HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011

John Lennon Happy Xmas (War is Over)

Happy Father's Day!!

Malpais? Not at all: Wonderful country!

Yesterday mi daughter had to attend a Malpais concert. There was a long earth wake in the afternoon and I was so afraid, that I decided to go with her and her friends. I am not a concert person. I love music, any music, but with a comfortable volume and in a nice place. Jumping among heads and yelling trying to communicate with the person right after me is not my idea of enjoying music.

Anyway, when I arrived to the gym, I realized that I knew the musical group. Fidel and Jaime Gamboa played in UCR pretil when I was there. Tapado Vargas is part of Editus. But the most amazing part was seeing Manuel Obregón playing the keybord wearing just an old, simple, blue t-shirt and a wrinkled pair of pants… I had attended his piano concerts and of course I like the Orquesta de la Papaya with those rare instruments made of turtles shells, pieces of wood, bamboo, sea shells, and so on; but this night was completely different.

Manuel Obregon is our Minister of Culture. He was wearing suit two hours before. And now he was in a school full of teenagers without Security Personal. His music colleagues made fun of him. Fidel Gamboa said: Now we are going to take advantage of “all the culture” that we have in this stage… and they played together a funny melody called “El Portoncito” and Minister Obregon did the funny chorus and made female voices…
Manuel Obregon is a wonderful professional musician. He is a classical pianist. He loves music and he plays a lot of instruments. Yesterday night he played marimba (La Coyolera and El Torito) and acordeón.
After the concert, some teenagers went to take photos with the musicians and they were not interested in the Minister. They looked for Jaime Gamboa and Tapado.
I felt really proud of my country. My daughter is a reporter from her school newspaper and she asked to Jaime Gamboa if Malpais is going to change because of the Ministry of Culture, and I almost cry when I was listened to the recorded interview and the musician said: “Para nada, nosotros somos unos ‘pisos de tierra’ y así vamos a seguir!”
This is our country: A place where a Minister can be in a public place without bodyguards. A place where a person is important because of his real hard work and skills, not because someone in the Government decides that he is good in some political position.

This is our Minister of Culture. This is our CULTURE.

San Isidro Labrador, quita el agua y pon el sol...

When I was a child, I used to sing this little song when it was rainy: San isidro Labrador, quita el agua y pon el sol (Saint Isidor Farmer, put away the rain and bring the sun) in order to go outside to play.

The Catholic Sanctoral says: "Isidore the Laborer, also known as Isidore the Farmer (1070-May 15, 1130) was a Spanish day laborer known for his goodness toward the poor and animals. Isidore frequented Holy Mass every morning but often reported to work late. Late, though he was, his plowing was nevertheless accomplished by angels that resulted in three times more productivity." That is why, Saint Isidore became the Catholic Patron Saint of Farmers.

In our country, we had a lot of towns named after him. In Heredia, there is San Isidro, a little country town with a wonderful landscape of San José, and one of the most beautiful Costa Rica Neo-Gothic Catholic Churches.

In May, all towns named San Isidro have “Fiestas Patronales” and the Catholic Church organizes Oxen Cart Parades, Animal Baptism, and music contests.

Last Friday, Professor Olga invited the Cultura y Lengua Meta group to visit San Isidro de Heredia and to enjoy the Cimarrona’s Contest. A “cimarrona” is a traditional band, formed by, professional or not, musicians who play popular music with some percussion and wind instruments.

We had a wonderful weather, not cold at usually it is in this own. The professor asked for parking the cars a little far from the Church because of the crowd. I thought: “What crowd? This is a little town and nobody will come over there”. By the time we left, there were cars all around three blocks from the Church!!


There were a lot of people in the Church’s garden. Families together, little kids with baby caps, elder people, a lot of teenagers and kids groups, everybody was at the Fair.

After a while, we went to have some dinner at the “Hotel”.
It was very surprising because the cafeteria was a big, clean, and elegant place. The food was traditional: tamales, picadillo de papa o arracache, carne mechada, arroz con pollo, lomo fingido, arroz con leche, agua dulce, etc.


I was impressed by the absence of alcoholic beverages and consequently, no drunk people walking around.

We had a wonderful time. And it was a generous offer from our professor who wanted to share her town and traditions with her students. This is culture alive!

