Sidne and Leif finished their first day of school yesterday. It was a Thursday, so we thought they would have two days this week. However, when we picked them up after school, Sidne’s teacher informed us that there is no school tomorrow. This was confirmed by Karoy and Isue’s two oldest children.
School here seems to be very laid back schedule wise. For example, we were told school ended yesterday at 2:00pm, so at about 1:45pm, Gary and I walked up to the school. On our way we saw one of Leif’s trompo buddies, Jonathon, already on his way home at 1:54pm. We thought maybe we had gotten incorrect information about when school got out, so we asked him. He confirmed that school got out at 2:00pm. We asked him where his friend Zach was and he said “He’s already at home”. It crossed our minds that maybe they had snuck out early, or were skipping school. But then Jonathon turned around and walked back to the school with us and stayed there to chat with us for a while.
At the school we asked Sidne and Leif how their day was. We learned that Leif’s class had gotten out around noon, so he spent some time in Sidne’s class and then hung out in the “halls” (the halls are outdoors) with Isue and Karoy’s son Natan who had also gotten out early. Lucky Natan was there, because Leif had it in his head that he was going to walk home alone rather than wait for Sidne, but Natan wouldn’t let him. We stayed and chatted with Natan and his sister, Berenice, until their ride came. When we asked where their sister Jimena was they said that her class had gotten out early, so she went home. Next, Sidne’s teacher informed us that school gets out on Monday at 12:40 instead of 2:00pm. Then she added that she does not know what time Leif’s class gets out, so we would need to ask his teacher. We’ve asked a couple of people for schedules, but they say “it depends”. I have a feeling there is some kind of schedule, but people would rather not try to explain it to us because of our low Spanish skills. And not much seems to be printed on paper here. But we will be very North American and keep asking until someone can write something concrete(ish) down for us.
Now that I think of it, there truly may not be a school schedule. I mean the streets do not even have names! People give you directions in meters and we just learned yesterday that 100 meters means 1 block. Gary learned this from a Costa Rican woman who has lived in the US and runs an English language school here. She also told him that Costa Ricans give terrible directions and then she gave him crappy directions to an internet café he was looking for. She was off by three blocks.
But as direction-challenged and schedule-lacking as they are, Costa Ricans are generally nice, helpful, peaceful people. Everyone has been so friendly from neighbors to bank tellers to shop clerks. You really should come visit!