Trying Local Foods

Learning about and trying local foods is high on our 'to do' list while we're in Puerto Rico.  Our local grocery store, just a 5-7 minute walk away, carries a modest supply of local produce. We're quickly becoming spoiled with the ability to have fresh mangoes, pineapple, bananas, and avocado almost every day. They are plentiful, inexpensive, and delicious. To our amusement, Karen and I find that we are becoming pineapple snobs. We prefer the smaller Puerto Rican pineapples with their more complex flavor to the larger and sweeter fruit from Costa Rica.

 Pineapple and mango fruit salad - a perennial favorite for all of us

As previously noted, the first weekend we were here, we stopped at a small fruit and vegetable stand near Arecibo where we bought bananas, pana fruta (breadfruit) and something we thought was a lime. We later found that it was a Puerto Rican orange - known as a China - which was also delicious. After looking at a number of recipes (boiled breadfruit, breadfruit with saltfish.....nope!), we decided to French fry our pana. We were surprised to find that the flesh turned color as soon as it hit the air so we submerged it in water (sort of like what you do with potatoes) while we prepared the hot pan.

We tossed the sliced pana in a little olive oil and salt and cooked them (next to the sweet potato fries we were also making) until they were crispy.

Karen and I thought they were good - they tasted sort of like bread and potatoes. The kids ate their 'no thank you' helping and decided that was enough for them.

Last night we made a Puerto Rican dish of black beans cooked with spices served over rice and topped with fried plantains and chunks of mango. Karen and I thought it was delicious. The kids liked it all except the plantains. Tonight we had the leftovers and found that a little added sofrito - a spicy sauce - was just the ticket. Unfortunately, we also found that leftover fried plantain is not a good idea. Or as Karen said, "Unlike revenge which is best served cold, fried plantain is best served hot."

Learning Spanish

We've now been in Puerto Rico for 8 days. We've settled into a routine with home school, excursions, and trips to various beaches for swimming. We also have incorporated learning Spanish into our routine.

Prior to our trip, Karen and I both spent several months using Rosetta Stone to begin learning Latin American Spanish, which is different from Spanish spoken in Spain. An acquaintance from home, who grew up in PR, recommended a 1990's educational series made for TV called Destinos. We explored a couple of other online resources, too and made enough progress that we were not totally lost when we arrived.

Learning enough Spanish to be comfortable here is a goal we have for ourselves and for the kids. We have hired a tutor who comes to the house twice a week for an hour each time. Beatrice was born in Cuba and has lived in the US. She talks to us in a mixture of Spanish and English, asks us questions, teaches us pronunciation and usage, gives us information about Puerto Rican history and government, and gives us 'homework' assignments. Face-to-face learning helps us to be accountable for learning.

The kids have located a number of Spanish lesson resources on youtube. Part of home school is spending time each day working on their Spanish. Claire, in particular, seems to really enjoy this learning and spends a good bit of her 'free screen time' using the ipad to listen and practice the alphabet, days of the week, counting, and conversation.

We've also started watching episodes of Destinos each evening. This 52-episode story teaches communication and comprehension skills in the format of a continuing story:

 "Destinos recounts the story of Los Angeles-based lawyer Raquel Rodríguez who is hired by the family of Fernando Castillo. He had discovered that his first wife, Rosario, did not die in the Spanish Civil War as he had believed, but had survived and had an unknown child. In the course of her investigation of the case, Raquel travels to a number of Spanish-speaking areas — Seville and Madrid in Spain; Buenos Ares in Argentina;  San Juan in Puerto Rico, and Mexico— has a number of adventures and mishaps, and faces a number of melodramatic conflicts."

Everyone seems to enjoy this mode of learning and we've been known to watch more than one episode in an evening!

We try to use our Spanish words whenever we're out. We've gotten reasonably good at ordering food and shopping. We have told our waitstaff - in Spanish - that we are learning Spanish and request that they speak to us in Spanish. We've been pleasantly surprised by the smiles we get when we say this or when we make attempts to talk in Spanish.

We also try to read signs we see while walking or traveling on the bus. When we have excursions - like today's trip to the Castillo San Felipe del Morro - we start by reading the placards first in Spanish. This works pretty well for the first several signs, then our brains get tired.

