Posts Tagged ‘Idealist’

June 22nd, 2010 - 2:52 pm § in Around Town

Dear Latin America

Dear Latin America, Thank you for teaching me how to feign a command over salsa steps and for putting people in my path who will happily sway me to the beat of your music. Thank you for feeding me fruit that ostensibly appeared downright poisonous, ominous or otherwise inedible and for showing me th[...]

June 21st, 2010 - 6:00 pm § in Chile, Culture, Day in the Life, In the Field, Volunteer

Ironies and Self-Indulgence

When a fight breaks out at school,  as a volunteer you neither really know what is happening nor are able to do anything about it.  It’s a bizarre feeling to be such an unwilling and powerless observant. It’s these times, and those when I’m particularly cold, hungry, and exhausted, that for [...]

June 7th, 2010 - 6:32 am § in Costa Rica, Good Ideas, Volunteer

I Can’t Get No Satisfaction

People drawn to Idealist are those who want to improve their corner of the world. We follow Canadian physician William Osler’s maxim that “we are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life.” But it’s important to cast your desire to add to the world in [...]

May 25th, 2010 - 10:53 am § in Around Town, Day in the Life, Peru

You Brought WHAT to the Pool? The Nuances of Working with Teen Mothers

Leaving the safe-home for our fieldtrip to the pool, I assumed my 16-year-old student had a rolled-up towel in the knapsack she wore slung low and horizontally around her back. Minutes earlier I had explicitly told Eli that she couldn’t bring her child, that it was too dangerous to bring infants t[...]

May 24th, 2010 - 8:19 am § in Costa Rica, Volunteer

The Seven Cruelest Concepts for English Language Learners

If you can read this, you are incredibly fortunate. Not because it’s a one-of-a-kind Kent Green blog. The skill of understanding English is something people from countries like the United States, England and Australia simply grow up with. Most are oblivious that it’s something billions o[...]

May 14th, 2010 - 9:03 am § in Careers, Costa Rica, Day in the Life, In the Field, Tips & Resources

The Horrible Things I Do to My Students

I gave a bottle of wine and two cans of beer to a twelve-year-old girl Monday night. This is not a bad Tom Waits song. This was teaching past simple in my class. Here’s how it went: We practiced asking questions about the past: “Where did you go?” “What did you do?” And so on. I brough[...]

May 12th, 2010 - 9:48 am § in Around Town, Costa Rica, Culture, Tips & Resources

Guilt of the Gringo

My friend count in Puerto Jimenez has dropped by one. Rachel, a youth-focused Peace Corps volunteer, finished her two-year stint this week. She’s off to travel and to eventually head back to the States. (We’ll stay friends on Facebook, so the number that matters will stay the same.) I[...]

April 26th, 2010 - 12:35 pm § in Costa Rica, Day in the Life, Volunteer

Back in the USA

My stint in Latin America has ended. I flew back to the U.S. on Saturday with a mixture of emotions. It is overwhelming to be back. I loved my time in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, but I am also ready to live closer to friends and family for a while. Still, as I adjust to [...][...]

April 8th, 2010 - 12:13 pm § in Costa Rica, Good Ideas, Tips & Resources

Reading List

For those of you about to leave or in the middle of your adventures, the following is a quick list of some of the books that have been helpful or have provided interesting perspectives to contemplate during my Kiva Fellowships in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The first three are development economics bo[...]

April 7th, 2010 - 11:31 am § in Culture, Nicaragua, Op Ed

Two Questions I Don’t Like to Answer

Every once in a while somebody here in Solentiname will ask me if I believe in God. This has become my second least favorite question to answer. My very least favorite question, however, is how much my digital SLR camera costs. After I realized that my camera alone (excluding my lenses) cost as much[...]





Bad Behavior has blocked 557 access attempts in the last 7 days.