Teaching Experience in the UNA

Last week, I had an amazing teaching experience with my classmate Randall. We prepare two lessons about culture to his Inglés Integrado group. The group has a low-intermediate level and there are 30 students in it. They are students from all Univesidad Nacional Schools.
On Monday 10th, I started the class talking about culture. A brainstorm led the students to express their feelings about culture. Then, we talked about stereotypes. The students had a lot of fun pointing out negative stereotypes about “smelly” countries, extremely confident people, stereotypes about poverty or dirtiness form some social groups in every country, and of course, positive stereotypes as tasty food, wonderful crafts, friendly people and exotic environments.
Now, the mood of the class was ready to work in groups. Students got in groups of 4 or 5 and every group chose an envelope. Each envelope had pictures about well known aspects of an specific culture: United States, France, India, China, Africa and Mexico.
Each group had a big board paper and markers in order to create a descriptive chart about the chosen culture.
The group needed a lot of helping in vocabulary, but the students had a lot of information about every culture, so they shared anecdotes, movies comments, gossips, and more.
The students understood each other very well, and they shared personal supplies as color markers, stickers, glue, and information between work teams.
With the visual aid ready, each group presented to the whole class some aspects about the culture of India, China, United States, France, Africa and Mexico.

They needed a lot of help for the speech but they were enthusiastic and chatty.

For me, the experience with university students was new and I enjoyed it a lot. It is different to teach a second language to children, high school students or adults who want to speak English. These university people are full of dreams, work, experiences and hope. They share what they want to do in a few years: travel and make money to buy all this particular things from some cultures: jewelry, paintings, crafts, and they want to visit museums, parks, monuments, places full of History and magic as the Chinesse Wall, Tah Mahal, Egypt Pyramids, Sahara Desert, New Delhi, and hundreds of exotic places. One of the student talked about visit the Spatial Station MIR and moon walking.

For the Assessment part, they need a lot of help because it was the first time that they use that kind of rubrics. I was glad to read their comments, because they were suportive and nice.

They finished the class time having fun, laughing and asking for new words in English. I felt comfortable with them and I loved the experience. Luckily, I had a second chance with them observing Randall’s teaching performance and that is another good anecdote. Please check his blog to enjoy it: http://cultureanduniverse.blogspot.com/.

Earth Day

There are a lot of commercial purpose special days. But today has not to be one of them. Earth is the only place we have to live. Our planet is fragile, helpless, and wonderful. We have to take care of it in a really commitment way.



We have to fight when the local governments (Municipalidades) decide to cut old trees. The excuse is: “big trees are dangerous, they catch thunders”. No way. We can fix it adding a big steel stick in the upper part of the tree.

I have a little place in the sidewalk planted with trees. My neighbors’ dogs destroy them every week. I keep planting trees: I had two big “güitites”, one planted by the birds. I planted two “guayaba” trees and they are hardly surviving. I planted two coffee plants, but they are not going to resist. I had a lemon tree which survived after cutting the big tree and then the roots where too big to put them away, so the tree decided to re-born and know it has little lemons on it. My family makes fun of me because I continue trying with the trees. I hope that some day my neighbors understand that the nice place they keep destroying could be a goodfruit provider for them.




One of my neighbors’ houses has an electric fence. They are elder people and they are afraid of be assaulted. Last year we have the visit of two beautiful “pájaros bobos”. Then one day one of them was killed by the fence. The other one stay close for a while before to leave. They are loyalty couples. The other “bobo” will never have babies anymore. What a shame!


Maybe most of all will never have big lands to keep rivers alive, but we have to contribute with little details to keep our planet alive and healthy.
When I was a child in Moravia, every June 15th all the children from the school went by foot, to La Isla, nearby the Virilla to plant trees and we were walking and singing the Tree Hymn.
Maybe some of you remember it:

(Letra: José Santos Chocano. Música: Roberto Campadabal)

It is a touchy poem:

Árbol que tiendes hacia las nubes,
en un ejemplo de elevación.
Subir quisiera como tú subes
y abrir las ramas de mi canción.
Diría entonces que el alma mía
solo es un árbol hecho de amor,
que da a los vientos su poesía,
como pudiese dar una flor.

Diría entonces que el sol me ama,
pues si soy árbol mi Padre es él,
y que en mi siempre su viva llama,
de verso en verso,
de rama en rama,
va elaborando frutos de miel.

Pájaro errante: te daré nido,
trémulo anciano toma un bordón.
Romero puedes dormir tendido,
bajo la sombra que me ha salido
de lo más hondo del corazón.
Yo soy el árbol que habla.
El del cuento.
Árbol Florido ¿no eres feliz?
Como tú sube mi pensamiento
y sus flores arroja al viento,
es en su tierra que echa raíz.


I love trees, I love nature, and I try to recycle as much as I can. We, as teachers, have the responsibility of spread the loving feeling about Earth. It is our job: to educate. Maybe it is not enough, but we have to try because we have no other place to go.

Foreign Guests

On March 12th, our Culture Course had a guest.

