COSTA RI(bec)CA!

Marks.

2011-06-09T21:49:00.009-06:00

The early morning sun cast its celestial rays over the endless expanse of mismatched, corrugated, tin roofs. As I lifted off the ground with my dog safely tucked in the compartment below me, I soaked it all in for the very last time...one last glimpse of this significant country and its people that has left an indelible mark on my soul as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I breathed it all in, and said my final farewell.

Days earlier I had said farewell to my community of Copey. It was there that I spent two years and made a mark - or a dent, as least, I had hoped. Afterall, that's why we embark on such adventures, right? - to somehow make a mark, and of course, marks are made on us...the place and the people always ends up leaving a deeper mark on us. These marks are often hard to conceptualize, ambiguous and hard to see. Rather, I think they are more felt. When I went house to house to the important people in my community to say farewell and enjoy our last cafecitos together, I knew by the tears, the sentiments spoken, the comfortable connections, the open invitations for return, that marks has been made.

As I look back on this freshly completed experience, I wonder if I was successful? Is this the point of Peace Corps? To be successful? Or to fulfill the 27-months of service to JFK's liking? Well, perhaps. But I know that I can say that I leave this experience behind (while taking it much of with me, of course) with 100% satisfaction and have no regrets. And while it was largely about the work and the collaboration on projects, it was most importantly for me about the relationships formed. I will never forget the extended embrace of the father of one family I became close with. How his love for me - a mere stranger just two years earlier - exuded from his arms as we said a tearful goodbye. And the mother. And their son. It still makes me incredibly sad......over a month of being back home.

Now I move forward and on from this experience, carrying with me the important provisions - changed, fearless, stronger, zero regrets. Where I will go, I don't yet know. Much like two years and three months ago, I once again step into terra incognita. And I'm pretty darn sure I can face anything that will come my way, just a little bit stronger...

Thanks for following along and stopping by my journey, readers!!!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

2011-04-20T18:00:00.007-06:00

Today as I relinquished my Peace Corps ID that has served as my entire identity for the past 26 months, it hit me - I'm movin' on. And as I left the Peace Corps office after saying some serious heartfelt goodbyes, it also hit me. And after filling my two-page, check-out sheet with important, executive signatures, getting final approval of release, it hit me even more. I got on that bus for the last time and bid adieu to my life that I have known for the last two years.

Signed, sealed, and tomorrow, I will be delivered.

How to express and form words for this experience has not yet come to me. Therefore, I just wanted to post a final farewell from this beautiful country that has penetrated my heart and mind over the past two years. A huge, huge, huge, enormous thank you from the deepest depths of my heart to every person that has affected my life here in Costa Rica. I could not have done it with your support.

Meanwhile as I board the plane tomorrow and see this country fade into the great, expansive distance below, I will ponder, I will reflect, and I will give thanks for all that has become of me. As well as try to come up with a thoughtfully composed cadence of words...something on which I can hang my latest emotions.

Until next time, readers.....in the United States we will meet.

Tomorrow's Wise Words....of Today.

2011-04-18T10:28:00.004-06:00

Here is Arturo. He is the father of a 6th grader I worked with in a girls' empowerment group my first year here. He used to own a private taxi company, so I would drive with him to and from Copey every now and then. Now he drives a van that transports students in the area. I ran into him my last time in Santa Maria, my nearest town and I was so lucky to drive up to Copey for the last time with him - it was a perfect, late, sunny, afternoon.

Here are his wise words, in talking with him about me leaving and how I felt about my experience and Costa Rica:

"Here in Costa Rica, we live Pura Vida [**the Costa Rican phrase meaning Pure Life, calm, no worries], we don't have many problems in relation to other countries. You know, in the end, if a person has a place to eat, a place to sleep, somewhere to watch their television, they live happily, calmly, they can live in peace."

Hasta luego, readers!

A Wise Word Storm!

2011-04-14T00:00:00.002-06:00

Stay tuned for tomorrow's wise words from Arturo....they're coming at me left and right lately!

Todays Wise Words....

2011-04-13T14:22:00.010-06:00

....spoken by a true wise man the other day at cafecito, Mario, the father of a family I am close with in Copey.

"It doesn't matter if the roof over your head is made of plastic or gold, both serve the purpose….it matters more what's inside - the family, the unity, the love."

Need I say more? I think not.

Until next time, Readers.

Musings on Leaving...

2011-04-04T14:35:00.002-06:00

I only have two weeks and three days left being a Peace Corps volunteer! What a mixed bag of emotions right now. Set to take flight from this Rich Coast bright and early Thursday, April 21st...to be received (with my dog) in Portland, Oregon by my sister!!!!!!

This is her, by the way....so artsy, that one...

In other news...this family has become my second family in Costa Rica....it will be hard to leave them. Set to spend my last night with them...

....as it will be hard to leave many things from here. The time is ripe, though.

Until next time, readers! Yes, there will be a next time.

Just another day........encountering Juan

2011-04-03T23:47:00.001-06:00

So today as I was walking into town, way up ahead of me I noticed a man on a bike coming in my direction, and simultaneously heard someone shouting "Christ lives in you!!" "Christ loves you!!!" with their arms waving in the air, and their bike haphazardly steering its own way up the road. As I got a little closer, I realized it's my neighbor, Juan. A bothersome, anticipatory sounding sigh softly came out of my mouth.

Now, Juan is my nearest neighbor. He lives up the road from me about 300 meters. He is a genuine man. He lives alone by the river with his big brown dog who often wriggles its way between my barbed wire fence to play with Riley. He is the caretaker for a very nice weekend cabin, also on the river located between our two houses. He lives a seemingly simple life. He seems content.

I like Juan. But, sometimes, there's not enough I can do to muster up the patience to listen to him and his preaching. On my morning hikes, I have three options: 1). I can take the road into town, 2). I can take the road to the side of town (very steep) or 3). I can take the road out of town just following the river, aaaaaaand also past Juan's house. The latter is one of my favorite walks. But if I do this, I've learned that I have to pretend I'm out for a jog as I pass Juan's house. Otherwise, a friendly morning 'hello' turns into a Southern Baptist preaching session. Now, I don't think Juan is a Southern Baptist. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's just conventional Christian, but he sure does love preaching. The first couple of times I listened to his preaching. But time again and again, I realized can only smile and nod soooooooo many times.

So today the conversation went like this (as I sped up as to make it looked like I was in a hurry)….

"Hola Juan"

"Hooooola Rebeca!"

"Hey, you got a bike!"

"Ohh yes, it's just an old one that was up at the house, I'm coming from Santa Maria"

**Santa Maria is a town 7 kilometers DOWN DOWN DOWN the steep mountain road, and quite a feat to bike up.

"Wow, you must be strong!"

"I am celestial!!!! Christ lives in me, Christ loves me!"

At this point I realize the preaching has begun….

