vision and mission below to give you some sense of what the school is about. I have also included a (modest) slideshow to get some view of what school looks like. The pics were taken before school was in session.
Vision: "Our vision is a sustainable future for the Earth through educating individuals to love, respect and protect the natural environment, to strive for justice and peace as well as academic excellence and to work towards conserving biodiversity and enriching community life."
Mission: "Our mission is to nurture generations of ecologically aware, academically well-rounded bilingual individuals. We will work to provide students with the knowledge, values and skills needed to make environmentally and socially conscious decisions on a local, national and global scale."
The kids' impressions after the first week of school...
Isabel: I really like the goals of the creativa, which are to be bilingual and to help the environment. Those are two things I really want to know how to do. I really want to become bilingual because I think I could use it well in the future. I hear spanish all around me and i am really catching on. It is really interesting the behaviors of the ticos and the US students. They kiss people on the cheek when they see them and more. The teachers are all very very nice and fun cool teachers. The environment is so nice here and everything is outside. The school is nothing like my middle school back home. I am loving taking spanish because already i know some of the words when people have conversations and it is fun to offiially learn them. If any people come to Costa Rica then I would love to show you the school. Also September 15th is a really big day in Costa Rica because it is the independence day here. At school they put separate time to practice and I am dancing with the bastoneras which is in front of the band and we dance sort of a line dance!!! Come visit. Love to everyone! Enjoy the rest of your summer!!!!!!!!!
Anna: The school in CR is nothing like my school in MD, except they both go green. I met another friend named Anna and she is my best bud here. What's hard for our teachers is that we're in the same class with the same name. My teacher Erica is really nice. We call our teachers by their first names here. And also in class I got to decorate my writing notebook and I get to write whatever I want in it. The first thing I wrote was about Julianna, my best friend of all who lives in MD. I'll send it to you Jules! Our school has a really big property. I usually stay at the Escuela area- lower school and sometimes the colegio - upper school. For the September 15th Independence Day parade, I am doing the baton and we get to learn dances and wear cute outfits. Our school is so cool. If you come we will show you our school. Hope you come!
Henry: There's this really cool branch on this tree at school right by our classroom and it has these two long branches that are poking straight up out of it so it looks like you're flying a jet plane. And it has buttons out of branches that were cut off. And also there is this other branch that goes down, so when it's really hot, there alot of leaves that cover me and it's all shady - that's my hanging out, cool place. And I have this stick and I can whack these balls off and they roll downhill. Juan Diego bit one open and then threw it down the hill. Also in the tree, I go so high up, I can see miles away and a rusty old baseball court. We actually do yoga in school with my teacher Alayna. We also get free time to read our books on pillows and mats. Did you know we get 2 recesses? That's one extra time in the tree!
