Felíz Cumpleaños

It's my birthday! And what a birthday it's been! I've been sick with a post-Nicaragua throat infection, and the medicine has been making me so stupid. (Example: Yesterday, I was trying to get a ride to school on the bus, and I started reading during the drive. I looked up and didn't recognize the scenery, so I realized I'd gone too far past the school and got off at the next stop. I hardly had any money, so I had to wait for the next bus going the opposite direction to head back to el colegio. Twenty minutes later, when one finally showed up, I asked to be dropped off at the school. The bus driver looked at my funny and told me I was headed in the opposite direction. It turned out I hadn't passed the school in the first place and had to cross the road to wait for yet another bus to take me the rest of the way. Wow.) So last night when practically everyone I've met in Neily were filing into the house, I didn´t get the hint until they whipped out a cake and started singing to me. It was a wonderful, cozy early birthday party with delicious almond carmel cake and home made chili cheese fries. Although I didn't think it possible because of the sweltering heat, now that we have our Christmas tree set up, it is starting to feel like the holidays.

School has let out for "summer," but for the past three mornings, I've been waking up at 6a.m. to go to Madre del Divino Pastor to continue the recycling campaign. With the kinder teacher, Doña Alejandra, and my two exchange student friends, I've been sorting all the recycled plastic bottles by color. We finished today, but when we began, there were about 50 giant trash bags filled with bottles (some filled with rancid drink), trash, ancient food, cockroaches, giant spiders and mold mold mold. Fortunately, we had plastic gloves and wills of steel, and it felt really good to see the project through. You should see my legs though! There are these insects that I have yet to see, but they bite you without hurting, and you get these nasty welts on site. It looks like I have a terminal case of chicken pox. Today was our last day, and when we got off our sweaty, smelly shift (covered in sweat and smell) Hermana Bernarda told me to wash my hands really well in the teachers' lounge. I did so, and when I turned around, there was a beautiful birthday cake covered in icing roses on the table from the staff! It was such a thoughtful surprise and delicious cake. 

Well now I´ve showered and feel much more sanitary. I have been invited to coffee at my liason's house with some friends and it's sure to be a good time. 

Pura Vida,
Elaine

Dream Beautiful; Be Unusual

Well so much has happened over the last three days, I thought I`d steal a chance here in San José to update before I forget details. I`m sitting in Paula´s house, in the same seat as I was the first time I wrote from San José. Time takes on liquid properties here, it seems like it`s been forever, but hardly any time at all too. I guess in a way, it has been both. I`m very happy listening to 97.5 from Lansing streaming live on the internet as I write this. I`m enjoying the English radio advertisements just as much as the new Beyoncé hit.

So I woke up at 4 on Wednesday morning and called a tab to take me to the central park to wait for the staff bus to collect me. Anyway, the cab shockingly came for me about 5 minutes early and ridiculously honked, waking up my mom hours before he had to go to work. I didn`t have time to put in my contacts so I jumped into the red taxi nearly blind and was dropped off at the park five minutes later. The central park of Neily is possibly the ugliest block of land I have ever seen. The trees look like a combination of ghosts and knotty hair, the benches are primary colored and unsitably filthy, and that early in the morning, at least three poor homeless people people are always sprawled out asleep amongst the rubbish. It`s so ugly that it`s almost Dr. Sussianly whimsical which somehow lends it a bit of quirky charm. Waiting without contacts in the dark morning was a surreal surrounded by the haunted atmosphere. After putting my contacts back in, my co-worker Joanna showed up to wait with me, and before long, the rented bus (the same kind used for the serenatas) screeched around the corner, jam packed with the happiest staff of any school I know. We reached a tourist hub on the Sierripe called Las Vegas where a awkwardly large pontoon floated waiting for us. We snarfed a quick breakfast of Pinto in banana leaves, snapped a group photo (mine turned out to be one of those funny five second videos where everyone is holding still, waiting for the flash that never comes), and boarded on the boat.

The mangrove forest we cruised through exposed bleached gray roots about one meter above river level. This indicated low tide, and on the sunny shores to either side, we immediately saw two American Alligators with gaping mouths, cooling off like statues. As we made our way to la boca with the Pacific Ocean, the staff went out of their way to make sure I was included and having a good time. As if a free vacation surrounded by crazy animals wouldn´t be enough! The scenery was stupendous with jutting green hills dotted occasionally by pagoda style cabins or flat reliefs of riverside cow pastures. The weather out of the San Vito valley was clear and refreshing as the tiny flecks of white caps barely came into view. I felt peaceful and lucky. Of course, as a 6 season rower, I shouldn´t have been naive enough to believe whitecaps could ever be associated with a peaceful moment on the water, and as we approached the looming ocean, the size of our boat suddenly seemed way too small for its required task. Isla de Caño is about 3 miles offshore mainland Costa Rica, and it´s all smooth sailing once you pass the delta, but where the river and ocean meet, the waves that once seemed simply there to add some white highlights to the view now towered over our dinky water toy. The only way through them was with them, so for an incredibly frightening 15 minutes, we surfed in spirals over and over again at the mercy of the crashing olas. Just when I was sure I was going to have to wash nun chunks off my life vest, we made it out into the flat, peaceful ocean.

On the island, we spent a lazy day snorkeling, eating, joking around and just enjoying each others company away from those pesky students so that, of course, we could behave like pesky students. Three Humpback Whale, four White Faced Monkeys, dozens of Dolphins, a sandwich bar, several bad sunburns and two sloth sightings later, we returned to Las Vegas just as it began to rain. Although I had had a terrific day, the bus ride home to Neily was the best part. Rafa, the secundaria English teacher whipped out a gory rubber, full headed halloween mask (let´s not explore the fact that he actually thought to bring it along). During the three hour ride home, he proceeded to act out the funniest scenes with the Hermanas (my favorite included the satanic zombie praying and pleading with the nun to gain access into heaven) until we all had laughed ourselves into cramped delirium.

I returned home around 9 that night with barely enough time to pack for my next two week trip and sneak in 4 hours of sleep with my AFS friend Lily,with whom I would be traveling to Ostional. Another bleary morning found me waiting at the makeshift Neily bus station to catch what now felt like a routine 8 hour Tracopa to San José. Lily and I loaded on and promptly crashed, hoping to wake up in San Jose and skip over all the turbulent travel along the coast. I was pretty miserable with a bad sunburn from the day before all across my shoulders, and this combined with the 100 degree heat of the unairconditioned bus, made for an unpleasant ordeal. You can imagine my confused disappointment when I finally did awake to find myself 6 hours later on a bumpy dirt road, sweat plastering me to my seat. Now, the ride to San José isn´t a treat on the bus, but there wasn´t ever dirt road either. I immediately assumed we were somewhere in Panama and had somehow confused buses or tickets and would miss the trip I was looking so forward to. I didn´t have my passport and was preparing for days of abuse from the boarder police, surely sitting alone in a urine reeking pit of a jail cell. The reality was worse. We had to make a 9 hour detour away from the scheduled course due to road work and the bus ride would last 12 hours. Pura torture.

Amazingly, I made it to the capitol city, and thank goodness there was a kindly old taxi driver, waiting to escort Lily and I to wherever our tired hearts desired. Like the heat exhausted idiot I was, I gladly let him grab my bags and lead me around back to our unlicensed, awaiting chariot. Lily and I were to meet Paula at the shoe store of my papá´s sister, and I had the address, but not the faintest idea of where it actually was. Costa Rica, as a country, has elected to do away with those tedious little address numbers, as all they seem to cause is trouble anyway, so my directions looked something like, 100m South, 200m East of the big yellow pizza place in Barrio so and so. Our driver must have seen us coming a mile away. He feigned being lost (while covering as much ground as possible) and lent me use of his cell phone to call the aunt. The whole time we were really close to the store, but by the time we reached it, we owed the pirata about ten times what we should have had to pay. Before he sped off, he winked at me, ensuring that my use of his phone was free. What a guy.

