Monday, June 29, 2009

FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

Remember the famous line, "what we have here is a failure to communicate?" Well I can surely say that pretty much on a daily basis. I had enough trouble when everyone around me spoke English, now it is just triple bad.

Last week we went for babies parent teacher conference at the school. In Costa Rica the kids get two weeks off school for "little summer". That is supposedly the time when it does not rain as much so everyone can kind of get a little break. Kind of the U.S. equivelant to spring break.

When we went to her meeting the teacher got the calandar down and told us that for these three weeks, and she pointed them out to us, there would be no school. She said something about being out of town and what not.

Over the weekend I started talking to other parents who have kids in school and found out that the kids only have two weeks off, not three. Well low and behold they do not believe in substitute teachers here. And when they say there is not school, they are not lying.

We got up nice and early and got ready for school, just in case the teacher did not communicate effectively. We got to school and the other teachers and parents and students were all there, unfortunately, as we made our way to my daughters closed classroom door! They all gave me the very pitiful look and tried to explain to me that there was no school for her class this week as Nina Laura was out of town.

Now how should I know they were weird enough that one class would not meet and all the others would. That is just freakin weird. Not to mention embarrassing. When I got home my older daughter who had translated the meeting for me asked my why I went to school! Just in case.

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