New Kid at School - Article three

I had only seen my new high school once before my first day of school, walking through its open-air hallways and the tropical garden courtyards as my “mom” here, Lidia, gave me a tour. As it turned out, her son didn’t even attend this school; this was where she worked. Needless to say, this only increased my nervousness as I realized there wouldn’t be a single kid there that I knew.

On my first morning of school, Lidia marched me up to a girl in the hallway standing in a small knot of kids, turned to me and said in Spanish “This is Michelle. She’ll help you find your classes.” And then she promptly left, my only lifeline fading down the hallway. I slowly turned back to Michelle and managed an “Hola.” All my mental capacities strained to decode her reply, which blew by me in a splash of gibberish. My incomprehension must have been obvious because she repeated the same sentence again, more slowly. With a feeling not unlike realizing your pants are on backwards, it suddenly became clear to me that she was speaking in English. She told me that she had lived in the States for 9 years, so she spoke English fluently. As she introduced me to the rest of her friends it was obvious that she was the only one with these circumstances; everyone else pelted me with rapid-fire questions in Spanish.

I got settled in pretty quickly after that, or as quick as you can when you only understand 30% of what the teachers are saying. The kids are so friendly here – every morning when I walk into school, etiquette requires a hearty handshake with each guy, and a kiss on the cheek for the girls. The amount of handshakes tends to get a bit ridiculous; it’s like one of those factorial math problems, “if there are 40 knights in a room, and they all shake each others’ hand…”. I’m forgiven every time I forget a name, which is often, because to me they all sound like beautiful combinations of random letters, like “Sai” or “Fiorena.” Teachers treat me like a native, even though it’s obvious I’m a foreigner – I’m by far the whitest kid in school. (To be fair, I also held this title in Hopkinton.)

The most obvious differences here are the appearances – the school requires a uniform, which consists of a Polo T-shirt and dress pants. Uniform checks occur often, causing a panic as kids struggle to tuck in their shirts and take out any piercings they might have. Also, since 11th grade is the final grade here, my class is allowed to wear purple and grey striped sweaters. Despite the fact that sweaters don’t seem to be the best choice of clothing in this climate, my grade wears them religiously -- the sweater is a sign of age and power, mainly allowing one to cut the lunch line. The hairstyles are different too – guys use more hair gel than I thought possible. In the spirit of adopting the culture, I’ve started using some myself, but it’s difficult not to feel like I’m a character from the first season of Pokemon.

Beneath the surface, though, Ticos (what the Costa Ricans like to call themselves) have many of the same qualities as my friends back home. Guys still talk about girls, girls still whisper about guys, and we all laugh at the same jokes. In many cases these jokes involve the mess I tend to make of the Spanish language. The other day, for example, I told some friends that back home I play guitar in a “bando.” Their eyes widened as they imagined me playing guitar in a street gang (the word for “band,” I’ve since learned, is “banda”). I’ve also found that small mispronunciations can lead to large misunderstandings. Yesterday, as I chatted with a friend’s mom, I told her how fascinated I was with the living fences in Costa Rica, made from a combination of small trees and barbed wire. But instead of “fence”, apparently, I blurted out a vulgar term for penis.

The people back home all told me adjusting to this new life was going to be hard. For a while I didn’t know what they meant, but as time goes on their words start to sink in. Each night on the computer I instant-message with friends from home and new amigos from here, and I can feel both worlds pulling at either end of me. The green mountains that tower over the city on all sides are a constant reminder of how far away I am from home.

Homesickness really hit me Friday night, after my first week of school. In the States my Fridays were meant for friends and parties, and with my birthday coming up on Sunday my weekend would have been one to remember. I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for myself as I sat in the backseat of the family car that night, driving with my parents to go visit relatives. I braced myself for an awkward evening as we walked through the door, preparing my prefabricated answers to “where are you from?” and “how long are you here for?” that I use so often. But as I walked through the door there was a movement to my right and a flash of light as people jumped up yelling “Sorpresa!” On a second look I recognized them as my new friends from school, wearing birthday hats and laughing. People aren’t lying when they say Costa Ricans are the friendliest people on earth – especially if it’s your birthday.