After a speedy reunion with Papá´s side of the family and a night crashed at Paula´s place, Lily and I caught yet another 6am bus out of Los Yoses to take us to Playa Ostional. Small blessings like air conditioning and breathing room improved my nihilist mood as I chatted up Julian, a fellow AFSer from Austria. Around 4pm, we reached the National Park´s bridge protected boarder. I was the only one who was staying away from home for more than simply the duration of the Ostional trip, so when we all loaded off the bus into the blistering heat to walk our luggage to an undisclosed location, I looked like a complete bimbo diva with my two week´s worth of crap in a wheeled duffle and brimming backpack for a two night trip in a national park. The walk proved more exciting than just a walk, of course, because the bridge preventing overtourism was right out of Indiana Jones. When I look back at the photos now, it´s hard to believe I don´t remember teetering across the thin, tipsy, and tall wire bridge, but I was so travel weary, I must have just lumbered across with without noticing. Maybe that´s how Indy managed his feats.

If it sounds like I was por el piso at that point, everything about my mood was completely improved as soon as I saw Playa Ostional for the first time. Right away, we started our first work shift because the sun was setting. This meant turtle time! My speculations about actually seeing anything after all the travel were immediately dissolved when I spotted my first hatched nest of Ping-Pong ball sized baby turtles doing their best to scamper down the beach and into the ocean. At that point, we didn´t really know what we were doing, but it seemed a like a good idea to stand around the babies exclaiming endlessly in every language we knew about how fabulously adorable they were. Later that night, we were properly educated with a poorly translated English video about what our job for the nest two days would entail. We learned that turtles had slim odds of surviving hatching, much less the trek to the ocean, surrounded by head chomping dogs, fin tearing crabs, and gut piercing vultures. Yes, survival chances appeared grave for the defenseless Lora turtles of Ostional. After our job was detailed, a voice imposed over a sunset sweetly informed us that after the valiant little guy made it to the Pacific, "Each and every ones will surely face the more of dangers awaiting for those in the danger violent ocean". Lily and I were the only fluent English speakers, and when this dire conclusion was played, our burst of laughter was not appreciated by the dreadlocked crowd who found nothing comical about the turtle bloodbath. Ostional, strike two.

The following day was peaceful and enjoyable, rising at 4 to beat the sunrise and catch the majority of the hatching turtles. The beach was gorgeous and almost completely white with hatched turtle eggshells. Hundreds to Loritas painstakingly made their way into the crashing waves one by one. Our job as volunteers was to slowly walk behind them, shielding them from the glaring sun and protecting them from their lurking predators until they met their natural element in the sea. I wouldn´t consider myself an especially patient person, but I could walk those crawling turtles to safety all day for the rest of my life and feel content. We weren´t allowed to simply lift them into the ocean because their half hour army crawl was necessary for developing their muscles and lungs in order to be successful swimmers for their year long migration to Japan. It was such a peaceful, meaningful act. And every time you knew you saved one, you´d just backtrack to the nest and start protecting another.

In our off time, the 20-odd international group of students (only Silvia and Eva were there from the volunteer group) crammed into a semi-truck bed that off-roaded us to a secret beach, San Juanillo. We were dumped out of the truck into heaven. There is a law in Ostional that you can`t swim during the arribada, or tutle migration, because not only is it dangerous for the tortugitos, but it`s also prime shark season. Thus, we were hauled to San Juanillo, the white sandy beach littered with pink shells and palm trees. While most of the kids enjoyed the crystal turquoise water, I resolved to make use of my keens (the ugliest, and possibly heaviest shoes known to man) that I`d lugged along to do some exploration on the jagged rocky shore further down the beach. I invited a nice Japanese girl to come along who wasn`t in a swimming mood either, and we cautiously explored some caves while I learned about Buddhism in Spanish.

The two days we had left at Ostional passed pleasantly. The rhythm of life was simple. Our moods were light. Our cabins had a common space filled with hammocks and just outside the property was a nice island bar and the Ostional Project headquarters where we were served cafeteria style meals together on a long wooden deck. Lights are illegal at night all year in the beach town because sometimes the turtles confuse street lights for a sunrise, and their signal to start crawling towards the light source. For this reason, I was scared one night as I started my trek to the cabins in the pitch black night with only a rib-popping, flea ridden dog for company. Then I looked up. It turns out, stars can be seen in Costa Rica too. I hadn`t seen them since that cab ride from Cartago to La Finca three months ago because of the ceaseless rain in Neily. They were absolutely stunning. The difference between the milky way and the rest of the black canvas contrasted with razor clarity and the constellations (though I didn`t know who they were or what they meant) took form and pierced the void. The next morning, we made our next early morning march back across the bridge and to the waiting bus.

Not Much to Say

Enticing title, no? Well here you are, reading anyway. Writing in here is starting to feel like a betrayal of the immersion process... like I should be living instead of taking field notes. But maybe I`m just lazy. I got off my (markedly bigger) nalga today and went on a long run in the sun soaked streets. I can`t say it felt great, but the view was nice and if I don`t do something about this flab, there`ll be no hope of scaling Chirripó. ...Not that the reservation process is giving me much hope at this point.

Two weeks ago after the haphazard recycling presentation, I can say that I see a real change in the school. The kids are excited about Las Cuatro R`s, I`ve painted a big mural outside the gym and every classroom has its own separate, decorated recycling receptacles. That week, I was walking by a trash can and I happened to notice two little legs waggling out the top of it. I stopped to see what the animated metal monster would do next. It spat out a little kindergartner who was clutching little dirty balls of paper. She scampered off into her classroom around the corner. I skulked into the room. My heart burst. She was putting the paper from the garbage into the newly painted paper bin for recycling. It had turned into a contest amongst the munchkins and they were running all over the grounds to be the most prolific 6-year-old recycler around.

Everything is calm and challenging and enjoyable. I`ve become good friends with my 14 year old cousin, Diego, and his rat pack. We play ping pong most nights.

I`m leaving for vacations tomorrow at 4am to visit a coral reef island to whale watch with the school staff, the n the next morning I leave for Guanacaste to help rescue baby turtles. Directly from there, I leave for Nicaragua until the 22nd. I am looking very forward to my near future and trying to enjoy the present.

Oh yeah, and Barack Obama won the election.

WWWAAAAHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!,

Elaine

Ezekiel

Well I`ve said it before and I`ll say it again, Ain`t nothin`like a box of ten books from home to make you smile. 

At noon today I came in from San Jose on an eight-hour bus ride. I had to wake up at 4 to catch it at 4:30. Too early, obviously, but my bleary-eyed suffering was rewarded with more panoramic views of the mountains silhouetted against the sunrise.... and two seats to myself in which to crash. When people would load on the bus, I played every Gringa card to prevent them from occupying my second seat. ¿Q-Què? No yo haabla españish...

I was in San Jose on a whim. The only solid plans you can count on here are whims. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it`s the law of the land. On Friday night, I actually had a tough choice of which whim to whim. My sister Katerina was gearing up to go on her third serenata of the month (yes, the ones with the all night party buses and hung over beach bumming), but this final one was to visit all the teachers in the wee hours to serenade them (nuns excluded). However, my older sister, Paula was in town and I had an offer to bum a ride with the fam to drop her off in San Jose too. The fact that I was already feeling sick tipped the scale and I decided to go with Paula and take a break from Neily, my job, and stagnant thoughts for until Thursday.

Again the drive to San Jose hands down the most beautiful thing I`ve ever seen in my life. Photos can`t capture it and my words sound clichè. It occurred to me that heaven could not compete because nothing could possibly be more beautiful than the relationship between land, water, sky and cloud along that road. Like some sweetly sarcastic joke, a double rainbow sprouted from out of the billowing cloud floor and made me want to freeze time.

