June 16-22: Calm Before the San Juan Storm

We’re approaching the mid-year break for public schools in Costa Rica, and you can sense it from teachers and students alike, as well as with all of the events happening on the academic calendar. Schools I teach at are all juggling English festivals, science fairs, business expos, art festivals, and exams, (all in addition to town-wide Catholic celebrations for San Juan Bautista, the patron saint of my town) so things haven't been as consistent the last couple weeks. 

In fact, although I taught a couple of my typical lessons, a lot of my time was dedicated to the aforementioned events. At my colegio, I helped with the English festival’s “living museum”. There, I acted as Christian Pulisic, an American soccer player, and gave a brief “autobiographical” speech on his life and career. I also got invited to a different colegio, over in Escazú, where my host aunt is the principal, or directora. There, I served as a judge in a business expo in which students gave Shark Tank-like pitches on their ideas for future companies or products. At the escuela, students were taking exams and got out of class early for San Juan fiestas, so many of my classes this week were either canceled or shifted. 



Although Dia de San Juan Bautista isn’t officially until next Tuesday, the town does several events in the run-up to the day, and it’s been fun taking those all in. For example, Saturday night, there was a town-wide soccer match in front of the church between the gordos (heavier people) and the flacos (skinny people). Then on Sunday, they held the festival of cimarronas. This event featured people in masked costumes on stilts (known as mascaradas) who danced to music from a live band. Sometimes my site can feel pretty urban, so I’ve enjoyed seeing the town come together in a more traditional pueblo sense for these fiestas patronales. I’m especially looking forward to the big day on Tuesday, although I have no idea what to expect quite yet.





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