Day by day, we make a bit of progress:-)

 ¡Hasta mañana!

Best Laid Plans

October 26

We started the day with big plans: We'd work hard on home school subjects in the morning so we could take a trip to the public library, visit a large park located in the same vicinity (where we could have PE class), and have lunch out. We'd get back by early afternoon so we could go to the terrific park and beach near us, have a swim, and be home in time for Karen to meet with students at 5:30.

Per our plan, the kids worked hard on their reading, writing, math, and social studies and we headed out around 11:30. The Google lady who gives us directions on Karen's phone got us to the big park we had found on the map. We passed through an open gate into the park, circled around a roundabout and followed the road into the park interior.  It didn't take long for us to get a bad feeling about this. The park appeared deserted. The road was in poor repair with lots of potholes. While the grass had been cut in recent history, no trimming had been done. There were numerous picnic shelters that were empty. The only sign of life we saw was two guys on motorcycles in one of the shelters. Now, we have nothing against folks on motorcycles. If there had been other company around, that would have been fine. But as it was, this only added to our already creeped-out feeling. It was time to leave.

So we headed to the library. Interestingly, there is only one public library in all of San Juan. We had heard that the facilities were minimal so we were not surprised to find a small building and small collection when we arrived. The very nice librarian showed us around and provided information on how to become a library member in order to check out materials. We looked around for a while and spent a little time looking at some of the Spanish language children's books such as Huevos verdes con jamón (Green Eggs and Ham) and La oruga muy hambrienta (The Very Hungry Caterpillar). By this time it was nearly 1:00. Figuring there would be good, inexpensive restaurants near a college campus, we had the Google lady take us to the InterAmerican University of Puerto Rico - just a hop, skip, and jump from the library according to the map. Wrong again! A drive through construction sites and sketchy neighborhoods finally convinced us that we should just go home.

We may not have found the right park or the right part of the park since the reviews say things like "Great place for families and even to take your dog. Lots of trees and very secure." On further study, it appears that only half the park is in actual use at this time. It is described as a 'natural oasis ' The other half might be, as Karen puts it, "an oasis of crime and drug deals."

So what have we learned? 

• We have renewed appreciation for the public library system at home. Virtually every town has a library that is available free of charge to all residents.  Such is not the case here.

• It takes two people - at least - to drive in Puerto Rico. One to drive the car and one to hold the phone and manage the Google lady's directions.

• You can't believe everything you read in the reviews.

• There's a balance between experiencing a new culture and dealing with different expectations versus using your street smarts to stay safe.

We're obviously still figuring stuff out. But we're having a great time and learning things every day.

Settling into a routine

October 24 

Today marks the start of our first ‘official’ week and our first ‘official’ home school session. The kids have each drawn up elaborate school schedules that don't always coordinate. That said, everyone seems willing to compromise and re-negotiate the schedule. Everyone began with some writing before breakfast. Both kids are writing blogs to share with their classmates  When you add in journal-keeping and reflective writing, they have plenty of writing to do! Next, they tackled math assignments. James is working on switching fractions to decimals and vice versa, and simplifying fractions, while Claire is learning about area and perimeter. 

After a solid hour, it was time for PE. Mondays are Claire's day to be in charge of PE. We walked to a nearby park where she put us through paces of hopscotch, wall walking, climbing on the climber, then playing catch. If you missed the ball, you had to do 10 squats before you got another turn. We spent about 30 minutes in the park, then headed off on an exploratory run/walk. We saw some interesting street art and some new areas a few blocks from our apartment. 

As we've walked our neighborhood, we've noticed an old church with some Spanish signs posted on it. We decided to stop today to see what it was all about. The signs told us that it was the Capilla de Nuestra Señora de Lourdes.

(Scroll down the site to see some pictures of the lovely interior). After reading about the church, its history, renovation, and fund-drive (in Spanish), we found that the door was open so we went in. We spent a bit of time quietly looking at the lovely stained glass windows. We all agreed that it was a peaceful, quiet place to which we'll likely return.

After lunch we continued with home-school. Social studies was next on the agenda and we decided to start our learning about the history of Puerto Rico by going back to the start. We spent time today and will spend more time this week learning about the Taíno, the indigenous people of Puerto Rico. We found a great video to get us started. This topic is clearly of interest to the kids with them wanting to race ahead. Love it when learning is such fun!