"So, wow, you really can do anything"

"All this matter (motioning to the nature surrounding us), it's all celestial, it's all Christ….!!!!!! You know that!?!? You know CHrist lives in you…….!?!?!?!"

"Juan, yes, and I'd love to chat, but I'm a running late today (trying to scurry off in the opposite direction)"

"CHRIST LOVES YOU!!! (he shouts as I'm trying to indirectly motion that I have to go)…..

(bold used to denote preacher-like shouting).

And on our ways we went. I chuckled to myself as I continued on down the dirt road.

Just another uncommonly common day in the Peace Corps….

An Afternoon Wander.

2011-03-21T13:50:00.009-06:00

Just a scene from my school. How fitting for me to be placed there. (For those that don't speak Spanish it means Pedro Perez Zeledon School loves art).

One recent afternoon I went out for a walk with Riley. With my time coming to a close, I'm realizing so are my afternoon walks in Copey, my favorite time of day here. With that in mind, I walk with intention, knowing that when I am walking the hustling busy streets of Portland (and Seattle and Colorado), I will long for this. And here's why...

This is 300 meters out my front door:

This, 400 meters:

This was just 200 meters (a double, full....!!!):

This was with me the entire time :) :

And this? Well, this happens every day....walk a little, pick a little, walk a little, pick a little...

Until next time, readers.

Go Women!! (A photo exhibit and cafecito)

2011-03-09T12:41:00.011-07:00

Yesterday was International Women’s Day….an entire day to celebrate women and the rights we have! Though every day should really be women’s day! ;)

I celebrated the day by organizing a women’s community photography exhibit in my town. I gave a camera to 11 women and asked them to photograph “What it means to them to be a woman.” Then they were then asked to write about the theme as well. I paired the writing with the photo and a portrait of each artist for an afternoon photo exhibit opening and cafecito on the big day. It was a success and the women seemed so happy to see their work up on the local bakery’s walls. The exhibit will be there the entire month of March. So if you’re in Copey, stop in the bakery! :)

Happy Women’s Day (to ALL)!!!!

settin' up...

Nine of the 11 women that participated, and myself!

the womens' photos and captions on the boards...

Love Letter to a Once Foreign Country

2011-03-01T06:40:00.005-07:00

Dear Costa Rica,

Don't worry, this won't be the last letter. There will be another.

As I look ahead to my last couple of months with you, I see how you have changed me, taught me, loved me. I never would have guessed it at the start, but you have permeated me - my veins, my blood, my heart, my mind, my soul. Every last bit of you has infiltrated your ways deep inside me. I'm not sure how, but you have. You stealth little thing. And just as I'm about to leave…. In my mind, there needs to be more time for us to grow and love each other in this state. Do you feel the same? Well, the truth is, there isn't. I must move on. I've got other experiences to have, to shape me and affect me much like you did. You will be okay. I will be okay. It's time to go.

You know Costa Rica, things weren't always this wonderful. I'm not going to lie, our relationship has been rocky. And most times it's been a love/hate relationship. But all things in life are challenging. Nothing is easy. If it had been easy, you would have left me unaffected. I would be the same. I would be unaltered. I'm glad I'm not. Thank you.

Taking a look back at our relationship, Costa Rica, is all I can help but do as I think about leaving you.

At first you were new, exciting, and novel. I wanted nothing more than to soak you up, be with you, know you, love you, explore you with all my being. Your exotic, different ways piqued my curiosity. I wondered why you made me so enchanted in the beginning; why you made me laugh, why you made me confused, why you made my cry, why you made me feel so challenged?

It took awhile for me to get used to you. You were so foreign and I barely understood you, let alone could communicate with you. It's the reason we took sometime to get used to each other. And most of what you previously knew of my kind were different, perhaps somewhat superficial? I can only hope I gave you more. And most of what I knew of you previously was superficial. You definitely gave me more.

I'm going to be honest Costa Rica, there were times when I loathed you. I wanted nothing more than to fly away from your vast mountainous earth never to look back. You made me feel so isolated, so alone, so bored, so numb, so frustrated. I lost part of myself, my personality, my zest. I thought about leaving you early, many times, before our time together could play out, prematurely. But I persisted. Something about your subtle whisperings told me it was worth it to do so. I heard them in the wind that danced through my village, in the leaves falling softly from my trees, in the voices of your people.

Your people. It was your people that changed me. Did you know how influential your people are? How they can affect someone so foreign so strongly? Well they can. They did! Your people will be hard to leave behind. Your people shared so much. They taught me so much. They touched me so deeply. Your people gave birth, your people grew, your people collaborated with me, your people shared, your people danced, your people welcomed me, your people supported me, your people died, your people taught me, your people questioned me, your people challenged me. I felt it all from your people.

Most people won't understand what we had, Costa Rica. They won't know how you shaped me. Only I can know. Only I can see how we grew together. Only I was there with you. I wish people could understand but they can't. They can only try. And I really hope they try.

Costa Rica, yes, you will always be here. But what we have will not. It won't be the same when I come back to visit you. It will be different. But do know, that yes, I will come back to visit you.

I will never know another like you, Costa Rica. Your "pura vida". Your "si Dios quiere". Your "tuanis". Your "diay". Your cafectio. Your lluvia. Your biscocho. Your gallo pinto. Your baile tipico. Your topes. Your escuelas públicas. Your pulperias. Your misa. Your everything. You. Are. Unique. And I couldn't be more grateful for that.

We still have some time Costa Rica, another month and a half or so. It's not over yet. So let's savor every last bit.

To my once foreign country I now know so well, much love,

Rebecca

Into the Coffee Fields...

2011-02-15T22:59:00.004-07:00

Recently I went out into the coffee fields....not with my pickin' hands, but with my snappin' hands (i.e. my camera). Here're just a few images I have at hand, but more to come, as I of course went nuts with my camera....not to mention, met some amazingly wonderful people from Panama.

Hasta muy pronto, readers!

Könnten sie das bitte wiederholen?

2011-02-02T20:41:00.016-07:00

Don't be confused. I AM still in Costa Rica.........still.

But in my heaps and loads of free time during school vacation I have taken to learning German. Mainly because, well, it's the language of the motherland! And also, I will be traveling to various places in Europe this summer where it could come in handy. Especially the phrase above which means, 'could you repeat that, please?"

I have also taken to learning some esoteric vocabulary with intense alacrity that I will most likely use, only to appear affected by my abysmal attempt to use naturally. But all these attempts at increasing my knowledge is allaying the daily juxtaposition between my day to day boredom and my general angst for what to do next (i.e. post Peace Corps). But little by little these attempts will abate my angst and boredom. Until then, I will continue living my abstemious lifestyle, appreciating all things aesthetic, absconding from overly-long Costa Rican meetings, and abdicating my responsibilities as a Peace Corps volunteer here in the upcoming months. It will be good. I feel as though many things in my life are currently in abeyance. (I'm clearly still in the A section of the vocab book).

