Animal Week

So far, my contact with animals in Costa Rica has been limited to stray dogs, cows and of course, lots of insects. I´m not sure if there was a full moon this week or what, but I had lots of interesting critter encounters. I was just drifting off to sleep( at what has become my usual 9pm bedtime) when my host mom was yelled at me to ¨Look, Look!¨I thought she was talking about the ¨dancing¨dog that was on tv and I said something like, ¨Que lindo¨ and rolled over. She continued to yell so I thought I should go see what was wrong. She was standing at the door pointing to the biggest opossum ever, which was wrapped around one of the posts of the house. It was really mangy and I could smell it from about 10 feet away...it was um, fragrant. Albertina and her sister Maritza (who lives next door) started throwing rocks at it so it would stop chewing the clothesline. Unfortunately, they had pretty bad aim and just made it mad. That´s when I discovered that opossums hiss. Finally, Albertina would up and hit is square between the eyes and it ran away to go chew someone else´s closeline.

The next day at school, the kids found a turtle, put it in a bucket and started poking at it with sticks until the director made them release it. But only after, everyone had ¨pet¨it. Then on Thursday, I was in the living room with Daniela and my host cousin Ana and I heard Albertina yelling from the bathroom. I asked what it was and she said (Spanish word I didn´t know) muy grande! So I knew it was something really big. When she got the broom and started trying to smash it, Daniela, Ana and I climbed on the stools. Yes, I stood on a chair and shrieked with the 5 and 6 year old and let my poor little host mom deal with whatever ït¨ was. The girls seemed scared of it, so I thought I probably would be too. She hadn´t said the word for snake, so I was a little relieved but I still had no clue what it was. Then a huge warty, puke-green toad hopped out of the bathroom and under the refridgerator. Albertina finally sweeped (literally) the toad out the door and the girls and I got down from the kitchen table.

On Friday, I dealt with an entirely different kind of animal...my 4th grade boys. I was in the middle of explaining how to play a review game when they all sprinted outside, pumping their arms. A few second later, a truck went by honking just for them. They came back inside and told me they had all gone for a drink of water. ¨Oh really, because I just watched you out the window. You just left class to get a trunk to honk at you.¨ They all lost their lottery tickets for the prize drawing later that day as punishment. To which they said, ¨They´re just little prizes, we could buy them ourselves.¨I welcomed them to do so for the next drawing. (These boys actually care more about the prizes than anyone else in the school, as everyday they ask me when the next drawing is.) On Thursday, every class has a free day to watch a movie in English except 4th and 1st (they have some issues with pushing each other.) I´m planning some super exciting worksheets for the 4th graders that day. After all, every class day to them is like a free day!

I wish I had pictures to show you of the animals from the week, but sadly my camera battery has died and I have to wait for a new one to get shipped from the states. I have to go because the all-important Costa Rica vs. Mexico soccer game is today (I´ve heard of nothing else all week.) I´ll update more next week!