My 5 year old, E, is a bit of a challenge. She has been kicked out of one preK and is doing her best to get kicked out of another before the school year ends. She is a perfect angel one minute and can turn on you like a vicious rabbit the next. One of my biggest concerns about moving to Costa Rica is E and her special needs.

Originally, I had thought we’d move to the Lake Arenal area. I LOVE it there. The weather is a bit cooler than Tamarindo, the views are tremendous and it is less touristy. However, as of now they only have one International School that just opened in Fall 2024. I spoke with them and it sounds like a wonderful school but I was worried if E were to get kicked out, where would she go? I could home school her, I suppose, but for the sake of my entire family’s mental health, that is not a great option.

The Tamarindo area has quite a few International/bilingual schools. We narrowed it down through email conversations and in-person tours and settled on a school I am soooooo excited about. One of the most amazing things is that we can hire a parapro to help E at school, work with her frustration issues, and keep the other children safe from my tiny terrorist. (Also they have a cat room, where you can go and just hold cats…..I can’t even).

The school provided us with a few names of women who they have worked with in the past but it was up to us to reach out and hire someone. This is where things get interesting. I started with texting via Whats App. My first sentence was in Spanish and was essentially, “I’m sorry I don’t speak Spanish well but I’m learning.” Both women were super nice and one suggested I use the translation function on WhatsApp? THE WHAT?!?!?! I had no idea!

On WhatsApp, you can type in what you want to say in English, highlight it and then the app can translate it to Spanish. It will even speak the sentence out loud so if you need to, you can “talk.” The hardest part is actually highlighting the text itself….at least that was the hardest part for me. Once I got that down, this became life changing! Don’t get me wrong, I am still taking Spanish lessons and am Duo Lingoing daily. My goal is to be fluent enough that I will realize when the Bits (who I assume will be fluent fairly quickly) are talking smack about me. But at least until I get to that level, I can communicate when needed.

Before hiring someone, I wanted to do a video chat. Remember, my Spanish is crap. And even my “Lo siento , yo no hablo español muy bien pero estoy aprendiendo’” statement that I have memorized sounded wrong. The call was hilarious as I struggled without What’s App translation. I sorta wish I had videotaped it but also I’m glad I didn’t. Fortunately, the lovely woman we ended up hiring has the patience of a saint, which she needs to work with E. And what we learned from this interaction is that I don’t mind making as ass out of myself trying to speak a language I really have no business trying to converse in yet. Sometimes having no pride is a good thing.