In other news, I got a dog. Or rather, a dog got me. I'm lucky. I decided to call her Riley and decided that she will learn English. In the past three weeks I have had her, she has basically become fluent in the English [dog] language. In other words, she's well trained for when I take her home and show up unexpectedly with a Costa Rican dog at my parents' house for a few months. She's a great hiking companion every morning and a fabulous evening companion when all I can hear is the loud roar of the river and see nothing but bright, bright stars way up here in my isolated cabin.

Ich freue mich, Sie wiederzusehen, und bis später, readers.

Holiday Things.

2010-12-08T15:33:00.004-07:00

The holidays are arriving. So that means all things Christmas related...parties, trees, holiday cafecitos, mass, etc., etc.

Soooooo, here's a quick image update!

At the sixth grade mass, cafecito and dinner where they recognized all the teachers and myself with little gifts for all our work during the school year:

Holiday cafecito:

José Alfredo and baby Ian:

Gearing up for the last week of school next week, then going to the capital to pick up my five visitors coming for Christmas from the states!

Until next time, readers.

Things Are Finally....

2010-11-23T13:21:00.021-07:00

....lookin' up!

Buutttttt first, for awhile things weren't so hot. There literally were rocks in the road, and landslides. This kept me in Copey for almost two weeks...unable to leave on any of the roads, and most days without water.

It's hard to tell just hooooowwww big that landslide is, but it was huge.

In trying to walk over it with my friend Phillip, this happened:

More damage from the rains (yes, the river was thaaaaat high and washed out that rock and part of the railing on the bridge):

Mientras tanto, I was asked to move out of my house by December 1st. Didn't see that coming...with 5-6 months left, it's a little bit of a hassle. But don't worry, with some investigation I found a sweet cabin just outside of town (by my old host family's house)!

I know, I know what you're thinking. But I swear I'm in the Peace Corps. And just so you all know, the cabin will mostly be empty....so I'll still be roughin' it á la Peace Corps. I have a bed (plus a couple extra mattresses for visitors), a refrigerator, two wooden chairs, a small table and a gas cooktop, and lots of extra open space (dance parties, yoga???) - the basics. In other words, pleeeeeennnty of room for visitors.

In work news, I left working on one of my main projects for small-town political reasons, and have refocused my energy elsewhere. In forming some new relationships with women in town, we have some good projects up our sleeves! Stay tuned....

Some other random photos for your enjoyment.

Pre-schoolers gettin' ready for their graduation photo (so funny):

This is the back of my current house I have to leave behind...and sadly, my garden too (the light was literally that color, this was not altered):

And a scene from the inside:

Spending time with one of the families I'm closest with in Copey:

This is Nuri, she's the police officer in Copey:

Aaaaand then there's Oscar, a cobbler. He fixed my favorite red boots, for free:

And finally, I'll leave you with an image of some honey, whole-wheat bagels I made, yum:

Until next time, readers.

Rocks in the Road!

2010-11-03T13:59:00.010-06:00

Who said this would be easy? No one. I don't know why I thought it would be. And when I failed to realize it wouldn't be smooth sailing all along, that's when things came crashing down, creating, perhaps a bigger impact than if I had been expecting it. Speed bumps appear, rocks in the road, mudslides. They're all there in front of you preventing you from achieving/experiencing/living what you want/need/think is best. And repairing the road can be difficult. That's where I am.

That's all I'm going to say for now. Don't really have much energy to write more....

Instead I'll leave you with some photos of things that make me happy.

Nice coffee shops in Costa Rica with fancy tea:

Lindsay:

The newest addition to my world, Nazzy.

Tressa, and her new bangs I gave her:

These Moments in Life...

2010-10-23T14:40:00.023-06:00

Two deaths and a baptism are what I want to talk about...

But first, today I realized something. And it's nothing profound. It's nothing visionary. Not even ground-breaking.

In fact, it's something I've kind of already known, but never have really lived by or subscribed to, as I've often been so focused on what I do, how much I get done, accomplished. Though, I can't be blamed - I come from a work-driven society.

So to explain a little more, this is what I realized:

If I will take anything out of this experience (besides the spanish, besides the parasites, besides some bed bug bite scars), it will be the people I have known. It won't be the murals I painted. It won't be the talks I've given, the groups I've helped organize, nor the conferences or trainings I've attended.

It will be the people. The people in this tiny little mountain community in central Costa Rica that I never dreamed even existed just a year and a half earlier (and of course, my fellow PCVs, too). They will be what remains from this experience.

And now after today, one more important relationship that will remain was formed. A woman in my community by the name of Rocio asked me to be the Godmother of her son Ian who was born in January. I have become close with this family since the beginning, and was a part of their life during Rocio's pregnancy. They are an amazing family with four boys living in an extremely simple two bedroom house in the central part of Copey (meaning "downtown"). They are fabulous parents and their boys will go far in life. And for this reason, I'm so honored to be a part of their lives, now and into the future. Stay tuned for pictures of the baptism!

Baby Ian and his dad, Mario:

The family looking at pictures I printed for them:

And On to the first part of this title of this blog post - two deaths. My host sister texted me the other day notifying me of the death of one of their cousins, José Rodolfo. I had hung out with at family gatherings a few times. He had lived in the States for a number of years of his young life and we often talked about this. He was apparently very sick for a long time, and last Friday the sickness took over. I could tell it was incredibly hard on my host family. I went to the Pulpería (that they own) to pay my host mom a visit and drop off a sympathy card for the family. I could tell instantly how hard this had been for her. Immediately upon mentioning of her nephew, her eyes just welled up with tears. All I could do was hug her and listen.

The second death I speak about is that of a great aunt (not a Costa Rican one, a blood related one). We called her Aunt Cherry. But her real name was Clare - Clare Towler, a very distinguished name in my mind. She was 97, and lived a long, full life in San Francisco. A strong memory I have of her is how she always used to buy my siblings and I candy cigarettes. We'd walk to the corner candy store housed in an old, white house with a porch and a ramp up to it in Cross Plains, Wisconsin, and buy a pack of candy cigarettes. I still can feel the chalky, fake taste of them and see the fake smoke that puffed out of them as we walked home. I always felt so distinguished as an eight-year-old smoking candy cigarettes with my great aunt from San Francisco. Well, Tuesday she passed away peacefully and slowly under the care of Hospice. I have many good memories growing up and family visits to her three-story townhouse in the heart of San Fran. She was a lovely, elegant woman.

Aunt Clare, as an LPN in her early days:

On a visit to San Francisco in 1982 (long before the candy cigarettes):

And so these moments pass. And we celebrate, and we mourn, and we continue on.

May both José Rodolfo and Aunt Cherry rest in peace, and may baby Ian have a long happy life!

Culture Day!

2010-10-15T11:21:00.004-06:00

Tuesday was culture day at my community's school. This means that kids get to dress up and dance! Soooooooo, they dressed up in a variety of costumes from indigenous cultures to chinese to spanish culture, and the assembly included some darn cute dances.

