Happy Thanksgiving!

While I am really missing Mom´s Thanksgiving dinner and of course the parade, I am at least celebrating with people who have some concept of our fabulous holiday. Our final WorldTeach meeting is today in Orosi, the same town where we had our orientation. So the other 18 or so volunteers and I are visiting our old host families, sharing crazy stories from our sites and prepping our stomachs for the 7pm Thanksgiving dinner. As our dinner is being prepared by a Dutch man, I´m not sure what to except. We were told he doesn´t believe pumpkins can be made into a pie but I do believe we will at least be getting some turkey and mashed potatoes and, even better.....NO rice and beans!!!

The last month has been busy. I gave my final exams and shockingly, no one is going to fail my class! I wrote all of my final letters for next year´s volunteer and WorldTeach and I´ve spent some rather frustrating days dealing with lazy coworkers and crazy kids. Most of this stems from the fact that my director, Dineth, has been diagnosed with uterine cancer and will be undergoing chemotherapy. We´re all pretty upset and she´s been out of school for the past few weeks. This has led to chaos in the classroom, as there was only a substitue for a few days. The other days, Don Jorge teaches all the kids or Dona Miriam, the special ed teacher works with them. I have let it be known that I refuse to teach in the same classroom as Miriam, as she literally sleeps at the teacher´s desk and leaves the kids to go crazy. As I was trying to teach 1st grade, in the same room due to the size of the school, the 4th graders chucked pens at their heads and pulled their chairs out so they would fall. Miriam watched the whole thing and did NOTHING!!! I would rather teach the whole school myself than have her sit there the whole day and get paid to sleep. Thankfully, Don Jorge understood my frustration and has moved 4th grade in with him but as yet to say anything to Sleeping Beauty. Sometimes the Ticos unwillingness to confront anyone about anything drives me crazy!

That´s enough ranting for now, I´m off to get ready to eat lots of turkey. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families. Look for videos of the rodeo I went to soon!