Around five in the afternoon we descended into the starry city. It is pitch black here by that time. As usual, I had no idea what the plan was, but I happily went along for the ride, touring relatives` houses and gladly stuffing myself with cooked vegetables, stews, rice, beans, empenadas, ice cream in plastic bags, and cake. We made it back to Paula`s modern and familiar little house in Tres Rios around 9. I just had time for some CNN election coverage before passing out. Very hopeful, even more nervous.

The next day was all-American. We woke up at five to sprint through the streets in car and on foot to make it to my dad`s doctor`s appointment on time in downtown San Jose. We waited there among the slightly less-friendly, faster paced Ticos for a sleepy hour for the doctor to give him the okay. Then we raced to a different side of town to pick up Francini, my third sister, who had come in from Guanacaste for the weekend to see everyone. Now, San Jose is much more organized than this rural part of the country, but the drivers don`t seem to like organization. A stop sign, along with yield signs and yellow and red lights mean nothing to the Tico driver. This made for interesting experiences in the teaming main streets... the kind of thing where you know you`d be able to enjoy the fun of it if only you knew you`d live through it. Once joined by Francini (amazingly tan from her sunny internship), we found a quick touristy breakfast spot. Over Gallo Pinto, I observed with interest the ways that I could immediately tell nationality in fellow gringos from eating habits while my family caught up with gossip in too-fast Spanish. From there I mentioned that I`d like to see El Teatro Nacional which is in the dead center of the city. Of course, the whim was whimmed and we pulled a U-turn and parked downtown to go see the beautiful theater and Grand Hotel. The central square looks right out of Madrid. Stunning and exciting... filled with people from all races and backgrounds, rushing around. We toured the theater (because I have blue eyes, I had to pay 5 dollars while my family walked in for free as Costa Ricans) which was gorgeous. It is filled with frescos, gold leaf and ornate sculptures. Like a stroll through a Mr. Benidict art lecture... without Charlie snoring behind me.

I`ll spare you the details of what we did after the tour because it will probably sound like what you have already done today. Or, rather, what you will do after Thanksgiving. Yes, Christmas has already fallen upon this country and we`re not even up to Halloween.

The next morning, I agreed to meet my AFS friend Asger in the central square to bum around the city and catch up. Neither of us have cell phones, are familiar with San Jose, or would be able to travel with anyone. I decided to view the unlikely plan as another adventure that probably wouldn`t work out, but I boarded the bus in Tres Rios and decided to see if we could swing it. The bus was empty when I boarded and I happily took a window seat. At the next stop, I realized the bus would fill up, so I moved over when a nice looking girl motioned to sit next to me. I was glad I didn`t have to sit next to someone like the guy that got on after her! He was a huge guy with greasy gelled curls and sweaty armpits. It looked like he had just thundered down five blocks to catch the bus. Of course, just as I was contemplating this, my seat partner spotted her friend in the back of the bus, and got up to sit with her just in time for this new guy to plop down next to me. I don`t remember when we started talking, but I found out he spoke fluent English, and while he practiced his English on me, I slowly opened up responding in Spanish.

He told me his name was Mariano, and he told me all about his favorite parts of Costa Rica. He was a delightfully friendly man, with an amor pura por vida. I`m not kidding when I say that he almost cried telling me about Chirripò, the tallest mountain here. I really want to go. When we both got off about an hour later in downtown San Jose, walked towards my meeting spot and his office together. I found out he had created a language school in the city and he was the Hebrew teacher. I told him my dad was Jewish and he said "Aha! When I sat down next to you I thought you looked like a Jew!" delightedly. He told me Ezekiel means "strong from God" in Hebrew. We talked about holidays here and the tiny Jewish population of Costa Rica all the way to the square. We exchanged contact information and he told me if I wanted to, I could come to his school to celebrate Hanukkah with him and his students in December. I thanked him for the offer and he shook hands to leave. A strange expression settled on his face when I was about to walk away and I asked him what happened. He told me I shook hands like an American girl and if I do it so forcefully like that, people will think I`m a lesbian. I told him I couldn`t help it, I`m strong from God, and we happily parted after I gave him the satisfaction of shaking my limp hand.

Nicest people on Earth.

So I had arrived to the square a little earlier than anticipated so I bought myself a nice fatty carmel coffee, and happily people watched in front of the National Theater. The place was abuzz because the president of Chile was visiting that day, and security was checking everything out. After about 15 minutes. I felt a tap on the back of my head. It was Asger! It seemed so improbable that two Estadounidenses could possibly find each other in this crazy country, but our plan actually worked! I was so glad to see him. 

We strolled to a balcony breakfast cafe, catching up and griping about all the little things that only other exchangers can relate to. Even though it was our first chance to eat a breakfast of whatever we wanted, we both happily sat down with plates full of Gallo Pinto, the same breakfast we`ve been eating every day since August. The view was Cosmopolitan and the food was delicious. On the other side of the dining area, a wistful man was painting on a canvas turned away from us, completing the artsy little scene. A few tables down the porch, there was a man who, upon hearing our giggling English, asked where we were from. We got to talking, and within five minutes, realized we were both born in the same hospital in Yipsi. It really does feel like a small world. Then I excused myself to peek over at the artist`s work. At first I thought it was some cleverly abstract view of the bustling street, but then Asger tugged me away just in time for me to see he was basing his painting off of a wildly pornographic page ripped out of a magazine that laid under the canvas. It`s a strange world too.

We made our way North, after some very touristy map confusion, to meet up with our German and Belgian friends Felix, Amalie and Louise. Felix and Lousie work in the National Children`s Museum or their volunteer placement. We made it up the hill in a taxi to see that the Museum is a castle. Later I found out that it was actually the old San Jose jail, but we agreed that if we had to putz our lives away incarcerated, this panoramic fortress would be our choice. We met our good friends dressed as palace workers and received a VIP tour. This place was so cool. It was like the Hands On Museum plus Cosi plus Costa Rica. With over 40 rooms, a petting zoo, a real helicopter and airplane, a walk through biome zone with all the climates of Costa Rica, a role-playing kid cafe and grocery store (with working registers... SO cool) and an optical illusion house, it was hard not to revert to childhood glee. Compared to our friend Tom whose placement is fish breeding, Felix and Louise lucked out big time.

Our happy reunited party clopped back down to the main avenue after the tour to indulge in Pizza Hut and ice cream and contemplate the exciting prospect of our two weeks off in January. Our wish list includes a Guanacaste Beach Tour, Climbing Chirripo, Canopy Hangliding somewhere and White Water rafting from Tres Equis. Later, we went to the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) and saw the freshest jewelry collection ever. There was this like 3 pound golden lobster necklace. If I were a rapper... The sun set golden over the chillier city. We finished our day of fun sipping girly little coffee drinks on the warmly lit patio of the Grand Hotel, sharing funny anecdotes and watching the madness of the moments before the Chilean president made her way out onto the square.

Getting home was a little scary/complicated by bus alone at night, but there are always people to help. As long as you have a passing understanding of Spanish, use your head and know who to ask for help, you can get out of anything here. I felt like the net of humanity is always there to catch me if I fall. Faith in mankind is too often called naïveté. The world is a good place. I`m so lucky to be experiencing it first hand in this beautiful country.

Elaine

There Have Been These Days

Well as long as I have the pleasure of making you all jealous with my warm weathered-adventures, it`s only fair to let you know about the times when Ann Arbor doesn`t seem so bad. The rain is relentless. Nobody ever mentions the weather can make or break your day. ...Or week. Even when I can point to nothing wrong here, the constant smatter of la lluvia on the metal roofs displaces something in me. It doesn`t bother the AFSer from Boston here... I should really just woman up, it makes the flowers thrive. 