On that same note, I've begun to do a series of workshops with my counterpart on culture and tolerance in the school, so I think this day fell right in line with it. Hopefully, they made the connection.

At any rate, kids in costumes are cute.

On Dirt, Conferences, and Travel.

2010-10-04T14:47:00.016-06:00

Forgive my absence as of late. There really is no excuse…exceeeeeept perhaps lack of material and creative inspiration in the writing realm, which I will go with.

Since I got back from the States, things have been….well, wet. The height of rainy season is upon us and in full force. With Hurricane Matthew affecting the coasts, the inner parts are not failing to see it's presence either, causing flooding and landslides all over the country. Luckily, the closest encounter I have had with either of those is some washed out trees, branches, bushes, etc. along the steep road to my community, and a constant thin layer of water in my front yard - not much, but just enough to slosh around in and make your shoes just a tad bit wetter than is comfortable when going out and about.

So I have ceased to go out and about. Hence, lack of writing material.

Okay, that's not entirely true. I DO leave my house. But these days it's far less often than during the months of November to May. With that being said, November is nearly upon us, and I'm looking forward to getting my garden up and running again. I just harvested the last crop of produce - some carrots, onions, lettuce and herbs - and begun to grow starter plants indoors so they will be ready in eight weeks for transplantation - arugula, artichoke, kale, eggplant, spinach, rainbow chard, and more.

A man in my town who produces charcoal to sell for biofuel (center)......

......has begun to mix it with his soil in which to grow his crops. Interested in this idea (a bit similar to the hydroponic method of growing in that they both incorporate charcoal in the process), he offered to give me some bags of this "biochar" as I found out it is called a few days later, for my garden. Those "few days later" was when I came across an article called 'The New Black Gold' in Ode magazine that discusses the advantages and disadvantages of this fairly new concept of biochar. Though, according to the article, evidence found by archaeologists show that in the late 1800s the discovery of deep, dark, nutrient rich soil with fertile microbial activity in the Amazon was not a fluke of nature, but rather evidence of a vibrant civilization that had discovered biochar many, many years earlier. So, it's not an entirely new concept. According to the article it's resurged, and farmers, soil scientists, biologists, and even regular ol' people are declaring its effects as a type of gold that can increase crop yields and fight climate change.

With that being said, once I get my sweet little garden going, not only with I be fighting climate change, but I will also hopefully have double the crop yields and be up to my ears in produce. Not totally likely, but hey, a Peace Corps volunteer's gotta dream.

And soooooooo I'm dreaming about my garden.

In other news, just got back from an All-Volunteer Conference, my second and final. Much like every other Peace Corps gathering, I think it's more of a time to give us a little dose of sanity so we remember what life outside of our sites and outside of our monk-esque lives is like. This time I remembered well.

People on computers. Yea.

The ambassador and Peace Corps country director. Talking about stuff.

After dancing.

People have talents. And it shows.

Free time during the conference.

And some of the time we actually work. There's a handful of what are called 'project fairs' where various volunteers present on some project so people can network, get ideas, etc. Sooooooo, I was asked to do a lil ol' presentation about kids' camps at the conference. Apparently, I'm an expert, since I've done………..ONE. If anything I hope I gave some folks some ideas for how to control and keep occupied 11 pre-pubescent rugrats for a weekend.

On the way home, the ride was longer than normal. A long, circuitous route due to landslides led my bus through back roads and vast rolling emerald hills shrouded in fog, mist, and dampness in the air. I didn't mind so much this longer route, as it gave me extra time to think with pristine beauty passing by just on the other side of the glass windows. Theres not a whole lot more wonderful than being able to sit without other obligations and just be as the beauty that we sometimes fail to notice passes by. There's something romantic in it - in bus travel, train travel, car travel, plane travel and just plain TRAVEL - seeing these moving landscapes. Always makes me want to go home and reread On the Road, The Motorcycle Diaries, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Travels with Charlie. Though I got home a tiny bit later than excepted, I didn't mind this extra time to reflect.

The next three months until the end of the school-year on December 17th will be full - full of projects such as workshops, talks, murals, school gardens, art classes, volunteer coordination at the new community center, photo projects, cooking classes, etc, etc. With the arrival of Julia, Lynn, Matthew, Brendan, Kendra, Clayton, and Lindsay (friends from my Intercultural Youth and Family Development Masters program) for Christmas and New Years, and then a trip to Nicaragua in January, I know the time will fly by. After that, I'm down to a mere 4 1/2 months left.

I know this is something I have to savor.

So, until next time....

I'm off to savor!

Me oh my, where have I been?!?!?!

2010-09-17T20:29:00.019-06:00

........the States!

That's where. And it was absolutely fantastic. That's why you may (or may not) have noticed my month-plus absence on this ol' blog.

But I'm back in Costa Rica and on Costa Ri(bec)ca too. And mainly because my retired father diligently and lovingly checks this blog every day, and I have failed to pull through for the last nearly forty days. Sorry Pops. (But I waaaaasssss with you the last 20 or so).

But unfortunately, even in this post, I am only going to post some photos from my trip home....photos Pops has already seen. Sorry again, Pops.

First, being an epicurean, my main favorite reason of going home to the states is the variety of foods I have access to in America (and in this wonderful time of year!) and more importantly, in my parent's kitchen, and spice shelf.

Of course, that first reason is only second to that of seeing friends and my somewhat odd family (my brother's wedding was the main reason for going back to the US, among other activities):

family.

Also, in America, I got to drive my old Suby which still oh-so-patiently awaits my return in my parents' driveway. Also, I got to lie in perfectly manicured, green grass, i.e. what my father proudly calls his 'carpet.' Barefoot.

friends.

Then I went hiking with friends. Yay, hiking. And in Montana too. I went back to Montana...my old stompin' grounds. And as I biked around Missoula on an old red cruiser with chipped paint with the wind in my hair under a borrowed black helmet with a skull on it, and passed by town characters I used to know, it was if time had stopped while I was away. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Everything felt the same. Minus a few important people who were no longer there. None the less, I had a blast.

And in Montana, we went to a rodeo! Yeeee hawww. I love rodeos. I love rodeos eeeeeveeen more in Montana.

Aahhhhhh yes, that was my time in America. It was three weeks of non-stop, truly American activity. That's where I've been. Now I am back in my site to crank out these last 7 months of my Peace Corps experience. America left me rejuvenated, motivated, and at peace with where I am right now in life. Funny how certain things can give you perspective.

Until next time, readers.