What do you think about Texas? What is Texas?
Oil wells, Rodeos, big cars, Country Music, Cowboys. Texas is all of that. We met a Texas State University Professor who is all of that, too. Her name is Jonna Beck and she is Texas.


But after that introduction, she made clear that she is not part of Texas culture.
American individualism is more current in Texas than in the rest of the United States. Everything in Texas is bigger and better.
Professor Jonna told us about family traditions, religion, and believes in Texas.
Texas carries on a racist tradition since American Civil War in XIX century. Professor Jonna had a brother from Ruanda, Jean Claude. He is a survivor from one of many Ruanda street disturbs, and he is not safe from the police in Texas, neither. Jean Claude lives with Jonna, and she loves and protects him. The professor explained to us about feminism, and sexual tolerance. Texas continues being a traditional state. Professor Jonna does not share that point of view. That is why she is not part of Texas’ culture.
Professor Joan is a citizen from the world. She does not accept the word: multicultural. She said that nobody’s culture is formed by little pieces. Everyone has his own culture. Hers is as Texas, influenced by many traditions: Taekwondo from Korea, traditional dresses from Germany (her ancestors’ country), literature from Ireland (James Joyce is her favorite author), and dance from Mexico.
Family is very important for Texas people and for this professor, too. Her husband and his family are very different from her tradition, but she loves them this way . They are The Palmers, and they are from Chicago.
The experience of professor Jonna talking about herself was amazing. Some classmates shared their experiences too.
She was really kind and generous. She told us that she could have a possibility for our classmates to go to Texas State University to get a PhD. She will wait for them the next twenty years. I really hope that someone could get it!! She gave us her card and pencils from her Texas State Writing Center. It was a nice experience.


A week later, on March 12 we had more nice guests. This time we met two caring girls from Germany: Regina and Kata.

They shared with us their experiences in a totally different country. Regina had been in our country for some months and Kata just spent few days. They talked about their own country: economics, car industry (I was embarrassed because I thought that Volvo cars are German, but they are Swedish), family issues, and of course, school. They revealed their concern about how people looked at them because of the Nazism tragedy. They felt proud of been from German but they try not to show it in order to not bother people from other cultures. Regina was excited about visiting beaches, volcanoes, and having telluric movements. She explained to us the difference between our tropical beaches and the Baltic Sea which is always cold. She was afraid of our way of driving and crossing the streets. She said that she already knew that in San José she had not to wait for the traffic light, but for the people who cross the street whenever they consider it will be fine.
Kata told us about the increase on education costs after the reunification in 1989.
Now Germany has to provide education to twenty million more people. The new German government is supporting a voluntary service program all over the world. Regina is part of it.



I asked them about classical music education. I wondered if German children had a very professional music education since some of the most famous classical composers are from Germany: Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, and Wagner. When Kata explained that children have music education as part of the Elementary Curriculum I realized that I had jumped to conclusions in the same way that people from other countries could expect to find in our country tropical dancers in the streets, and if they ask for that, a lot of people will answer that they do not dance salsa, merengue or reguetton.



I love to have guests in our class because it is a direct way to develop what we had been studying since February. It is too easy to prejudge and to criticize and we try not to do it consciously but it is with the real interaction that we discover our respect to other cultures.

A Sunday in San José

There are wonderful Summer Festivals in big cities around the world. In New York there is Phil at the Park. In Austria there is the Vienna's Glorious Ball Season. In France it is the Versailles Festival. And so on. We can see all those activities by the mass media. They are so far away: music, art, dance, drama, crafts, free courses…



I was really impressed when I spent a family Sunday in San José. In our sad, dirty and rough San José. But something had changed. In the parks there were no more homeless or alcoholic people asking for money.




The Central Park, Morazán Park, España Park, National Park… they were unrecognizable. They had colorful flags waving to the wind. Hundreds of people were walking by the little roads between crafts expositions.



Mimos, boys in street rollers, dancing groups, cheerleaders yelling aloud, street artists doing graffiti, famous writers reading their own creations, a young sculptor teaching his technique to everyone who wanted to learn it. A bunch of artistic expressions for free.



There were a lot of people enjoying the Sunday at the city. Families with little kids. Young couples. People walking their dogs. Teenager groups. I could not believe that it was San José.
Nearby the National Library there was a tent. A lot of people were waiting for something. I went over to spy. Thirty musicians were waiting for someone. An old man arrived with two ladies. He was a famous singer some time ago. His name is Rafa Pérez and he started singing with the San Jose Professional Band. A group of elder people started to dance. They went from boleros to pasodobles. The public clapped.