The other reason for my glumness is my long-planned trip to Playa Hermosa fell through on account of the dangerous driving conditions. I have slowly begun to understand that nothing is certain in Costa Rica. I guess you could call it the downside of Pura Vida. Our uptight, bustling nature in the States leads to efficiency and dependability that is lacking in this country. I can`t decide which I prefer. A useful defense mechanism to develop here is the ability to see positive and negative aspects of any possible outcome. For example, my healthy personal monologue to medicate this particular upset is: Good thing this trip didn`t come through! We would have all been eaten by sharks if we had been able to go! ...Obviously half hearted, but as Derian wrote me, there is no time for you to waste being upset. Make everything great. She`s right, of course and I will kickbox out any remaining frustration I have tonight in aerobics class.

My sister`s graduation dinner was this last Saturday night. Everyone got dressed up as if for prom and drove out to a Roman-themed party venue. The golden decor, which I helped to make, glittered against the purple, cavernous night. We toasted the 20-odd seniors and danced the sticky night away. My parents were a little too shy to venture onto the dance floor in front of all the other families, but after everyone else had left and the wait staff were breaking down the tables, the DJs blasted on, and the four of us boogied to tacky eighties music in the aisles. It was like what would roll during the ending credits of my Costa Rican movie, and it felt wonderful.

Today was the first day of La Semana Ambiental-or Environmental Week at the school. My job was to present a long interactive power point about environmental awareness and recycling. It wasn`t quite as enthusiastically received as the one about my life in the US, but I think I at least got the message across. After my presentation, the 7th grade class filed onto the presenting area to put on an environmental-themed theatrical production. Now, I have seen three of these works and the students are always mumbling their lines which are already in Spanish and thus, difficult to understand, but I have detected general common plot line. One girl is always dressed as a homeless beggar, two boys are always gun-carrying Italian mobsters and they usually shoot the beggar. Eventually, a protagonist comes, sometimes dressed as the patron saint of the school, to save the day. Today`s was only different because when the beggar dramatically fell to her knees- mid swan croak, she slung a real garbage bag, full of yesterday`s lunch waste across the floor. Its contents filled the auditorium with an awful smell, and when St. Francis descended to absolve the situation and the play ended, they exited without cleaning their mess. Then the kindergarten class shuffled onstage, dressed as various flower fairies, trees, and forest animals. They started singing a song about environmentalism and on the last note, a boy dressed as a lumberjack sliced them all with a cardboard chainsaw and they dropped dead on their backs. The assembly ended with an image of dead fairy carcasses amongst a pile of rotting trash.

Hopefully the sum of these demonstrations somehow inspire students to stop throwing their garbage all over the garden. Time will tell.

This Sunday I was munching on a cheeseburger getting some letter writing done at Hotel Andrea, when my ears perked up at the sound of my native tongue. I looked up to see two soaking Brits. I joined them for a beer and learned that they were on a grand motorcycling adventure. The motorists, Steve and Deb, had spent five and a half months biking from the tip of Alaska to Montreal, down to Texas and California, and in the last few weeks had meandered their way down through Central America. I hope I still have the energy for crazy adventures when I`m 60 like them. Very cool.

Pura Vida (The good and the bad!)

Elaine

On The Road

Well I started my first Kerouac novel. He`s crazy. Hopefully this blog will turn out to report half as many escapades as I make my travels. I love all this time I have for reading! I have been missing out rowing all my free time away. That`s actually not true, I miss crew more than most things. If only there were a way to erg while reading...

Speaking of traveling escapades, I rewarded myself yesterday by spreading my laminated Costa Rican map before me on the teachers` room table during work to plan my future adventures. And oh what adventures they will be! So far, I`ve been invited to travel to the North to a beach called Playa Ostional where every year, for one week, thousands to turtles come to lay their eggs. My job as a volunteer will be seeing to it that the hatched baby turtles make it to the ocean safely. I`ll be working for around 8 hours a day, one shift for sunrise and one for sunset. I am also traveling for my mid-stay orientation (mid-stay!? time is flying) in Nicaragua later next month. Later this month, some of the AFS kids are trying to get together for a weekend together at La Playa Hermosa nature reserve/beach to catch up and enjoy each other's company. I also want to climb Costa Rica`s tallest mountain, Chirripó, which should take about three days, visit the cloud forests of Monteverde, visit my friend Molly in Guanacaste and see the city of David in Panamá. Let`s see how far my Holiday`s waitressing tips will get me. The gorgeous eight-hour bus ride to San Josè costs about 6 dollars. Pu-ra Vi-da! 

I haven`t made any new posts recently because a.) it would be pretty difficult to top the impressive craziness of earlier this month and b.) every day Neily feels like less of a vacation and more of a home. I am filling up my free time simulating the same insane schedule I have in the States. Maybe it`s just a natural inclination. Yesterday I was teaching English or preparing for Environmental Week between the National University and the school where I work from 7:30 to 8pm. The best feeling in the world is to walk out from the grey, sopping streets of Neily after a lonely bus ride home to be greeted by my family in warm light and the smell of frying plàtanos. This family life is the best part of the AFS program, and something I wouldn`t have had the chance to experience sight-seeing from hotel to hotel. Our home is like the clubhouse for the whole extended family. Cousins, aunts, boyfriends, babies and grandparents fill the seats. The coffee sock is always straining hot water, the TV is always alive with latin music videos, the rice kettle is always full and so are the pitchers of crazy fruit juice. There is this one juice that looks like bubble tea, but the little fuzzy spheres are potable seeds from the fruit. You have to shake it up or you`ll choke. I feel thankful for my placement into such a loving family. However, I`m not sure of how unusual this home situation is, as I`ve grown aware that Ticos are the very nicest people on Earth.

I take advantage of my waning time, the fact that I have nothing to lose, and extra sympathy and patience I receive as an exchange student by chatting everyone up. Taxi drivers, college students, restaurant owners... everyone is my own private Spanish tutor. And it`s nothing like those grammar lessons out of the dry Spanish curricula at home. These people smile with their eyes and laugh with their whole bodies. I think my favorite symbol of Costa Rican hospitality are the little Sodas that you can find on every street corner. They look like the breakfast nook of any house, but the counter is exposed to the street and lined with about five stools. Inside you can see a normal stove and oven, a fridge and a mix of plastic tableware. You plop down on a stool and tell the cook what you want, and for three dollars you can sip fresh fruit juice and discuss life with the other customers while the woman cooks you a home made meal.

I taught English again today, which is good because that means I don`t have to again until next Tuesday... Last week was culture fest, so I was offered an opportunity to show the school a slide show on powerpoint of my daily life in the states and give a speech in Spanish about it. Everyone loved to see the differences, especially a photo of the snowy arb, and I managed to pass with an air of fluency if I do say so myself. The head nun is fond of me, and I think I`m doing a good enough job that she shows me off to school officials. This will be helpful when I want to ask for travel time off. Really though, I walk into work happy to be there every morning (except Tuesdays, that is!).

My sister`s graduation dinner is this weekend. I think I might actually be proud of her. Not that she`s the typical little sister, as she knows everything here, and I`m essentally incompetent, but all the same.

I`ll leave you with a humorous anecdote: I spend most of my day sitting in the quiet library working. It`s usually empty except for the librarian nun who is generally very quiet. She has huge glasses that magnify her eyes for an animated effect. Anyway, she was the nun who was scared by the plastic alligator at the baby shower. So when she tapped the back of my upturned book with a giant toy iguana, I laughed, unsurprised, to pacify her feelings and continued reading. Then a tail whipped around the table, and I saw the toy blink. I screamed and jumped out of my chair, realizing that this 4 foot monster was alive. The nun merrrily cackled and went outside to put her friend back where she found him. That incident opened up our social sides, and I learn about being a nun from her as I prepare for my lessons.