Walkin' On....A Religious Pilgrimage, of Sorts

2010-08-06T15:16:00.023-06:00

Last year on this date, something very important in Costa Rica was cancelled due to the H1N1 virus - the Romería. The Romería is a religious pilgrimage to the Basilica of Our Lady of Los Angeles in Cartago to celebrate the following, that was plagiarized from another blog, "On August 2, 1635, the small statue of the virgin was found at the site of the basillica by a native woman. As the story goes, when this woman tried to take the statuette with her, it miraculously reappeared back where she'd found it. Twice. Finally, she and the other townspeople gave up and built a shrine there where La Negrita had originally been found. In 1824, the statuette was declared Costa Rica's Patron Saint and thus began the annual pilgrimage where people from all corners of the country and beyond come to say their most serious prayers on bent knees." Millions of people walk the route to Cartago from all over Costa Rica and even other Central American countries to arrive for the celebration on August 2nd.

So, being that this will be my last August 2nd in Costa Rica, I set out with two friends on an extremely last minute, spontaneous trip to attempt the walk from a location near my site, but still 40 kilometers away from Cartago. Two of us rushed away from my house Sunday afternoon after running a girls' outdoor leadership camp all weekend (post on that to come soon) to meet another volunteer to begin the walk around 3 pm….a bit late for a full 40 kilometer walk, but we figured we'd walk what we could before it got dark (even though many people walk through the night, we chose not to be walking after dark).

Yeah, that's right, that's Laura Chinchilla, Costa Rica's current and first female president. I'm pretty sure she's waving at me. ;)

We walked. And we walked. Along the highway, cars zooming past us in both directions of the Inter-American Highway, passing groups of other pilgrims along the way. Three hours passed and the sun was completely gone, the rain had begun and it was very dark. So, we ended our walking part of the pilgrimage right there about 15 kilometers short and decided to grab a bus the rest of the way. Arriving in Cartago around 7 pm, the city was hustling and bustling with people from all over Costa Rica, there to get a blessing from Our Lady. We quickly grabbed another bus to a quiet little city tucked in a beautiful valley surrounded by coffee plantations just outside of Cartago where we stayed for the night.

The following morning we enjoyed a European breakfast at a german-run lodge - coffee, tea, croissants, baguettes, fruit, granola, yogurt. Delicious. Simple.

Then we were on our way to the basilica back in Cartago. We arrived just at the end of mass, complete with big screens, crowd control, vendors offering to take your picture, aaaaaaaaand a Laura Chinchilla sighting, up close and personal - Costa Rica's current president and first female president. A quick stop on the basilica to see Our Lady of Los Angeles, and we were back in our way to explore the rest of festivities.

An afternoon latte and pastry finished things off before we got our buses back home.

Arriving home tired, and feeling juuuuuust a bit more spiritual, I was ready for another day in my little ol' life here in this little ol' village.

Sushi in a World of Comida Típica?

2010-07-25T19:00:00.024-06:00

The other night, elbow-deep in sushi making, I said to my fellow volunteer who was staying the night at my place, "I can't believe we're making sushi in my house in Costa Rica." She laughed.

It all started 24 hours earlier when a site visit from my Peace Corps program manager alerted me to some Asian markets in San José. Previously unbeknownst to me, there exists a small "Chinatown" in the busy streets of our capital city. After some fiascos and failed attempts to find the area (getting lost a few times, asking numerous people, paying $4 to have a cab driver mistakingly take me to an Asian non-food market), I finally stumbled upon a few Asian markets...an area I walked passed and drove through in the cab mere minutes earlier. Boldly venturing into any store with Mandarin characters on the signs, behind each storefront I found what was a hidden surprise of one feeling like they had magically been transported to the heart of China. I was in love. I was suddenly sent back to my time in Japan or India where an innocent exploration of the markets turned into a guilty pleasure of another world. I suddenly became a kid in a candy store, picking up every item out of curiosity - touching it, feeling it, imagining eating it or even inventing ways of how to prepare it.

One hour later, and $26.00 later (eeeks! on a Peace Corps budget), I filled my canvas bag with the following, some things familiar, some new (see photo). I was ecstatic. Soon I would be filling my mouth with homemade sushi, dim sum, spicy ginger candies, tapioca pudding, curries made with coconut milk, tofu, and other recommended Chinese sweets.

So that night, I arrived home, back in my community with a cupboard full of ethnic ingredients. Heaven. On Earth. For me.

My fellow volunteer and I proceeded to "cook" up vegetarian sushi rolls and spring rolls made with purple cabbage, rice noodles, grilled tofu, and mangos with a peanut, garlic, and chili dipping sauce.

Spring roll assembly!

OOooooohhh my gosh, so excited to eat this:

Now that's a sushi roll:

A little red wine to top it all off, and some ginger candies and other Chinese sweets (some not so good) for dessert? We were more than satisfied, and suddenly incredibly sleepy.

It was one of those experiences that I sort of didn't believe was happening in Costa Rica. If I learned anything from this adventure, it's that EVERY place on earth (even when it seems you are only surrounded by comida típica) has it's secret hidden gems with which you can create beautiful pieces of jewelry.

Thanks again to my wonderful program manager, Natalia, for giving me the heads up! I've got many asian meals to look forward too.

Ode to Skillet Bread - For Lindsay K.

2010-07-21T15:04:00.000-06:00

The things we do in Peace Corps without ovens.....

The New Learning Center!

2010-07-19T16:33:00.005-06:00

Wanted to quickly post a few images from a new Community Learning Center here in Copey that I am helping my community create....a project I just sort of 'fell' into. It is an environmentally and culturally focused learning center whose foundation is the learning of English as a Second Language. I am not involved in the teaching part of things (just some art classes here and there), but rather the organizational part...working with the Board to help them realize their goal! We have officially opened and have begun classes and workshops! Stay tuned for more info including the official website!

Enjoying the new English books:

Practicing spelling our names to each other:

Working hard with a Canadian volunteer:

Ode to Luz - Rest in Peace

2010-07-13T21:32:00.006-06:00

Sunday morning a woman named Luz died in my community.

She was a young, pretty woman - unique looking. Freckles, dark curly hair, smallish wide-set eyes, medium stature. She always had a smile on her face when I saw her. I didn't know her very well, but I know her kids well - three of them - the youngest Manuel in kindergarten, Daniel and Carmen in fourth grade. They all resemble their mother with dark tresses and freckles, they also always have smiles on their faces, much like their mother. A perfect looking family, in fact - the four of them, happy, together. Always walking down the long empty road from town to their house, sometimes hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm, never to forget a big wave and a smile to me if we passed. I smiled back to all with an 'hola,' always.

Recently, about a week ago, I sat in front of Luz and her daughter Carmen on the bus back up to Copey from the bigger nearby town. Carmen was goofing off with me and teasing me, touching my shoulders, head, etc, pretending it wasn't her. I played back, as her mom just laughed along with us….it kind of broke the ice between her mother and I, as I never really had the opportunity to get to know her personally. When the teasing between Carmen and I finally stopped, Luz and her daughter continued. I'm not sure what they were talking about, but from the looks of it, something quite comical. They were giggling and laughing together very audibly and embracing and looking at each other and just outwardly enjoying each other's company…the entire 20 minute bus ride - as if they somehow knew what were to come.

