Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Xmas Plans
Well...I am heading to Guanacaste today to spend the holidays with a friend's family. I am not sure what my internet access will be like, so Happy Holidays! Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año Nuevo! I'll be back in 2009....
Sunday, December 21, 2008
What Your Parents Don't Know Won't Hurt 'Em...
I tell ya, going to the hospital isn't all that stressful...when you are simply going along to provide a friend with emotional support. My friend Megan took a spill this past weekend trying to get into the boat when it was raining and managed to break her fall with her ribs, hitting the side of the boat (she did, however, not fall into the water, which kept her from potentially being eaten by alligators - always a positive). Seeing as how it hurts to lay down, laugh, sneeze, breath, and a few other common day to day activities, we figured it would be wise to head to the hospital to have some x-rays taken. In general, Megan figured the call home to her parents would go more smoothly if she could say the following: "Yes, mom, don't worry, it's fine. Yes, I went to the doctor. Yes, I got x-rays taken. No, mom, there was nothing broken. Everything is fine". It sure beats the alternative conversation, which would go like this: "Mom...it's not a big deal. I mean, it hurts to breath, but I am sure it's fine. Don't worry..." And then Megan's mom would spend half the night pricing plane tickets to Central America. So, hospital it was, and I told Megan I would come along for the cultural learning experience, like an excursion.
If there is one thing that the Megans have learned, and that they are teaching me, is that if you need to go anything, ask about ten ticos first, what they would do if it were them, or their kid. We took a poll during the day to get the general opinion of "How to approach a hospital visit in a cost and time effective manner", and we certainly received a few interesting answers. One person suggested that we call 911 and say that it really hurt and then we could go in an ambulance, which would mean that Megan would be seen much faster and not have to do so much paperwork or stand in the lines. Another person suggested that Megan act like she didn't speak much Spanish, for the same end result of avoiding lines. Two people suggested that she wear a skirt and lipstick. We were also told to be prepared for a four to five hour wait. When we swung by the apartment to grab some reading material and her insurance card, our neighbor Lance decided to tag along and his contribution was two decks of cards and a giant root beer float to share in the waiting room. Score!
It is amazing what sugar, cards, and good company can do to make you forget you are in the emergency room at the hospital. Two hours later (record time!) Megan had x-rays in hand and was heading to the pharmacy to pick up some prescription Advil. Not bad at all, and better yet, she hadn't broken or fractured anything. Just a nice bruise, a little R & R, and a calm phone call home to her parents in the States, although she did leave out the bit about the alligators in the water. These are things that you share with your parents a few years down the road when you are safely back in their house sharing a nice dinner and you can say, "Oh, did I not tell you about that time when I almost died?? Must have slipped my mind. Anyway, it went something like this..." You might get a scolding, but in general, all heart attacks and sleepless nights were avoided, and everyone is happy.
If there is one thing that the Megans have learned, and that they are teaching me, is that if you need to go anything, ask about ten ticos first, what they would do if it were them, or their kid. We took a poll during the day to get the general opinion of "How to approach a hospital visit in a cost and time effective manner", and we certainly received a few interesting answers. One person suggested that we call 911 and say that it really hurt and then we could go in an ambulance, which would mean that Megan would be seen much faster and not have to do so much paperwork or stand in the lines. Another person suggested that Megan act like she didn't speak much Spanish, for the same end result of avoiding lines. Two people suggested that she wear a skirt and lipstick. We were also told to be prepared for a four to five hour wait. When we swung by the apartment to grab some reading material and her insurance card, our neighbor Lance decided to tag along and his contribution was two decks of cards and a giant root beer float to share in the waiting room. Score!
It is amazing what sugar, cards, and good company can do to make you forget you are in the emergency room at the hospital. Two hours later (record time!) Megan had x-rays in hand and was heading to the pharmacy to pick up some prescription Advil. Not bad at all, and better yet, she hadn't broken or fractured anything. Just a nice bruise, a little R & R, and a calm phone call home to her parents in the States, although she did leave out the bit about the alligators in the water. These are things that you share with your parents a few years down the road when you are safely back in their house sharing a nice dinner and you can say, "Oh, did I not tell you about that time when I almost died?? Must have slipped my mind. Anyway, it went something like this..." You might get a scolding, but in general, all heart attacks and sleepless nights were avoided, and everyone is happy.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Oh there you are Costa Rica!!!