Pura Vida, Much Love,

Elaine

Yo No Me Doy Por Vencido

I DID IT!!! Not only did I successfully accomplish making the elusive @ sign (@@@@@! (Thanks Conor!!)), but I was also able to sign in here for the first time in 11 days. Wow, life is good.

Really though, life is fantastic here. I am assimilating, learning, growing, laughing and making tons of mistakes every day. Too much has happened in the last week and a half for a normal post, but I`ll run through the basics:

My job has been going really well. As long as the students are still in school (their vacation starts at the end of November), my job has been focused on working with them. I have become known as TEECHER and although I`ve never really been a huge kid fan, I have to admit that when 15 of them run up to me, scrambling for one of the two coveted spots holding my hands, I feel great. The school has grades K through 12, so while I get to enjoy the goofiness of the little ones, when I feel like talking to someone my own age, there are about 20 really cool classmates of my sisters who accept me as their own. So far, I have designed 3 murals to be painted outside the school and over the recycling center, planned the beginnings of Environmental Week, and made posters and worksheets. On Tuesdays, the English teacher has to go to professional development, so he asked me if it would be alright if I taught his classes once a week. Uhhh, ¿si? So the disorder of my placement has come full circle, and now I really am teaching English.

Tuesdays are by far my most tiring days. Last Tuesday, the first time I taught, I had a miscommunication with the English teacher, and never received any lesson plans. Luckily (not) I was teaching 5th, 6th and 7th grades for an hour and a half each. I ad-libbed my way through lessons about the difference between future and present conditional to classes of 30. There is a huge construction project going on outside the school, and the machines make it impossible to teach or hear hardly anything, my dry-erase markers refused to write, and for the grand finale, a huge, gorgeous Harry Potter-style bird landed on the window sill right when I was making progress with the 5th grade, erupting the class with screams of glee. For any teacher who I have ever distracted or bothered, I am receiving my karma in full. ...Sorry.

I love the staff of the school. They are all super understanding and laid back. From all sides, I am accepted as an equal. This is because my age is somewhat ambiguous here. The students think I`m their age, but the teachers think I`m well into my twenties. Just like the mix-up with my job, I don`t see any advantage in clearing the confusion. I was surprised and delighted to be invited to the English teacher`s wife`s baby shower last week. The gym teacher drove me to his house and we celebrated with the same dopey baby shower traditions and games we have in the States. The funniest thing that happened was when the mischievous Social Studies teacher found an alligator toy and scared one of the nuns out of her mind.

My social life is picking up as well as my professional life. Last weekend was hands down the craziest in my life. My sister, Katerina, told me that it was a tradition to serenade the boys of the senior class on Saturday. I thought that sounded stupid and like fun, so I got ready to go around dinner time, assuming that we would leave around 7 (so far, assuming has only made an ass out of me!). I was awkwardly hanging out in the street with my cousins` rat pack waiting for Katerina to make a move. But when 10pm rolled around, Katerina went to bed. I followed her, utterly sick of the mass of social confusion I constantly harbor. I made my way to bed. Two hours later, Kate woke me up and told me to grab my swimsuit. At this point I resigned to be at her mercy because trying to figure out what is going to happen next is impossible here. So I downed a cup of coffee because it seemed like a good idea, and hopped in the car with her.

We pulled up to a bus downtown with all of her female classmates inside sporting guitars, cymbals, kazoos, drums, whistles, boom boxes... whatever noise makers they could find. It was about 12:30pm when we set off. These girls were screaming like I couldn`t believe. It`s totally acceptable to just scream your head off here... all the time for no good reason. I can`t say it`s something I enjoy. We pulled up to a house and scampered out to the front lawn. We yowled songs (and when I say we, I mean me yelling the syllables in the chord progression) and beat the instruments until Bernardo, a boy from the class opened the door in his PJs. We kidnapped him, threw him in the bus and pulled out to go to the next house. Because El Colegio de la Madre del Divino Pastor is a private school, some of the boys lived as far away as the Panama boarder, and it was 4am when we finally collected every chico. I thought Well that was weird and fun, going home and sleeping will be so nice. Wrong again!!

We proceeded to stop at several teachers` houses (by now fairly inebriated) belting out the Mariachi songs and they would come out, laughing in their boxers. Like I said, these people are LAID BACK. When we had finished and the bus started heading in the opposite direction as Neily, I knew there was more that I didn`t understand. It was 5am, and my thoughts were interrupted by Yazmin crying, A LA PLAYA, HERMANO!!!! and my limp bathing suit in my bag finally made sense. I asked which local beach we were going to, and my friend Ronny turned to me and said, Baby, we got a two hour bus ride! These kids drank themselves sick, opening beer bottles with their teeth and screamed the latest club music all the way to Zan Cudo beach on the other side of the Gulf. As a testament to the party culture of Costa Rica, we were in the middle of nowhere surrounded by rice farms and somehow the bus driver found a station playing Love in this Club at 5am on a Sunday morning. With the sunrise silhouetting our partied out stupor, we piled out of the bus and into a private beach resort house. Our smelly, stinky party felt entirely odd juxtaposed against the innocence of the country`s dawn.

The house was nicely furnished with an outdoor bar, 4 bedrooms, a hammock-filled lawn, and a beach front. I excitedly ran out to where the horizon dropped off and could not believe the view I saw. This place is paradise for sure. The beach could have been on any magazine cover: mountains stretching up on all sides, fresh clear water, fine black sand, and the brilliant sunrise poking up over the palms. It was a great moment to be alive, and an even greater moment to sleep for a few hours on a towel. When we went home at 4pm, if you can believe it (I couldn`t), we stopped for an entire new crate of beer, and the Sunday afternoon raucous party lasted all the way back to Neily. 

Today I brought cookies to the school for the staff to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. I told them that it was the celebration of Jewish New Year, but they didn`t seem to hear the Jewish part, and the nuns exclaimed how Oh that`s RIGHT! Today is New Year in the United States! and happily munched away on the cookies. I try my hardest not to laugh in such situations, but the imagery was too good.

In other news, to work off my new cookie fat, I have joined a daily workout class with my aunt and her cousin. It`s basically like my mom`s water aerobics class sin agua. Everyone is over 30, really nice and super jazzed about getting some buns of steel. It only costs about a dollar per class.

Talk about buns of steal!!

Pura Vida,

Elaine

Boots with the Fur

Hello all.. I continue not to be able to make the @ symbol independently, and because no one is home right now, I must first google search Peter Smith´s email address, for example, and copy the at sign before I can log in. This, it turns out, has not been my biggest cultural setback. But in the same way that I solved the ¨@ dilemma¨, I find myself able to overcome most difficult situations. Yeah, it´s great! All I have to do is google search Costa Rican table manners, right there in my chair! Of course, I mean using resourcefulness and flexibility, not google. Removed from the bee-lining efficiency of the states, this round-about method of success is sometimes frustrating. For example, when I wake up from a nap and the house is deserted, my ingenious solution for finding out where everyone is consists of going back to sleep or reading until someone comes home. Works every time!

Well, this week I actually got a job at the school instead of just a title. My days of napping in the classrooms (with the senior class... (yes, they have nap time)), helping to teach English and assisting in gym class with the adorable first graders, reading Malcolm X in the library and drilling my Spanish slang (or Pachuco) flash cards until the bell rings at 2 are over. That´s just as well because I was getting a little antsy after finishing my book. One day at school I was especially tired because I had gone to a huge independence day party the night before in Paso Canoas with a famous live act and I had returned home at around 4am. I spent the day at school propped up on coffee and trying to avoid as much human contact as possible. But as I was boarding my school bus to go home, the head nun told me to get on a different bus. I could have asked her why, but I was too tired to go through the steps of understanding a complicated subjunctive and future-tense sentence in spanish (: ¿Cómo?...Lo siento, no entiendo, más despacio, por favor... Si, pero ¿que debo haccer depués?... etc. I almost always end up pretending I understand when I don´t, after about the third repeat.) So I boarded this alien bus without my sister and dozed until I awoke to someone tapping me to get off the bus... I guess they knew what was going on. I stepped off and into a beautiful home somewhere on the outskirts of Neily.