Sunday afternoon was her funeral. I would guess to say nearly the entire community showed up - pews full, extra chairs in the back, standing out the door, even people that didn't personally know her showed up, to be in solidarity with her and her family. The sermon talked about what a strong woman Luz was throughout the entire battle of her cervical cancer. She never once asked Why, or even Why ME? She just went on bravely to the bitter end trying to battle the disease that eventually overtook her. I saw power and strength in Luz's eyes every time I saw her. I knew she was strong without really knowing her. The priest told the community not to grieve over her absence, but be grateful and joyful that there is one more angel in heaven.

Monday morning, the day after her funeral, I walked down to the supermarket and to stop by the community learning center. Her sons Daniel and Manuel were playing with two other boys on the soccer field. I heard Manuel yell my name from afar….he often does that. In fact, he did that when I walked into the silent church for his mother's funeral - it always brings a smile to my face. I smiled and waved back to all the boys. It was so sad for me to see those boys playing soccer on the field - as orphans, no mother, no father, just their remaining grandmother to take care of them. But when I saw them playing that day, seemingly impervious to saying goodbye to their mother the day before, I felt a strong pang for them - day one of their young lives without their mother.

Later that day, I ran into Manuel, the 5-year-old son. After a few exchanges, I said to him, "Manuel, I'm really sorry about your mother." He kind of stopped playing around on the fence and looked up at me with his big hazel eyes with a slightly surprised look, "She's dead," he said. "I know, and I bet you are very sad….." and then I explained I was there for him if he needed anything. In the eyes of a kindergartner, it's hard to fully comprehend what death actually means - I'm sure he wondered why he was leaning over the coffin the day before so curiously looking at his mother in a glass covered box, seeming like she was just peacefully asleep. I told him we could talk or play or do anything he wanted, but that it was okay to be sad.

There's an absence in Copey without Luz. She lived a quiet life, but it had a strong presence on the community, especially with her three lovely kids in the school, all of whom I hold very dearly in my experience here. I'm sad for Luz, and I'm even more sad for her children, left alone to face this world with very few extended family members. All we as a community can continue to do is show those kids we are here for them. And if I know those kids, they are strong in spirit just like their mother, and will be resilient in the face of this tragedy.

Sunday morning a woman named Luz died in my community.

Goodbye to Luz. May you rest in eternal peace.

The 'Toothpaste' of Strangers

2010-07-07T22:13:00.013-06:00

Tonight I saw what kindness is.

Tonight, kindness was toothpaste.

It was about 10:13 PM in the capital city of San José, and I was just making use of the high-speed internet at my hotel and g-chatting with my sister, when I told her to hang on so I could "wash up for bed." Much to my dismay, I quickly realized I forgot to pack toothpaste, or anything remotely close to resembling toothpaste that could make-do for the evening.

After beginning to just brush my teeth with the wet brush and any leftover toothpaste that might have still been on there from breakfast, my sister's g-chat messages popped up about how she hates not brushing her teeth and that perhaps I should go see if the front desk has any sort of store or complimentary items for forgetful travelers.

'Yeah right,' I thought. 'Not in Costa Rica.'

But she convinced me to go anyway.

I arrive at the front desk, no one else is around, but the guy behind the desk watching TV.

In Spanish I say....

"Excuse me, you don't happen to have any toiletries to buy if someone forgot something....like toothpaste?"

"Noooo, nooooo ma'am. Sorry."

"Is there somewhere close I could buy some?"

"There is a supermarket about 7 blocks away"

"Ohhhh, that's too bad. I don't really want to leave at this hour."

After an awkward silence, feigning extreme disappointment about not being able to brush my teeth this evening...

"Welllll.......I do have my toothpaste here, and I could give you a little?"

"Really? You could?"

After going in the back room to get his tube of Crest, minty paste out of his overnight bag, there I was at the front desk with my pink toothbrush, eagerly awaiting. Popping back the cap, I squeezed it out and tried to put a dab on the brush without touching my bristles. Then I mumbled in Spanish what I was trying to do.

"Don't worry," he says.

There I am, with a 1/2-inch glob of toothpaste hanging from his tube and me trying to vigilantly cut it off on my brush. Finally, success! I tapped the extra toothpaste back down in the tube, gingerly smiled, vocalized a quick 'gracias!', walked back to my room with toothbrush in hand, and smeared half of it off onto toilet paper for the morning.

My teeth are thanking that kind man at the front desk.

And like Tennessee Williams said in 1951, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers," I, too, tonight, depended on the kindness of strangers. And for me, kindness and toothpaste went hand-in-hand.

Gardens, Grub, and Greenhouses.

2010-07-02T20:03:00.023-06:00

Rain, rain go away...Becca´s garden wants to pla - needs some sun. Yes, the rains have hit full force. This means bad things for my garden. It just doesn´t like thaaaat much water! So, my friend´s husband, Danilo helped me - errrrrrrr, rather - constructed a makeshift greenhouse over the two main beds. I have been enjoying lots of bounty from the garden this year such as leeks, tomatoes, lettuce, patty pan squash, carrots, basil, rosemary, garlic, arugula, and rainbow chard. I can´t wait to get some more seeds while I am back in the USA to start a planting season anew in October (less rain)! I just had to do something once all this water started pouring down non-stop nearly all day....including can a ton of basalmic green tomato chutney. Yum.

In other news.....other garden news..... I made a small garden at the school with the preschool class and some parents. The vegetables are growing well and today we harvested the first full batch of what was ready....each kids got to take home a bunch of lettuce and a big bunch of celery....for their first day of school vacation! Glad to know it´s going to good use....

When we first made the gardens for Earth Day:

Today...getting their goods:

Ten and a Half Months and [not] Counting.

2010-06-23T20:27:00.000-06:00

Overwhelmed. That's a feeling I have right now. The feeling of being overwhelmed is powerful. It's a feeling, unlike some others, that consumes you, overtakes you, and penetrates every part of you. Even when you're not thinking about it, you still somehow feel it. That's kinda how I feel.

This feeling of being overwhelmed came about this past week - a unique week among my many weeks here where I got to speak English, eat plentiful, sleep in comfy beds, have access to unlimited internet 24 hours a day, have access to a gym and a lap pool (i.e. sportzzz with Lindsay), not be alone for 20 hours a day, and be in the big capital city of San José with movie theaters, restaurants, and culture. Sounds like a retreat to me, where I should be anything but overwhelmed. The name of this week was MST, also known as Mid-Service Training in Peace Corps vernacular. Yes that's right, I'm mid-way through my service. In fact, I'm past mid-way, I'm on the downhill slope. Not that I'm counting, but I have just about 10 1/2 months left - 10 1/2 months that I learned this week are too short, are already jam-packed with activities, and are 10 1/2 more months I should really experience.

