day care

[sholo]

Hi!  Can anyone tell me what forms of baby daycare may be available in Dominical?  Cost of such a thing?  Is it even possible to find daycare - I dont want to hire a live in.  Thanks! - Shoni

[Russ]

We don't have any specialists in that area, I might be visiting there in a couple of weeks, I'll post if I come across anything. 

However I seem to remember a bi-lingual school from that area that used to advertise in the Tico Times, or on the radio? Ask around to see if you can find it, I couldn't find it in my guide book.  I have a couple of suggestions though about day care in this and other areas. 

1) Look for a local, private Tico school.  They have "maternal" classes for 2 year olds and pre-kinder for 3 year olds.  These schools are normally teaching Tico kids English, so it will be a plus for them to have a native speaker in class and your child will learn Spanish quickly there.

2) Look (carefully) for a neighborhood "abuela".  When our first daughter was born we asked one of the neighbor ladies to care for here a few hours in the morning.  This was a great situation for everyone.  You would have to be careful.

3) Another similar option could be a local neighbor girl. Especially in rural areas girls drop out of school when they graduate from 6th grade. Often because the family doesn't have money to pay for school supplies, so they are happy to have a way to earn some extra cash.  We have had our gardener's daughter babysit recently and it worked out well.  Again you have to be careful when selecting.   Not so much the person who will be doing the day care, but who the other family members are.