A woman served me coffee (maybe my 5th cup that day.. it´s so good here) and toast with nutella. Then a man came in and asked me how long I´d been in Costa Rica and how much Spanish I spoke. After I answered him, he said ¨Alright, we will speak English together to make things easier.¨ I was so happy! I hadn´t heard someone addressing me in English since my friends at La Finca. We got in his truck to drive to his office and I found that he was a design head at an architecture office. We went into his cubicle and he said, ¨So tell me what you know about your job,¨. And I had to laugh because up until then, I hadn´t actually assembled all the lazy pieces of my day whose sum was allegedly my volunteer job. He told me that I was going to be in charge of the landscape architecture of the school. ¨I trust you have experience in this field,¨ he said to me as more of a statement than a question.

I marveled at the disorder that has been my placement. Originally, I was assigned here to teach English to underprivileged children at the city´s public school. Now I had been imported as some horticultural expert from the states, sent to rescue the tattered and overgrown surroundings of the wealthiest private school in the area. I suddenly realized that the only possible way my environmental experience had been misconstrued was the bit about my small volunteering stint for Recycle Ann Arbor that appeared on the resumé I sent to AFS (Like my dad said, well just be glad you didn´t write anything about a mild interest in surgery!). At any rate, I wasn't about to deny this charge as A.) I sometimes do stupid things to shake up unbearable monotony, B.) This man had a powerpoint and a task packet of my job all ready to go on his computer, which he had obviously put a lot of effort into and C.) I really like nature, I really like designing things, and I really like challenges.

From the powerpoint I learned that the school has some dangerous and ugly areas that I had yet to see. There were heaps of organic waste in the back, slivery wood piles (according to this man, filled with snakes), a teetering bridge over a rushing river , haphazard and crowded tree layout and dilapidated play equipment. My 6 month job is to essentially solve all of these problems, along with fixing the completely ineffective recycling program and designing new garden and eating areas. If I successfully accomplish these goals, the school would win more stars for their schools environmental flag from the government which currently only has one. The man was flipping through plush gardening magazines, pointing out to me the ones he thought would look best behind the soccer field and so forth... they all looked to be million-dollar jobs. I was handed my packet of instruction and information (in Spanish) and I turned to this designer. ¨I´m excited and honored to try and do all this for the school, but isn´t it a little ambitious?¨. He said, ¨Oh yes! It´s very ambitious! We will be working together. You have access to the money, supplies and man power you need. The school´s gardener will be put to work on the projects with which you need assistance. After you finish drafting up your vision for the lawns, I will have my people come in, and they´ll cut down any trees you see fit to go.¨

AHHHHHHH!!!

Imagine me taking this all in, thanking him and going home in a daze! I had had about two and a half hours of sleep the night before.

So, this week I told myself that I should just go for it and fake it until I make it! Clipboard and pen and nothing else in hand in hand, I walked out to the front garden, my first project. I looked around at the foreign plants (which I label with names like (no joke) ¨big twisty tye-dye plant¨ or ¨the one that sorta looks like a trumpet vine, but it´s not a vine¨) and for the second time laughed to myself. Very professional. I have so far made a couple pirate-style maps of the two front gardens (complete with a paced-griding system) and some drawings of how I´d like to see the play structures look when I´m finished. I´m borrowing a design motif from the school´s beautiful tiles, and the color scheme from the ¨big twisty tye-dye plants´s¨ green, red and yellow leaves. I even drew up plans for Semana Ambiental or Environmental Week, which was fairly easy because student council had tried to get something like that off the ground at Pioneer. I ran my sketches and ideas by the nun, and she seems impressed.

The downside to this new hectic job outlook is that by the end of the school day, when my sister is pleasantly refreshed from her napping and socializing, I am completely tired and in no mood for the endless miscommunications of our Spanish. I only want to curl up with a book. But then I get mad at myself because I feel like I should be invested 100% into all aspects of life here, seeing as I´ve been waiting so long to come, and my main goal is to learn Spanish anyway. I´ve started taking the one and a half hours before lunch to spend continuing my journey through each word in the translation dictionary. I´ve finished every A word and made corresponding flash cards. I now have about 1,000 cards

Hopefully, the weekends will prove more social after I get some rest. I continue to meet Katerina´s slew of really nice, really funny friends in the afternoons, and they seem to enjoy my company, if for nothing more than the novelty of an exchange student. I need to find a way to make myself more socially valuable. Ideas?

PS, I was doing core in front of the television and Wyclef Jean`s new song Fast Car came on... Now do you believe in the super-natural?

Paz y Bein,

Elaine

Fast Car

Fast Car seems to be the theme song to the trip so far. I always hear it at the weirdest times. I get those good music tingles across my skin.

This afternoon I write from a fabulously air conditioned internet cafe I discovered across the street from the supermercado. This place certainly isn`t poverty-stricken, but when you really think about it, there are less luxuries than in Ann Arbor. You really do have to think about it though. Everyone walks around here as proud as any Old West Sider or Burns Parkian. This makes the third worldliness difficult to detect. Now, granted, I know that because of the volunteering nature of AFS, only families that have the means accept exchange kids. I know there are places much worse off. It`s just that things that would seem shabby in the US don`t here. There is a harmony in the tattered signs, rubbled sidewalk, gnarled trees and barefoot children. It`s like the way that everyone drives. In the US, any one Tico driver would be arrested, if not killed first in an accident. But because everyone drives like a maniac together, there is a balance in the chaos. This applies to lack of stress, slow pace and cultural vagueness around time as well. Pura Vida, mae.

On the weekdays, I`ve started waking up at 5 with my sister, Katerina, but because I go to school a couple hours later than her, I take a long run around the city. I can feel how out of shape I am, but at home I talked a big mess about how I`d come back all fit, but the rich food here isn`t going to allow me that. Not without a fight anyway. There`s no way I`m going to diet because A.) I love food too much and dieting never works, B.) I want to be polite and accept all the food I`m offered and C.) because food is one of my best friends, and the papas fritas, gallo pinto and carne asada are as comforting like a letter from home. Plus, the run helps me become more familiar with this little town, and the sunrise over the mountians is astounding. Every day, I try to remind myself to never take the scenery for granted, because every day, it feels more and more like home.

Yesterday, I went on a beautiful long bike ride with Lijia and Natalia, two friends from school. We went outside of Neily towards a pool, but a huge thunderstorm suddenly crashed over us. The biggest rainbow I`ve ever seen stretch out of the mountains as the pavement sizzled and flooded. Once back downtown, the people all laughed to see the sopping gringa. I`m trying to be seen in public as much as possible, but I still get those staring looks. I don`t mind, really. I`ve never had reason to be different than the people around me, and for now, it`s kind of fun.

I have been voraciously reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X. I try not to let it take time away from being social, but it`s engrossing. I have a lot of respect for him, but qualms as well. It`s a difficult read for any white "devil", I think. While not everything he says is easy to accept, or even true, it`s understandable once he backs up his opinions with personal anecdotes or history. That is, except for his hypocritical view of women. Using his same justification for calling the white person the devil, the same could implicate the male gender. At any rate, I`m not finished with the book, maybe he reforms these hypocrisies. I only bring it up, because I`ve been thinking about him a lot. Following his example of time spent in jail, I decided today that I was going to take control of my Spanish education and learn the entire English-Spanish dictionary. I`ve finished five out of 340 pages today.