Not to bore you with details, so to try and sum it up in a sentence or two, MST served as a midway point to reconnect with other volunteers and Peace Corps staff, talk about current projects, our successes and challenges, hear new Peace Corps administrative policies, re-motivate us for the year to come (specifically with ice-cream and personalized 'thank you' cards), and even a tiny blurb about 'Life After Peace Corps' (never too early to start thinking about that. Well, it worked. I'm certainly re-motivated, though overwhelmed with new ideas, projects, and tools for continuing to serve my community.

But this puts me in a bit of a funny spot. Though I went away from MST with a bag chockfull of ideas and motivation, this feeling of being overwhelmed has put me back to where I was before MST - feeling a bit stagnate, unsure of what to do, where to go next as I creep into my second year...feeling like 10 1/2 months just simply isn't enough for all I have to do. Funny how motivation can be washed to the wayside with just a bit of laziness, feeling overwhelmed or non-stop rainy days.

Well, I have this little MST folder overflowing with papers here with me to serve as a reminder. Maybe when the suns out tomorrow morning, I will put some of this material into play....after all, I better, I've only got 10 1/2 months left!

Hasta luego.

Some point and shoot snapshots from the week:

First night in the hotel....Korean takeout.....in bed!

Of course, there were team-building activities.

Then there was some haircutting.....

Then there was some fun at Café Mundo.

Annnnnnd then there was some weirdness.

Ohhhh, Kids.

2010-05-05T18:06:00.006-06:00

Kids are amazing. I love their completely uninhibited way of being. I think we have a lot to learn from kids.
During my time here in Peace Corps, I have been exchanging letters with a 5th-grade class in Albany, Oregon as part of the World Wise Schools Program through Peace Corps. We have exchanged many letters about the ins and outs of living in another culture, random facts about them and their lives, facts about me, etc. It has been an awesome exchange and I hope the class has been able to learn something from me and my letters.
The latest batch made me laugh. Here's a sampling. I'm going to let their words speak for themselves (unedited)...
I like having you as a pen pal I wish everyone I met was like you
I have kind of climbed a MT it was MT bachelor but I took a ski lift and hiked around it me and my brother rolled half way down it was so much fun but it’s a real lack of energy and oxygen did you have a lack of oxygen? That’s pretty much why I hate mountains!
I am reading a awesome book. Ninth grade slays! It’s a vampire book, I’m on book 2. I love reading. Do u? I love vampires! My friend thinks I’m a vampire and I’m not.
I think my friend Madi B. is a vampire but she is denying it. I know this really isn’t a good way to end a letter but that’s ok
What is your favorite food? Mine I think is fried rice. What is your favorite fish (not cooked)? Mine is a Marlin (a.k.a. swordfish) Sincerely Jeffry, PS. This message will self destructs 5 seconds after you are done reading the letter which was 4 seconds ago.

Ciao, for now!

You May Have Noticed......

2010-04-26T11:38:00.013-06:00

..…..….I haven't posted lately.

Well, after my youth group and I being on Buen Día, nothing seemed quite as exciting. And then my mother nagged me to write something, anything!

So here I am. Writing.

I think bullet points will be best for this blog post…for complete utter lack of inspiration:

1. I got a job! Okay, not really because as a Peace Corps volunteer we're not allowed to get jobs. But I did apply for the volunteer position within Peace Corps Costa Rica to be one of three editors/designers for our quarterly magazine, and I got hired. This means I will be serving as co-editor/co-designer/writer for La Cadena, the premier Peace Corps Costa Rica magazine for three issues during my last year in Peace Corps.

2. I won $500 dollars! Okay, not really because we all know that's almost impossible. But I did get a $500 dollar grant from the Peace Corps Costa Rica country fund. We will be using this money this friday at the regional Art for Peace conference where 50 youth from the central valley will be getting together for a day-long conference to do workshops with other youth on themes of peace and anti-violence through art in San José. My fellow Peace Corps volunteer and I have been working day and night to plan it (okay, not night, that's a lie).

3. I saved the world! Okay, not really because that's almost impossible. And why does the world need savin' anyway? But I did make container gardens with the preschoolers on Earth Day! We will continue with larger gardens for Dia del Agrícultor in May where we will be grown' lots of goodies like carrots, lettuce, and cilantro with all the grades and parents!

4. I took lots of pictures! (See below).

'Gracias a Dios' Lindsay returned to Peace Corps after five months of medical leave! Sipping tea in San José!

A really old photo of election time in Costa Rica (he didn't win):

A horse parade in my town (gran tope):

Traditional Costa Rican Dance (José Afredo on the left is in my Art for Peace youth group):

Then I made puppets with children!

A friend from Missoula visited and we went ziplining in Monteverde (Clearly, I can't leave Costa Rica without doing that):

Then I took a picture of a fiddlehead fern in the rainforest:

And then it was Semana Santa (Holy Week) and every house looked like this:

And so I continue... Hasta pronto!

On the Trouble With Tourism in Costa Rica

2010-04-09T16:39:00.011-06:00

Before I start this, I want to give you, sort of as a preface, a quote which I borrowed from my good friend Polly's blog, who is a Jesuit Volunteer in Belize for two years:

"I do not forget that my voice is but one voice, my experience a mere drop in the sea, my knowledge no greater than the visual field in a microscope, my mind's eye a mirror that reflects a small corner of the world" -CG Jung

And on we go.

I know what you're thinking - the words 'trouble', 'tourism' and 'costa rica' should not be in the same sentence. It is after all the country's number one industry bringing in nearly a half a million tourists annually, 60% of them being Americans (travel.state.gov). However if you look at the very definition of tourism it is to travel to a destination other than one's home….typically to know another place.

I recently got a taste of this when a friend came to visit from the states. With the public city buses being full, our only option to get to our destination that day, five hours North, was a private tour bus company for 35 dollars (over the public, seven-dollar bus ride). A bit hesitant to do so on a Peace Corps budget, I bit the bullet this one time and we headed north in style.

We boarded the small, air-conditioned bus with about five couples heading to various destinations such as the beaches and rain forests - the popular and typical tourist destinations of Costa Rica. After talking with some of the couples and hearing their plans for the rest of the trip, I realized that although they were traveling the country and seeing a large portion of it, they were in fact, not actually seeing the country at all! Being whisked from one destination to another on an air-conditioned bus, staying at a hotel (many of which are all-inclusive) and only doing the activities targeted at tourists (ziplining, bungee jumping, guided tours, etc), in fact, only gave these people a tiny, tiny, taste of the country. (And please forgive me, for I am not speaking of all tourists, just a large portion of them, and yes, I too am guilty of taking part in these 'tourist-only' activities at one point).