It took me about a month, but I finally found it. I finally found Costa Rica, the Costa Rica that I fell in love with in 2003. In Sarapiqui, the environment is harsher, not in an aggressive way, but rather a gentle refusal to consider human necessity or desire as part of the plan. It is a place that requires a certain type of human spirit - one that is flexible, full of acceptance, and willing to live on mother nature's terms. It is place full of change, a place that is always changing your plans, or reminding you not to to have to many. The river could, and often does, flood. The rain restricts what one can do, and to be agitated by the environment would mean maintaining a certain level of discontent year round. I decided that all of this creates an ambiance of relaxation, or at least of slowing down. The gentleness of this place was reflected in the eyes of every person that I met, flowing as freely as the river and the rain. All of the stress of San Jose, of horns honking, constant fireworks, cars backfiring, florescent lights, barred windows, and dirty streets was washed away. At times, in between the pitter patter of raindrops and the waves splashing against the boat, I could almost hear the wind whispering, "Tranquilo....tranquilo". Oh, the places you end up when you stop trying to plan and just let go and roll with the punches (or invitations)....
This past week marked the end of my month of Spanish classes at Conversa in San Jose. I really wanted to get away and head to the beach to bask in the sun, but my friend Megan convinced me otherwise. I cut my classes short by one day, so I could go with the Rotaract Club on their service trip to Sarapiqui. I didn't know what to expect - I was told to bring clothes I didn't care about, mosquito repellent, rubber boots, and that I wouldn't need a bathing suit because the river is full of crocodiles. Gulp.
Of course, I had to do it Sarah style, which meant squeezing in a night of dancing even if it meant total sleep deprivation. On Thursday night, David, fellow volunteer and avid salsa dancer, and I packed up our stuff, went Salsa dancing until 2 a.m., took a taxi to the apartment, showered, slept for 15 minutes, and then got up to catch the 4 a.m. ride out of town. There were ten of us total, sitting on the curb outside the church in the moonlight waiting for the truck to pick us (and the 10 garbage bags of presents) up. Dave and I were the only gringos, but his Spanish is perfect after living in Argentina doing mission work for almost two years, so I was a little "behind the tree" as they say in Spanish - translation: totally lost. However, everyone seemed to find the look on my face completely endearing, and they did a wonderful job of making sure I made my way out of the woods and into the conversation, even if it meant explaining things over and over again.
We loaded up the truck with our luggage and the presents/supplies and headed out in a mini-bus. Two hours later we arrived in Sarapiqui, where we all loaded into the back of a truck for the next two hours of the journey. As the door closed and we were left with darkness, people started cracking jokes about the "Migra" and border patrol, until the truck started moving and it was too loud to make talking worthwhile. Two hours later the door opened and our driver jokingly asked us for our passports as we all scrambled out of the truck to stretch our limbs. We then piled into a water-taxi for the final leg of the journey, and I was informed to keep an eye out for crocodiles. I spent the entire trip imagining the boat tipping, me falling into the water, and being pulled under and eaten alive. We finally arrive at "The Mission", a self-sustaining Christian mission camp/farm on the river. Anna, the founder, came to Costa Rica 15 years ago, and this place is the end result of over a decade of work. She and the volunteers eat what is available on the farm, and use electricity when the solar panels are working properly and candles when they are not. They have a main kitchen structure, another structure that serves as a bodega (storage space), and then they have a house boat with five rooms with bunk beds, where we slept for the weekend. It rains here 9 months out of the year, and I was really excited to break in my new rubber boots, which I had decorated with Rock Band 2 stickers spice them up a bit! Man o man, did they get a lot of use, as it rained 80% of the time.