Okay, I`m out of time.

Love to everyone,

Elaine

Detroit Red, Cleaned Up

Hey everyone. It´s my last day at the home of my liaison, Lorena and her husband, Victor. It´s cooler today than it has been, which is a sigh of relief for my poor gringa armpits. It doesn´t seem like anything has happened in the last three days, but I guess a lot has. 

After my last post, I went to church with Lorena. I continue to not understand the value of that ritual. Yes, it is a nice community gathering, a place to meet people with common morals, and a way to spend time together as a family. It is not, however, a useful place for piety or reflection. Just as it is in the states, my thoughts are stolen by the off key singing, loud children and drone of fans as I sit cramped against strangers, sweating together in the pews. It doesn´t make sense to me to give thanks to a paternal entity in a group, or inside for that matter, anyway. I feel most at peace with God when I´m rowing in the eight on the Huron, surrounded by nature and serenity. It´s then that I truly appreciate life and this beautiful world we live in. ...Religious rant aside, at least it serves as a useful vocabulary lesson. 

On Sunday, Victor, Lorena and I climbed into Victor´s monster SUV, and we made our way to Las Gambas, or The Roots, for a natural excursion. I really enjoyed myself there. We learned about all the different plants and their uses. There was one plant that our guide kept trying to explain to me, but I couldn´t understand, so finally, frustrated, he sighed and wiped his butt with one of the leaves. ...Oh, gotcha. Our guide was a really cool dude. He had two Lord of the Rings-y pieces of jewelry that he made himself out of gold he sifted out of the waterfall. They were gorgeous, I´ll post pictures later. We made our way down to a beautiful waterfall that crashed down over smooth black rocks. I changed into my suit and happily played in the fresh water reenacting all of the waterfall-postcard poses I could think of, and sun dried on a rock. It´s just too beautiful here. It doesn´t seem like this place could be a home. And it is my home, so I´d better get that worked out. When we finished out hike, the guide´s relative cooked us comida tipica in a rustic open air bar. All of a sudden a woman clicked on the TV and speakers, blaring US rap and near pornographic music videos. I am really self concious about the way people here must think about the US when I see the sources of their information. Somehow ridiculous reality shows like Dr. 90210 and Denise Richards (colon) It´s Complicated it across the boarder, but I can´t find a channel playing anything intelligent from the states... wait, is there anything like that? I´d give up my gallo pinto for a month to see an episode of Arrested Development. 

I was telling my friend Scott that no one understands that I´m weird here, yet. I´m this normal, polite, pleasant exchange student. It´s awful. I don´t have the knowledge to be perverse or sarcastic or anything besides normal. Thanks a lot, Spanish 5AP! We spent a year on the subjunctive tense, and no one ever even bothered to teach me the equivalent of a that´s what she said! joke. Oh well, all good things will come with time.

I move back in with my family today, which will be a good change. ´m excited to become part of the Reyes family. Everyone is so nice. I went to the school where I´ll be working today, and attended classes with my sister, Katerina. It´s my second day of doing that. I have a lot of contact with my bosses, the nuns, but they keep sending me to class instead of putting me to work. It sort of seems like I don´t have a job. My AFS friend, Asger, is in the same ¨predicament¨, but as far as I can tell it´s not really a problem. I´ll just find useful ways to fill my time. Victor said something about maybe getting me a column in the local paper to write about my experiences which would be really cool. 

Anyway, all the kids in the senior class at the school were really nice to me. I helped them practice English in their class and we joked around a little. I hope I´ll make friends with them while I´m here. I HAVE to start doing something with my period from 2 to 10PM, or I´ll die.

I hope everyone is well and maybe even enjoying the first of the fall colors.

Much Love,

Elaine

August Rain

Hello everyone. Sorry it took me so long to log back on, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to make the @ symbol. I just conquered that cultural battle after about 4 minutes of randomly hitting buttons.

So as long as I'm keeping a cliche' travel blog, I thought I might as well go ahead and make an on-going list of stupid ways I've messed up for our entertainment.

1.) For two days I used sunscreen as shampoo because I couldn't read the print on the bottle. In my defense, it was in German, in my offense, it said SPF 30 on it. I couldn't figure out how the heat was making my hair that greasy.

2.) When the nice cook at La Finca was serving me food, I asked Como' se llama? in reference to her name, as she served me bananas. She thought I was asking what bananas were called, and she answered, Banano. For three days after that, I called her Banano.

3.) I called the beach a derogatory work for gay person by switching my a and o.

...Surprisingly, I believe that's the extent of my faus pas espanolas.

Let's see, right now I'm living with my super duper nice AFS liason, Lorena, and her husband, Victor, because the Reyes family had to take Francini to Guanacaste for a four month internship, and they didn't have room in the car for me. That's just as well because I didn't really feel like sitting in a packed car for 11 hours. This house is way nicer than my own in the US, which is a little strange to get used to. The same argument could be made for the Reyes' home with three huge TVs, a state of the art kitchen, etc. Obviously, it's nothing to complain about, but the life-style certainly doesn't seem standard for a third world country.

I'm enjoying all the contact with my friends and family. I received a letter from Lilia yesterday and it brightened up my whole morning. Today, I spent most of the day making about 300 flashcards of words I learned in class at La Finca. I think it's the only way I'll be able to quickly learn what I need to, even though the plastic bag filled with words I don't know is a little intimidating. Today, I also helped Lorena cook a yummy lunch. We talked more about the political repercussions of the TLC program and about my new job. Yesterday, I found out my job has been switched from teaching English at the public school, to being the horticultural specialist (I'm pretty sure aka, groundskeeper) at the private, Catholic school. That's fine. I don't really care what I do as long as I'm doing something, and learning Spanish while I'm doing it. Also, when I'm not at work, I'll be able to have fun with my family and their friends. Two nights ago, we went bar and club hopping until 4 AM, which was pretty crazy. I can't believe people stay out so late on a Thursday in such a small town.

Going to Panama' is a normal activity, as I've been three times now. Everyone agrees La Fronterra is really ugly, but it's true that the prices are hella cheap, which we all enjoy. I bought two pairs of nice roll-up H&M shorts for 10 bucks, USD! I'm sure there are more attractive parts of Panama, but the skinny dogs, drug addicts and lurking prostitutes put a bad taste in my mouth... NOT literally regarding any of the aforementioned facets of life on the boarder.

At 6 this evening I'll be headed to church with Lorena so that tomorrow we can get up early and go see a waterfall!

Everything remains fresh and fun here in Ciudad Neily.

Pura Vida,

Elaine

Hola de Ciudad Neily, Mi Casa Nueva

Well I made it! I sit here in the spacious, cozy and colorful Reyes home in Cuidad Neily in the San Vito valley. The birds looping what sounds like a Planet Earth soundtrack outside as the rain lightly patters on the fenced barrio. 

After I made my last post, I took a nap in the guest room of Paula´s little house and woke up with a start, soaked in sweat. I think I´m going to stop taking this Malaria medication because there is no threat of illness, but the dreams are getting annoying. Last night I dreamt I was backstage at the musical Wicked with a pizza delivery boy and Sarah Holmes. Too much. Anyway, later my padre adoptiva, Ronald came home with Paula and her boyfriend. Together we ate a delicious dinner of beans, rice, Guanauana and my first red meat in what feels like a month. The RNC was on TV, and I did my best not to act as I would have at home as the red-clad crowd yipped about freedom fries and their love of our current vacador. I still think I may have gotten my point across though, because when W. reared his head, Ronald said Mira! Tu mejor amigo! I´m upset to be away from the electric political scene that must be buzzing in Ann Arbor right now, but my dad e-mailed me my absentee ballot today, so at least I´ll be able to vote. 

