El Sede (The Campus)

The place I teach is an oasis in Container-Land. It is leafy and green. Ongoing improvements, both small and large - mostly small - convey a commitment to education, however limited the means. But it must be understood that education and crocodiles are not mutually exclusive. Because today in the culvert that separates the lower campus from the upper campus there was a six-footer. 

“Good morning Professor.”

And I saw an incredibly fast iguana flash across the lawn earlier. On a different day a security guard, who is also one of my students, coaxed me over to watch a family of monkeys at play in the tree tops. And a student of mine, who is also an instructor, pointed out a sloth overhead. 

After all that, the deadly poisonous coral snake on the classroom door handle was really unnecessary. I wished it were a prank, such as the Little Rascals might play but no, that’s just how we roll.

But it was the tarantula in the AV room that really unnerved me.

It is approaching 1300. Time for class. The students arrive. They don’t just arrive. They walk right up to me, look me in the eye, shake my hand, and deliver a very pleasant and formal greeting. They put down their stuff, and walk right out. About 5 past the hour I stick my head out the door. They’re all standing around chatting and laughing. So I point to my wrist, upon which there is no watch, and in they come. We do the whole hand-shaking thing again as if we’ve never met before, and get down to work. 

At mid-semester there are 9 students who have never appeared. I eventually learned that they have Meteorology class at the same time in San José, 4 hours away. I count this as a Registrar issue, not an attendance issue. But I have a few students who only attend about half the time. My classes meet once a week for 4 hours. If you miss the class, you miss the week. 

I don’t think that four hour classes once a week is an ideal arrangement but El Sede is not a residential college as we know it, nor is it a Community College as we know it. Some students are from nearby and live at home but many travel hours to get here. They hold jobs, have kids (The horror!). There’s one student who brings her baby to class. It sits there in the stroller. When the baby fusses she ups and leaves. Some students rent an apartment for the days they have class, and other students rent it for the other days. It is not uncommon for students to have class from 8 in the morning straight through till 5 in the evening, with an hour off for lunch. Like the students, many professors travel one or two hours to teach one or two classes per week. Every week a mini-bus brings several instructors down from San José, four hours away. They teach for a few days, stay in a dorm, and then return to their classes in San José. There are night classes and Saturday classes. Bunching bigger sessions into fewer days seems to accommodate these realities better than the conventional MWF or T-Th set up. 

It is well known that the cost of higher education in the United States will break you, or someone. We have something of the opposite problem here. My university is so affordable that the incentive to finish, or even settle on a major, is influenced by low cost. Scholarships are widely available. Over half of my students are deep into their 20s and even pushing 30 (The horror!). For many, this is their second or third major. So it goes to show that if you want people to value something, charge a lot for it. Just, not $60,000 a year, please?

I teach two courses. Navigation I and Inglés Maritímo (Maritime English). Navigation I is bedrock, entry level stuff. If you don’t gravitate to the topic then you probably shouldn’t go further. Inglés Maritímo, well, that’s more of an opportunity to fool with language and enliven topics that fall within the nautical discipline. You really can’t go wrong with this, especially if you have such delightful students as mine. One day they took me to lunch at a beachside restaurant. So I canceled class. It was a good deal all around.

La Piscina

I swim in the pool three times a week. One student calls me “Fishman.”

La Biblioteca

I love the library. When you check out a book they stamp the due date in the front of the book, not the back. It’s stuff like this that makes travel so interesting. But before they stamp it, they ask how long you would like the book for? So you look up at the ceiling fan, slowly rotating up there among the rafters, and think of a number between 1 and 30, or 31 as the case may be. And that’s the due date.

La Work Ethic

I have occasionally fallen into the trap of concluding that if a person is not successful in the arena of material wealth they might not be trying hard enough, or they aren’t smart enough, or they are wastrels. Or, more obviously, they didn’t get that leg up early on. Costa Rica is a much poorer country than the United States in a general way but it is not eye-popping poor. There are instances of deep, dirt floor, shanty town poverty but that is not the prevailing state of affairs. There are some folks in the U.S. who are worse off than a great many people here. Many people here own a decent, if modest, home. Owning a car is common enough, but two is rare even for people with middle class jobs such as a professor. I am guessing that food security, not to be confused with restaurant security, is actually not far behind the U.S. 

If they had zip codes, I’m sure there would be some exclusive ones. But in our neighborhood a very nice house with two late model cars on a tiled parking pad behind an electric gate, two stories with balconies, terraces etc. may be situated five doors down from a dilapidated dump with a rusty metal roof and a curtain for a door. It seems that there is a certain egalitarianism in that the better off folk are willing to live in sight of poorer folk even if they can afford not to. A lot of things go pretty well here but it is a far cry from “the Switzerland of Central America” as one writer put it. But, boy, people work. And this is what I want to share.

Many of my colleagues teach in multiple schools and, as mentioned, travel far to do it. Out walking at 5:30 AM, the bus stops are populated. By six they are crowded. In terms of economic activity (work), Saturday is indistinguishable from Monday through Friday. Sunday is quieter, but only just. The young assistant manager at the nearby super market has been on duty every single time I have gone in, and that’s a lot of times. I have heard a jackhammer on a Sunday; I don’t think that was home improvement. I have seen road work and construction on a Sunday. Public works shovel-leaning, which I evidently had time to observe, is possibly less than in the U.S. A lot of people do pick-up work on a Sunday morning, hoping to preserve the afternoon for family. 

There is a maddeningly relaxed attitude toward punctuality, but there is no question that people get out of bed and work. 

In Summary

We heard many wonderful things about Costa Rica before coming here. Much of it came from people who visited on holiday. We all know that at least one point of going on vacation is to step outside of your daily torments, struggles and repetitions, however fulfilling these things may be. So, the holiday perspective was bound to be good. But we also received considerable intel from people with a more intimate connection to the country. The one point on which our experience was unfalteringly in agreement with that of every report, is that the people are swell. They may not invite you into their homes exactly, but I never met a people so ready to smile or assist, or so undaunted by a language difference. 

I’m not new to distant lands but it’s awhile since I was out of the country for an extended period. As we edge toward the boarding gate I am reminded that each time one of us - an American - travels abroad it presents an opportunity for small time diplomacy. You cannot prevent your government from representing you in its official capacities, but your government cannot prevent you from representing yourself, and whatever you stand for. We formed a lot of relationships here. My students baked a cake for me. The frosted inscription read “Thank you Cuptain” so I guess I did all right. We are certainly looking forward to our return but as you can imagine, we are leaving something pretty special behind. Including the fact that I haven’t set an alarm clock since the day we left Blue Hill. 

Pura Vida!