Suddenly another kind of music appeared. It was another kind of music band: a cimarrona. The parade arrived. El pasacalle had a lot of people dancing and running with big masks. Some kids yelled. There were our traditional characters: la Giganta and the totally red Diablo.


We walked down the avenue. My husband and my son stayed watching street boxing. My daughter and I went to the Book Fair.



In a little tent there was someone telling a story. When we arrived a lady was reading a story about Ratón Pérez. Then she told another one about our changing weather: the responsible was a Escazú Witch who blinks her long eyelashes when she wanted rainy or sunny days. At the end another writer arrived: she was Arabella Salaverry who read some of her wonderful poems about love, desolation, and hope.



The day was almost over. We were really tired. My son was eating a “copo” and my daughter bought some wood jewelry. I was talking to a group of Guaymíes who where selling handcrafted baskets and clothes. I got a doll dress alike the one wearing by their little baby girl who was sleeping in a big basket near to them.


I took some photos and when I looked at them I could not believe that it was happened in my country. The photos reflected the beauty of that summer day. The city buildings were not as sad as they usually are. The parks were impressive. The people looked happy. I wished it happened more often. That wonderful time was: TRANSITARTE.

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Zi gong (a disciple of Confucius) asked:
"Is there any one word that could guide a person throughout life?"
The Master replied:
"How about 'shu' (reciprocity).
Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself!"

Analects XV:24.

When I was no part of them

In 1990 I was working as Academic Department secretary at Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano (CCCN). I worked from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. when classes finished.

After 7:00 p.m. there were just grownups taking English courses, and few administrative people. Some of them were from the American Embassy.

The building was very quiet at night. My office was downstairs and there was a little rest place with a TV set outside my workplace. Normally the TV was for played educative videos from a VCR.

Then, at the end of that year, the Academic Director, an american lady, turned on the CNN transmission every night at 7:00 p.m. Sometimes I looked at the news, but it was just about war issues, international leaders meetings, ONU declarations, and things like that.

One night, there were a lot of commotion at the CCCN and some American people came downstairs to watch the news.

At the TV, the screen was dark. The reporter was just giving numbers about army issues that I did not matter. Near 9:00 p.m. in the screen became visible some lights as fireworks looked from far away.

After I while, I noticed the people around the TV set. They had long faces. Their eyes were sad. Their foreheads were frowned. Their hands were tense. I turned my head to the news and I did not get it. I could not imagine why they were so shocked if there was just a firework far, far away.

When the images at the news changed, they looked at each other. They went close and they were saying soft words between them. I had never seen before so many American adults touching each others. They kept their hands in someone else arms in a comforting way.

They goodbye to each other and they left the building walking slowly as if they were carrying a heavy weight on their shoulders. The Desert Storm had begun.

I felt myself as an intruder. I was no part of their feelings. We spent a lot of holidays together. We celebrated President Day, Thanksgiving, 4th July, Flag Day, Memorial Day, Valentines Day, and eventhough I did not mind some of these celebrations, they love to share to Ticos co-workers their traditional food, activities, decorations and of course, thier frame of mind.

But not that day. Not even the next days... or months!

Food Differences

It is not easy to be involved in someones else life.
Last year, an American teacher came to my house to spend the weekend.
She is an old and really caring lady. She explained to me that she needed to have some food every three hours in order to take her pills. I told her that if I did not be around, she could look for something to eat around my kitchen.
Next day, I woke up at 6:00 a.m. and she told me that she had breakfast two hours ago. She congratulates me by the quality of costarrican pepperoni. She told me that it was so soft that she did not have to cook it. She just had it as it was. I was concern because I did not buy any pepperoni. There were just hot dogs at the fridge. Then, she told me that she understood why we have so many pepperoni. I had to ask her to show me that famous pepperoni. She went to my fridge and she opened this litle drawer and there it was: two and a half rounds of SALCHICHON... she had cut it in small rounds and ate it as pepperoni. I had no heart to explained to her that we never eat it raw. And if we have so many of it was because every Saturday night my husband makes some kind of BBQ. Of course, not that Saturday night.

Here I am. This is my first experience on line. I am worried about write things in a public space. What if I offend someone feelings? When I am speaking, I can bother someone, but when I see his or her face I can explain a little more what I was trying to say. I can not see any faces over here!! And of course there is that language thing. It is not the same trying to express feelings writing in your own language than in a second one. I spend a lot of time checking spelling, grammar, and structures. But, what about feelings? Am I been sarcastic? Am I been ethnocentric? Am I been just the way I am? So, I will try to do my best and I expect that you people make comments to be sure about this blogger thing.
As a really loved friend of mine used to say:
"Se hace lo que se puede
con lo que se tiene y
la gracia de Dios"... I wonder if God agrees with it!