I spent the night in San Jose and the nest morning, Ronald took me to get new tires for Paula´s car. This turned out to be a three-hour ordeal because we were searching for the best price and the actual installation was took an hora tica, but I got to watch Spanish cartoons in the waiting room which was fun. (On a total side note, Wheatus fans will be delighted to hear that the credit song on the animated Jackie Chan cartoon show is an altered version of Punk A** B****!) Ronald is a very nice father. He wanted to pick up a mango for Paula and he tried three different Pulperias to find her one. It reminded me of my parents. Strangely no one in San Jose seemed to have mangoes, so we settled on nectarines and watermelon. 

After dropping her car off, we set out on the five-hour car ride to el sur. I tried my best get into the first chapters of Malcolm X, but the view was completely unbelievable. We sped up out of the valley into the mountains and once we broke out of the clouds, I saw the most beautiful vista of my life. It occurred to me that if the Alps were baked potatoes, the central range of Costa Rica would be steaming garlic buttered mashed potatoes... don´t try to read into that, it just popped into my head (potato metaphor... oh yeah, that´ll look great in the blog). Ronald has made that trip many times, and it was so fun to drive with him, going triple the speed limit, switch-backing like crazy, but a feeling of safety too. He let me put on a CD listening to Paul sing Go the Distance coated memories of La Finca and home in syrupy nostalgia, as good memories often are when returned to in long car rides.

I fell asleep for the last two hours of the trip, and awoke drool-coated to a roaring birthday party in the Reyes home. This was a little overwhelming, until I realized I could put the yelling, zeal and commotion into the context of a Harmon family gathering. After that, I felt right at home and did my best to joke around with the extended Reyes family. I met my mom, Magaly, and my two other sisters, Katerina and Francini who all seem so nice. I was shown to my own (hyper pink) room at around 10 where I unpacked and crashed.

I woke up at 8 this morning and ate gallo pinto con platanos y carne with my sister Francini and her best friend who stayed the night. Now we´re going to travel the 15 minutes to Panama where everything, especially the perfume, is supposed to be really cheap. ...I think I received the correct placement.

Ama y paz,

Elaine

Hola (esta vez) de San Jose!

This time I write from the comfortable little house of my host sister, Paula. Her two yappy dogs, Tomas and Pancho, are happily licking my ankles. The last few days have been a total blur. To try and catch up, I will use the photos on my camera to remember what has happened. 

After we spent time in the internet cafe in Cartago, we all went to the SuperMercado to buy things we need and to experience what it´s like to shop in a big town instead of the modest and friendly pulperias of La Flor. There wasn´t much of a difference except you had to check all of your belongings at the front desk before you shopped. I really hate carrying my passport around. It makes me so nervous! My friend Molly and I decided to thank the patient, nice and all around incredible staff of the finca by making a chocolate cake for everyone. We bought everything we needed with the best of our spanglish. (I couldn´t remember the word for oil (acete) and I tried describing it by saying, when you mix it with water, it goes on top... I am obviously an Ezekiel.) After we bought everything we needed, we all went to the bus station to hitch a ride back to La Flor. The bus was over two hours late. This is the cultural pace of Costa Rica affectionately known as La Hora Tica. We ended up having to take a cab, but the ride was so beautiful up the mountains with all the stars and city lights, that I´m glad we did. Fast Car by Tracy Chapman came on the radio and we all sang along, crawling up the rubble to la finca. 

In the end, the queque turned out beautifully, and after our closing play during cultural talent night in the common room, we brought it out with sparklers and little sugar roses. 

The most fun I´ve had here in my time so far has been the day we rented the local soccer field, and about 20 of the kids and instructors played soccer for hours. It had been so long since I had played an actual game, and I was amazed at both how naturally the muscle memory came back to me, and the amount of pain I felt the next morning. We only stopped because a cloud descended upon the field, and you could hardly see anyone.

For the one of the evening activities we watched La Ciudad del Silencio which was a movie about the negative social consequences of TLC or CAFTA on Mexico and Central America. The film was startling and upsetting and we discussed it in class for over two hours. Although troubling, it felt good to become more informed about the politics in Central America and especially Costa Rica. On a lighter note, the next night we learned the hypnotizing Brazilian form of dance-fighting called Capuera. It was one of the most beautiful art forms I have ever witnessed. Last night, one of our instructors named Alan and his girlfriend taught us more advanced Meringue and gave us a Fire-Poi show. I took some photos that I´m very excited about.

This morning I had to pack my bags and leave the farm at around 1 which was very sad for me. I feel that somehow I want to become a farmer there for a year. The people were so in tune with nature, so interesting and so light-hearted. They offered me a volunteer job outside of Cartago if I was interested. It was difficult to say goodbye to my new friends, as a few of us piled in the jeep taxi to go to the AFS office in San Jose. We stayed up very late on our last night together, sharing languages, music and smoke rings. I was dreading the lonely 8 hour bus ride ahead of me, but to my surprise my host sister, Paula was waiting for me at the office! She is really nice, beautiful and fluent in English. She is a Civil Engineer who specializes in columns and posts. She went to work at 2 and will be there until 5 while I anxiously await meeting my host father and our ride to Ciudad Neily tomorrow morning.

I wonder if things will stop feeling so charmed, because it´s almost disconcerting how everything is working out so magically. 

Hast Luego,

Elaine

Hola de Cartago!!!

I apologize in advance for my lack of punctuation; I can't figure this keyboard out...! I am at an internet cafe in Cartago, Costa Rica with my Spanish class of seven kids from all over the United States and Europe. There are 25 of us in all, staying at an incredible organic farm called Finca La Flor. Its the most beautiful place I've ever been. Every morning, I wake up at 5 a.m. and help the women in the open air kitchen cut the fresh fruit from the farm. There are over 15 kinds of strange and delicious fruits that grow on the small farm alone. It rains a ton every day starting at around 3 p.m., and doesn't stop until the next morning. I absolutely love the kids here. We've all formed a tight circle, always laughing. My English is getting worse as my Spanish improves everyday. Yesterday we went on a nature walk into the bosque where we saw ants as big as my finger, trees that gushed what looked like blood when you cut them, a dazzling waterfall, bamboo 30 feet tall that creaked in the wind and a National Geographic worthy panoramic view of La Flor. The sun sets at around 6 p.m. every evening and after the six hours of interesting and fun classes we have an evening activity like watching "Motorcycle Diaries," or learning to dance salsa and meringue. (They say I'm a natural!) Two nights ago, there was a tarantula as big as my palm in my room, but my brave Austrian friend Paul rescued me. I'm trying very hard to disassemble all the gringa stereotypes, but it's a lot harder than you think when there are cockroaches climbing out of every crack in your walls and moths the size of both my hands landing on you while you sleep... I leave to go on my eight-hour bus ride down south to Ciudad Neily where my host family lives in three days. I'll be very sad to leave this amazing place and these amazing people, but I'm also excited to meet my familia adoptiva.

My time is almost up, but I love and miss you all, and would love contact of any kind from you.

Pura Vida Por Siempre,

Elaine

Hi Everyone!

 This blog will be the place to catch up on my travel experiences in Costa Rica over the next 6 months.  At this point, I am unsure how available internet access will be, but I assume I will be able to post updates at least monthly.  Although I am still in Ann Arbor, I'm sure I will be missing all of you between adventures, so please leave me comments!   

 With less than one month left to enjoy my familiar surroundings before plunging into the unknown, I feel very anxious and excited.  My friends are gearing up for dorm life with first semester schedules, mini-fridges and online roommate stalking.  I am learning to love my CamelBak, brushing up on my verb tenses and finishing my Typhoid Fever vaccines.  It's a different path for sure, but upon my return in February, I think we'll all have learned a lot.

Hasta Luego,

Elaine