A Month of Language Immersion

I have been trying to teach myself Spanish for two years. I have made a few trips to Ecuador and each time I promise myself that I will learn Spanish before the next trip.

I have been using the Pimsler series of training tapes and CDs. They are very good and I am glad I purchased them. I have all three sets and I know I will use them over and over again. In April of 2004, when I returned from Ecuador for the third time I realized that I needed real Spanish training. I looked for a teacher but had no success. I began to consider Spanish Immersion but going away for a month to learn Spanish seemed like a luxury of both time and money that I could not afford. Also I was concerned that as a blind person spending a month in a country where I knew no one and did not speak the language would be kind of scary.

The first thing I did was bring up the possibility of language immersion to my husband. I think he was more intimidated than I was. He was sure he could not be away from work for a month and that we could never afford it. It was time for me to do my homework. I was not going to be able to convince him to do this until I had an actual plan. I started by talking to people, I knew, who had done this. It seemed that Costa Rica would be a good country because there is not much of an accent and there are tons of schools. Next I started searching the web. I have to admit that I am not known for my internet skills. This might have been the first time I used Google. There were several schools in Costa Rica. I think I actually found one site where several were listed along with their costs. I was pleasantly surprised at how inexpensive this could be.

I sent emails to about six schools in my price range, (low) and told them I was blind and looking for a school. I heard back from IPEE within an hour. I started an email conversation with Robert who actually helps run the school from Florida. He was totally supportive and not at all concerned that I was blind. We discussed accessing text material and email access from the school. Robert and I decided that it would be easiest if I brought my own computer complete with JAWS and they would let me hook up to the internet. He also sent me a MS Word file containing a chapter from the book so I could try accessing the text. He stressed that the class would be mostly conversation and not related to the printed material.

Now I had to select a date and convince my husband that he wanted to do this. Picking a month was easier than convincing Neal but it was still pretty tricky. When you own your own business you like to think the world can't live without you so I struggled to find a month that had no major events scheduled for my company as well as for my husband's company. It looked like April of 2005 had potential. Now I had to go to work on Neal.

I was pretty convinced I was going one way or another. I really felt that I wanted to get a good start on learning another language. As time passed and Neal realized that I was totally serious he began to use words like maybe and we will see. Eventually he approached people at Duxbury, where he works, and they were shocked but very supportive. Duxbury works with other languages for Braille translation and has a growing overseas market. Having someone on staff who could speak Spanish would be a good thing. Our plans were falling into place and we were considering the trip a reality.

When March came I started getting a little nervous. This really looked like it was going to happen. We had a long list of things to arrange both for work and home. Spring was going to come while we were gone. Imagine, an entire season arriving without me. I had to remember to set up lawn care.

There was, of course, our little dog Martin. Who would take him? Our friend Mike offered to take him and that was another hurdle we had passed.

The days were dwindling. We made it through all my children's birthdays and Easter and now we were down to the wire. What clothes would we need? Not many, we decided. We were going to try to keep it simple. We would be staying with a family and we had no idea how much room we had. We received the information on our family. We would be staying with a single mom and her grown daughter. We had final information for the school.

Four glorious weeks of not planning a single meal or washing any clothes. I was beginning to think I was going to heaven. Saturday April 2nd came and we were off. We arrived late Saturday night and were met at the airport by a business acquaintance of Neal's. We got to our house at about midnight. We had a wonderful room and our own bathroom although sleep was all we wanted. The next morning we walked out of our room to the first of a series of surprise breakfasts. We had everything from rice and beans to pancakes with wonderful home made syrup. Dinners were always perfect. We had fresh juice with every meal. Our host mom was big time into healthy cooking. We had a mile walk to school. A perfect way to start the day. The weather was spectacular. It was never too hot. Our house was close to a beautiful small mall with a movie theater. Movies were really inexpensive and my husband had the extra bonus of seeing 8 movies while we were there. Most of them were in English with Spanish subtitles.

Now it is time to talk about IPEE. I will never be able to say enough about how wonderful this school is. We had two classes every day. First we had grammar class and then conversation. I had two very special teachers. My grammar teacher had been working with Japanese students and was used to teaching without using the text book. My conversation teacher brought things in for me to examine. I tasted about 8 different fruits that were from Costa Rica. I found myself having long conversations in Spanish. I was finally able to use what I had been learning and expand my knowledge by leaps and bounds. My husband spoke about six words in Spanish before we arrived and in days he was having breakfast conversations with our host mom. This was truly amazing.

The school itself is a beautiful building with a lovely garden. The staff is warm and friendly. I felt like I was part of a happy family. The other students were great as well. A total cross section of people, medical students, retired folks, white water rafting guides, even a dad with his two young sons. We all had one thing in common. Well, maybe a couple of things. We wanted to learn to speak Spanish and we all had a sense of adventure. Nobody seemed to miss home very much. The school staff includes a guy who can put the concierge at the best hotel to shame. If you explained what you like to do he would plan your weekends for you. We had three totally different and equally wonderful experiences. We spent time on a beach, went zip-lining, white water rafting and saw everything from volcanoes to crocodiles.

Will I go back? I can't wait and neither can my husband. By the way. Everyone back home survived quite nicely without us and we had the best vacation ever. Learning something helped occupy our minds and kept us from worrying about what was going on back home.

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about my trip or contact IPEE at http://ipee.com/
 
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