La Nariz de Indio

I rose from my bed early this morning around 3:15am to meet some friends on the other side of town for a nice sunrise hike up to La Nariz de Indio (Indian´s Nose) which from San Pedro lookes like the outline of...well you can probably guess. After leaving San Pedro we walked through San Juan and came to the base of the mountain and began our ascent. We arrived at the peak just in time to watch the sun creep up over the horizon of the distant volcanoes to give us a spectacular array of colors streaked across the sky. After some fruit and a few pictures we made our way down the backside of the mountain into Santa Clara where we went to the Saturday market and bought fresh avocados and bread for lunch. Piles of tomatoes and other fresh produce lined the aisles and locals meander to and from makeshift shade structures having friendly conversations with each other.

After we got some food, our group decided to split. We all hoped in the back of a pick-up and road down the mountian into San Pablo where myself, Samuel and Jema got a tuk tuk on to San Marcos. The plan was to go jump off the rocks I kayaked to the other week. But after wondering down some streets, not really sure where we were, we ran into a local and he told us about an amazing waterfall about an hour down the road. After about an hour of walking we come around a corner in the road and the man points up to a hotel in a valley where the man lived an hour up into the hills. We bought our new friend a soda and said goodbye at the dock where we jumped in a boat and made our way back to San Pedro. Riding across the lake in a boat offers a great view of the surrounding villages dwarfed by the volcanoes in the background. After putting down some hummas, pita, and falafel at an Israeli restuarant I made my way back to sleep off the lost time from my early morning departure.

Friday morning as I was sitting with Christina practicing the future verb tense she asked me if I would like to do some other volunteer work with another school. So at about 9am I packed up my stuff and we walked up into town, past the market, and to El Centro, a school for children with disabilities. I sat around a table with two other volunteers who run a summer camp in Canada, a teacher from the school, Christina and four students at the school. Paulina, Jose, Pedro, and Pedrito. It was challenging to work with the students, but as I worked more with them the kids warmed up to me and began to open up with smiles and laughter. We worked on two phrases, ariba and abajo (above and below). Raising our hands up and down like a game of simon says. After a little snack of jello I said goodbye to the students and returned to class with Christina.

After lunch with Rosa I made my way down the hill to the highschool I´ve been teaching English at. I met up with another friend Jema who is going to take over the class when I leave next week. Jema and I sat down this weekend to do some legit lesson planning rather than just going with the flow. There are just so many approaches one could take to teach a language. I like the format The Cooperative has approached teaching Spanish so I am going to try to take that and use it as a foundation for English lessons. At the end of class the students were asking me to play some more songs on my Ukulele so of course I obliged and without even writing the lyrics on the board they all sung along with the chorus. They requested a Bob Marley song for Monday... After class let out we were invited to stay and watch a school ceremony that recognized students for outstanding acheivements and gave the students a chance to meet the candidates for what I assume to be the equivalent of class president. Loud music played over the speaker system as two fo the school officials annouced the names and grades of the students coming up to the stage. They were adorned with the local dress and approached the stage in a manner that was more akin to dancing than walking. What a world away from my days in high school. The need for these kids to care for siblings, work to help support their families, and be respectable members of the society seems to up the level of maturity.