We took an afternoon excursion walk to pick up a few necessities (another swim mask and a functioning can opener) and ended with time in another park. Now it's back to the apartment to make dinner. We're expanding our palates with breadfruit tonight! More about that tomorrow:-)

Visiting the Arecibo Observatory and Local Produce Shopping

October 22

Visiting the Arecibo Observatory and a Local Market

We've made a list of places and things we need to see while we're here. One of those was the Arecibo Observatory, home of the world's second largest radio telescope, located about 90 minutes from San Juan. While most of the drive is on highways, the last several miles are on winding roads that climb high up into the hills. The observatory itself is located at the end of the road.

For those who have seen the movies 'Goldeneye' or 'Contact', the telescope will look familiar.

While the introductory film and information session is offered both in Spanish and English, we decided to give our fledgling Spanish a try and go to that session. The film had subtitles (also in Spanish). The combination of relatively slow speech and subtitles allowed us to understand a good bit of the information, which we could then pass onto the kids contemporaneously. We were feeling pretty good about our language skills......until we went to the Q&A info session.  I don't think we understood a single word of it!

The exhibit itself is quite interesting - lots of interactive stations to experience to gain an understanding of our world and its place in space.

On the way home, we stopped at a local fruit/vegetable market. We had a delightful conversation with a woman who lives in the area. She ended up inviting us to her home - anytime! While we could not take her up on the offer, we were very pleased to have had such a positive interaction. She suggested we try a pana fruta (breadfruit) so we picked one up. Trying local foods is definitely on our list of things to do. We ended up with a large bag of produce for only $7.

October 21

The first full day!

Up bright and early - every day with kids is bright and early.....After breakfast, Karen and I planned  our day while the kids designed school schedules. First up, riding the bus to the station to buy buy passes. We found that we needed exact change for the bus so made a quick stop for James and Claire each to buy a 10 cent bubble gum and get change from a dollar bill. The bus ride was interesting.....taking us several miles down Juan Ponce de Leon Avenue, the major street that runs parallel to the street on which we live. Once we reached the terminus, we needed to figure out which bus pass made the most sense. After checking our choices, we bought a couple of declining balance passes. Those should keep us going for the foreseeable future.

Once our chore was done, it was time for some fun. We took the bus back past our stop and continued a few stops further on. We followed our GPS instructions (on Karen's phone) to Balneario el escambron. This turned out to be a fabulous park - on the way to a fabulous beach - where we stopped in the shade for some lunch.

We shared the area with some local wildlife.

Iguanas are plentiful and range in size from small to ~ 3 feet long (including tail).

And chickens!

Then it was swimming in the bath-warm ocean inside a protected cove. Waves - but not too high - and no real undertow. Perfect for enjoying fun in the sun!

After walking home the kids worked on some projects - James explored the history of the Puerto Rican flag while Claire found information on iguanas - while Karen and I did some work. A trip to the grocery store. Homemade nachos and salad for dinner. Baths. We're just about to play a game together, then we'll sleep well tonight, I'm sure!

The Adventure Begins!

 

We'll be spending eight weeks in Puerto Rico this fall. Daughter Karen, who is faculty at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), will be mentoring a group of students who are working on their Interactive Qualifying Projects (IQPs), a cornerstone of the WPI curriculum. She will be accompanied by her two children, James (age 10) and Claire (age 8). I get to come along for the adventure - as nanny, school teacher (we'll be home schooling the kids during this time), and as another grown-up in the house.

October 20, 2016

We arrive!

We left Boston at 9:00 AM and flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico via JFK in New York. Travel was uneventful and we arrived right on scheduled around 3:45. We retrieved our luggage and picked up our rental care. Then the fun began. Between our GPS's terrible Spanish accent and the lack of road signs, we had a rather extensive tour of the area between the airport and our apartment in Miramar.

Our apartment is going to suit us quite well, we think. It is well located with plenty of space that is both charming and functional.

After a quick unpack, we set out for a brief explore of the neighborhood and to find dinner and a grocery store. Mission accomplished by about 8:00 when we headed back for video chats with family. Tomorrow we'll have some fun and start to figure out logistics.