Anna has been working with the Rotary club for the last few years to organize Christmas parties for the community. During the days we put on christmas parties, complete with masses, singing, puppet shows, games, bobbing for apples, handing out presents, and lots of laughing. The children were precious. At night, we sat around playing cards and telling stories in the candlelight. I feel like I made some long lasting friends, especially with a girl named Daniella. I liked Daniella immediately, mainly because she has short hair, and because she is hilarious. I also got to know Megan better, whom I will be sharing a room with for the next five months, and we get along really really well, which sure is nice to feel sure of!
I didn't necessarily want to come home, but Monday morning was the day that the Spanish school was coming to pick me up at my host family's house to give me and my suitcases a ride to Heredia, where I will be living from here on out. I gathered up my things and spent one last night in San Jose with my host family and then moved to Heredia. Daniella had called me to see if I wanted to come help her and her little brother set up her grandmother's Nativity Scene, and of course I accepted. We took a series of buses to get to Atena, where her grandmother and most of her family live. We then proceeded to put together the most elaborate Nativity Scene I have ever seen in my life, which included a number of animal figurines that I don't remember being part of the Bible but that she insisted on their presence, like dogs, a rocking horse, a giant rabbit, four or five little bo-peep look alikes, etc. It took up half of the living room! Her grandmother is 83 years old and still lives alone. I decided that there are five levels of fluency in Spanish - level four is UNDERSTANDING GRANDMOTHERS. She spoke very fast and I only caught about 50%, but she was a riot. At one point she looked me straight in the eye, and wagging her finger, and swore up and down that washing machines are a total joke (she prefers to wash everything by hand).
We stayed until the sun set and night came, and she fed us tortillas, gallo pinto (typical rice and beans mix), and arroz con leche until I was sure I was going to explode. We took the bus back to Daniella's house and I crashed on the extra mattress because it was too late to bus back to my house. I think that Daniella's family is going to officially adopt me for the holidays, now that Tom and I are going to move our Xmas travels to mid-January to ensure good weather. Her little brother helped me make a list of "Costa Rica slang" so I can fit in more. As we were laying in bed talking, Daniella asked me what I learned this weekend. I said that for the first time since I arrived, I feel like I live here - that I am happy to be here and have this country as my home. Like I am finally getting the hang of "Pura Vida". Life is good. Life is really, really good.
This past week marked the end of my month of Spanish classes at Conversa in San Jose. I really wanted to get away and head to the beach to bask in the sun, but my friend Megan convinced me otherwise. I cut my classes short by one day, so I could go with the Rotaract Club on their service trip to Sarapiqui. I didn't know what to expect - I was told to bring clothes I didn't care about, mosquito repellent, rubber boots, and that I wouldn't need a bathing suit because the river is full of crocodiles. Gulp.
Of course, I had to do it Sarah style, which meant squeezing in a night of dancing even if it meant total sleep deprivation. On Thursday night, David, fellow volunteer and avid salsa dancer, and I packed up our stuff, went Salsa dancing until 2 a.m., took a taxi to the apartment, showered, slept for 15 minutes, and then got up to catch the 4 a.m. ride out of town. There were ten of us total, sitting on the curb outside the church in the moonlight waiting for the truck to pick us (and the 10 garbage bags of presents) up. Dave and I were the only gringos, but his Spanish is perfect after living in Argentina doing mission work for almost two years, so I was a little "behind the tree" as they say in Spanish - translation: totally lost. However, everyone seemed to find the look on my face completely endearing, and they did a wonderful job of making sure I made my way out of the woods and into the conversation, even if it meant explaining things over and over again.
We loaded up the truck with our luggage and the presents/supplies and headed out in a mini-bus. Two hours later we arrived in Sarapiqui, where we all loaded into the back of a truck for the next two hours of the journey. As the door closed and we were left with darkness, people started cracking jokes about the "Migra" and border patrol, until the truck started moving and it was too loud to make talking worthwhile. Two hours later the door opened and our driver jokingly asked us for our passports as we all scrambled out of the truck to stretch our limbs. We then piled into a water-taxi for the final leg of the journey, and I was informed to keep an eye out for crocodiles. I spent the entire trip imagining the boat tipping, me falling into the water, and being pulled under and eaten alive. We finally arrive at "The Mission", a self-sustaining Christian mission camp/farm on the river. Anna, the founder, came to Costa Rica 15 years ago, and this place is the end result of over a decade of work. She and the volunteers eat what is available on the farm, and use electricity when the solar panels are working properly and candles when they are not. They have a main kitchen structure, another structure that serves as a bodega (storage space), and then they have a house boat with five rooms with bunk beds, where we slept for the weekend. It rains here 9 months out of the year, and I was really excited to break in my new rubber boots, which I had decorated with Rock Band 2 stickers spice them up a bit! Man o man, did they get a lot of use, as it rained 80% of the time.
