Thursday, February 27, 2014

This morning started off with a political debate for the student council.  There were three parties that each had to have at least one student from each grade that were involved in the debate.  One of the other teachers was explaining the background to me.  One party called “Beso” or “Kiss” is run by a girl whose mom is a former Miss Costa Rica (she was at the debate, I may have sat close to her on purpose).  Apparently this girl has been a wallflower for most of her time at school, but has recently broken out of her shell.  This girl’s mom now works at a news station and was able to help make all the campaign videos very official.  They were also endorsed on Facebook by a TV commercial celebrity and have bought bounce-houses for their political campaign activity.  Another party is called “Pie” or “Foot.”  This group consists of some of the students who are on scholarship and are not exactly floating in money like the other party.  They’re really mad at the other party because the campaign activity was not supposed to be more than $20, but they were able to get around it.  According to the teacher explaining things to me, this group has big ideas, but they are probably too big for them to accomplish.  The third party was created as a joke.  They’re called “Gallo” or “Rooster.”  They had two chickens on the table on the election stage.  Their political campaign activity consisted of them releasing chickens out on the field nearby and giving KFC to anyone who caught and brought back the chickens.  They made the campaign promise that they would give a chicken to everyone as a parody to a recent socialist presidential candidate who was just eliminated from contention.  Their campaign slogan was “Vote Beso” telling people to vote for another political party.  Their closing remark consisted of one of the students holding their phone up next to the microphone and playing and dancing to the Chicken Dance.  It was an interesting debate to be sure.  My only other obligation of the day included the 10^th Grade US History class.  They also had presentations that they did an excellent job with.  After school, we caught a bus to San Jose.  There was this little old lady who was sitting next to me who kept falling asleep on my shoulder.  This seems to be a thing in Costa Rica, sleep on the gringo.  Unfortunately, when we got to the bus station to buy tickets, it was closed.  There was even someone inside the ticket booth to tell us that it was closed.  This is stressing us out just a little bit because we will be cutting it close to catch the bus tomorrow after school.  That was two and a half hours of my life that I will never get back.  Oh well, Pura Vida.  When we got home, the water was out, which was lovely.  After dinner, I finished up some of my homework for OSU and hit the sack.  It was definitely a day that reminded me that I am in Latin America.