Anna has been working with the Rotary club for the last few years to organize Christmas parties for the community. During the days we put on christmas parties, complete with masses, singing, puppet shows, games, bobbing for apples, handing out presents, and lots of laughing. The children were precious. At night, we sat around playing cards and telling stories in the candlelight. I feel like I made some long lasting friends, especially with a girl named Daniella. I liked Daniella immediately, mainly because she has short hair, and because she is hilarious. I also got to know Megan better, whom I will be sharing a room with for the next five months, and we get along really really well, which sure is nice to feel sure of!
I didn't necessarily want to come home, but Monday morning was the day that the Spanish school was coming to pick me up at my host family's house to give me and my suitcases a ride to Heredia, where I will be living from here on out. I gathered up my things and spent one last night in San Jose with my host family and then moved to Heredia. Daniella had called me to see if I wanted to come help her and her little brother set up her grandmother's Nativity Scene, and of course I accepted. We took a series of buses to get to Atena, where her grandmother and most of her family live. We then proceeded to put together the most elaborate Nativity Scene I have ever seen in my life, which included a number of animal figurines that I don't remember being part of the Bible but that she insisted on their presence, like dogs, a rocking horse, a giant rabbit, four or five little bo-peep look alikes, etc. It took up half of the living room! Her grandmother is 83 years old and still lives alone. I decided that there are five levels of fluency in Spanish - level four is UNDERSTANDING GRANDMOTHERS. She spoke very fast and I only caught about 50%, but she was a riot. At one point she looked me straight in the eye, and wagging her finger, and swore up and down that washing machines are a total joke (she prefers to wash everything by hand).
We stayed until the sun set and night came, and she fed us tortillas, gallo pinto (typical rice and beans mix), and arroz con leche until I was sure I was going to explode. We took the bus back to Daniella's house and I crashed on the extra mattress because it was too late to bus back to my house. I think that Daniella's family is going to officially adopt me for the holidays, now that Tom and I are going to move our Xmas travels to mid-January to ensure good weather. Her little brother helped me make a list of "Costa Rica slang" so I can fit in more. As we were laying in bed talking, Daniella asked me what I learned this weekend. I said that for the first time since I arrived, I feel like I live here - that I am happy to be here and have this country as my home. Like I am finally getting the hang of "Pura Vida". Life is good. Life is really, really good.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Good news
This is going to be a good week. I can feel it. Oh wait! Could it be?? Sunshine? Maybe that is what I am feeling?!! What a difference a little sunshine can make. It felt really nice to walk to my Spanish school today having to squint (I crushed my sunglasses the other day on accident and hadn't bothered to buy another pair due to constant cloud cover). When I showed up at school, there were five Christmas presents waiting in the classroom, as our Xmas present collection drive is coming to a close this week, and more people are bringing in their donations. More good news (because it will be great practice): I will need to make two presentations this week, for 30 minutes apiece, in Spanish! One is for a Rotary meeting tomorrow night and the other is for my class on a theme of my choice. I spent all day yesterday making a Power Point presentation about Austin that I am sure the audience will find riveting! I even included pictures of breakfast tacos, since that was about 70% of my diet. (Did you know that Austin was the site of the first tortilla factory in the United States?). When I was looking for pictures online, I stumbled across a picture of Leslie (a semi-famous male icon in Austin whose claim to fame is his dress code, which always includes a thong). I decided it would be a bit much for the presentation, but it did make me smile. The best part about making a presentation in another language that you are obviously not proficient in is that excessive hand motions are completely permissible, and almost encouraged (especially if you don't know the word). I am banking on the fact that there will be at least five words that I will try and remember that I can't, and with a minimum of one -two minutes of charades with the audience to get them to guess the word, well that is ten minutes right there. Just kidding. But not really.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
A little trivia...
Interesting Costa Rica facts that are not in any of the travel guides: 1) Paternity tests are not mandatory under any circumstances. 2) The penalty/fine for drunk driving is $40. Yup. $40 dollars. They just passed some legislation that will double the fine, but still, I think I have had library fines for that amount for a few overdue videos. Keep in mind, this applies whether you hit someone or not. 3) There is an island off the Pacific coast, San Lucas Island, that is now a protected wildlife area. From 1873-1980! it was a prison, and an incredibly violent one that that. Twenty percent of the people who went there didn't make it out alive. A prisoner, José León Sánchez (falsely accused who spent 30 years there until he was pardoned and released) wrote a book called San Lucas: La Isla de Los Hombres Solos while in prison, for which he won several awards and drew quite a bit of international attention. I read in the paper the other day that the island will now be open to the public as a tourist attraction.
Interesting Taiwan facts: 1) If you have no trouble having kids, but your sister can't get pregnant, you can gift her a child quite easily. It is a common family tradition, and the child grows up knowing that he/she was given from one family to the other, but it carries no social stigma. 2) If you buy eggs or mini-fish, you have to be really careful, because there are companies in China that manufacture artificial eggs and mini-fish that are made of plastic. They look exactly like the real thing, and can even have the same texture, but Veronica says the flavor is pretty horrible.
I am finishing up my last week of Spanish classes at Conversa. All of my professors have been amazing, and the classes are interesting. My Spanish is definitely coming along. For any of you that have been wanting to learn Spanish but perhaps don't have enough vacation time to move abroad for a month, the school offers individual classes online, which is pretty sweet. You can actually see the professor, talk to them, and write comments on the "chalkboard". It is a great way to prepare for a trip, like if you were planning on visiting me here in Costa Rica and wanted to brush up on your Spanish before you came....just a thought.
Advice: Yes, cosmetic services are cheaper down here. I opted to try out some of the dental services - getting my teeth whitened with a laser. Let's just say that my gums are swollen and my teeth are not that much whiter. I was assured by the doctor that my teeth would continue to whiten over the weekend. Maybe she told me this because after I looked at my teeth, I looked at her and said, "But they aren't white". I have a follow-up appointment on Tuesday. I am going to ask my teacher if we can practice a nice Spanish version of "Can I please have my money back?".
Interesting Taiwan facts: 1) If you have no trouble having kids, but your sister can't get pregnant, you can gift her a child quite easily. It is a common family tradition, and the child grows up knowing that he/she was given from one family to the other, but it carries no social stigma. 2) If you buy eggs or mini-fish, you have to be really careful, because there are companies in China that manufacture artificial eggs and mini-fish that are made of plastic. They look exactly like the real thing, and can even have the same texture, but Veronica says the flavor is pretty horrible.
I am finishing up my last week of Spanish classes at Conversa. All of my professors have been amazing, and the classes are interesting. My Spanish is definitely coming along. For any of you that have been wanting to learn Spanish but perhaps don't have enough vacation time to move abroad for a month, the school offers individual classes online, which is pretty sweet. You can actually see the professor, talk to them, and write comments on the "chalkboard". It is a great way to prepare for a trip, like if you were planning on visiting me here in Costa Rica and wanted to brush up on your Spanish before you came....just a thought.
Advice: Yes, cosmetic services are cheaper down here. I opted to try out some of the dental services - getting my teeth whitened with a laser. Let's just say that my gums are swollen and my teeth are not that much whiter. I was assured by the doctor that my teeth would continue to whiten over the weekend. Maybe she told me this because after I looked at my teeth, I looked at her and said, "But they aren't white". I have a follow-up appointment on Tuesday. I am going to ask my teacher if we can practice a nice Spanish version of "Can I please have my money back?".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