When you're in India, for example, you see it all. You see the face of poverty and injustice everywhere - it's in the chidren's eyes who are living near the train tracks, it's in the ever-apparent slums that surround every city, it's in the water, it's in the beggars' faces and wrinkled, dirt-stained hands and feet, it's in the pollution, it's in the hunger, its in the cripples who approach your car at every traffic light, begging, void of any pride and self-dignity. In India you can't avoid it. India is transparent; it shows you its true face the second you leave the airport. Costa Rica, however is different. Costa Rica is a closed book. It takes longer to get to know, you have to read further into its pages to understand it. Leaving the airport one might feel like they haven't left the States and have landed in Southern California. Sights like Denny's, Holiday Inn, and every fast food chain make one wonder if while they were sleeping, the plane took a wrong turn.

In a way, after having lived in this country for over a year now, it made me slightly angry meeting those tourists on the bus that day. These people go back to the States, looking upon their travels fondly, raving about how beautiful Costa Rica is, how pristine it is, how green it is, how friendly everyone is, how not-poor it is. But they haven't seen what I've seen. THey haven't seen the face of poverty, injustice, inequality, and corruption on which this country rests, nor do they learn it even exists in Costa Rica. How many times have the tourists I've met along the way said to me, "There's Peace Corps in Costa Rica?" Countless. But it is true, Costa Rica is as much as a developing country as the rest of Latin America.

And I get it, not every one is as fortunate as I am to be a Peace Corps Volunteer, to live in this country in a different way, to truly get to know its people, it's culture, its foods, its tendencies, its idiosyncrasies - to bear witness to its authentic side. I feel proud that when my friend came to visit I could give her a true taste of the country - meeting my local pulpería (local store) owner and having lunch with her family, meeting some youth of my town who also happen to be the future of this developing country. Experiencing language barriers, cultural uncertainties, and those uncomfortably, humbling situations that can change one's outlook.

What happened to community-based and responsible tourism where tourists really get to know a culture by spending time with its people, learning from their long-standing traditions of what makes their country unique, being humbled by another's homeland? What happened to sustainable tourism where the influx of the millions of tourists each year see the country in a way that still allows it to maintain and present its culture without being corrupted by all-inclusive resorts, tourist-geared restaurants, activities, etc? What happened to people being mindful that they are entering a place that is someone else's home? What happened to respecting the ways of the culture and be open to 'living in solidarity' with them for their time in country? DId any of this ever even exist? Can tourism be less-invasive and more beneficial to the local community?

Living here has given me a different view on tourism. I used to think it was a way to get to know a country, but I've realized its quite the opposite. I'm not going to lie, sometimes I even like to step-aside from this culture and be a tourist, which is comically contradicting in itself. When I want to "get away" from this culture, I go do something touristy? Wow, that is what I thought the exact opposite definition of tourism is. I'm not quite sure what the point of all this is, nor do I want to present myself in a self-righteous way, but I do know, that after having lived in this long-standing, typically mis-represented country, tourism is a very fragile thing. It can make a country, or it can break it.

Next time you take a journey as a tourist, if you aren't lucky enough to know someone to experience the culture firsthand, please, think locally. Don't be like the stubborn, arrogant tourist who passed through my town, in a Spanish-speaking country who questioned why he should learn a word of spanish, when all the world should speak English. PLEASE travel mindfully and with a conscience. Remember, it is not your home. But it is someone else's.

Okay, So We're Kind of a Big Deal....

2010-03-26T14:32:00.013-06:00

Okay folks, this is the post where I get to brag. About myself. Which I do maybe once every 5 years. So here it is for my next five years.

I realized I haven't talked much about work on this ol' blog. Well, that's because "work" in Peace Corps is slow-going. Nearly a year into my service and I just now finally feel like I am getting things going. One of the things I have "gotten going" lately is an Art for Peace youth group. It took a long time to get this going, or to even find youth that wanted to participate (mucha pereza aqui). Well, I found six great youth that have come weekly to workshops that discuss the importance of peace and non -violence through art. In addition to the workshops we have done other art-related projects outside of the formal workshops. One of the most recent ones we did was a huge mural next to the church in downtown Copey (designed by the youth themselves). We got a San Jose-based art organization for kids on board and they recruited volunteers to help us. Well, we completed a rather large mural in two days and it looks great.

And now here is the part where I get to brag. Not only am I so proud of my youth who have been so dedicated and enthusiastic, but our project also made it on Buen Día, Costa Rica's version of Good Morning America. Here is a link to the video. For those that don't speak spanish, you can just imagine all the great things it's saying about Copey and my youth group.... And be sure and listen to the eloquence with which they say my last name. ;)

http://www.teletica.com/noticia-detalle.php?id=40993&idp=3

As for our next project, the kids can't stop talking about where else we can do murals and mosaics. They have big dreams now.

Below are photos of the process:

Beginning to end:

Me and the world:

Gettin' messy:

The road to Copey is paved with.......mosaics:

Sharys being interviewed for Buen Día:

The youth being interviewed for Buen Día:

A Treasured Friendship Based on Four Sentences

2010-03-24T22:43:00.007-06:00

I have this friend. Or so I would like to call him a friend since I see him nearly every day, or at the least, once a week.

But this friend and I, well, we only ever say four things to each other.

1. Hola, comó esta? (Hello, how are you?)

2. Anda de pasear? (Off to have fun?)

3. Si or No (Yes or No)

4. Gracias, hasta luego! (Thanks, see you later!)

I feel so close to him. He drives me up and down the steep mountain road to civilization (the nearest town, Santa Maria); I trust my life in him (one swift move and were rolling off that cliff); he provides sanity for me (how else would I ever be able to access the internet and the outside world?); he picks me up right at my front door (I can't help that my house is directly on the bus route); he doesn't judge me when I leave Copey a lot to go on vacation (which, is often); he supports me when I go chasing after him to not let him get away (then cracks a smile as I get on the bus, winded, and says I should run in marathons); he helps me when I have full loads (bikes from Peace Corps or big care boxes from mom); and he smiles and waves from his regal-like seat if we pass each other in the road.

He is Rodridgo. And he is my bus driver.

Bugs, Rabbits and Chickens

2010-03-23T13:42:00.002-06:00

So today in an email my friend Greta pointed out something in a very clever way and I just had to share it. When talking about all the health problems I've had here, she summed it up with this:

First, bed bugs. Then a bug on the chin. Then a bug in the belly.

Clearly, referring to my bed bugs, my allergic reaction, and my parasites. Yes, it's true I've got lots of bugs in my life.

In other news, today I found out someone in my site has a rabbit farm. A rabbit farm for FOOD. As in rabbit meat. Yikes. Here's a picture. Not that I took, but a picture, nonetheless.

Finally, speaking of meat, I got this crazy idea today while talking with a 9th grader and the woman with which I co-facilitate Art for Peace Workshops with that I should get chickens. Baby chickens. Raise them (free-range of course) and then when they are nice and plump, do the thing, then pluck their feathers and in the words of this woman "eat chicken for a month." Okay, so I know that wasn't so pleasant, but it's how most everyone gets their meat around here. Not being a big meat-eater, this idea of being so connected to my food has always, and especially now, really intrigues me. I'll keep you posted. I may have some baby chicks running around my yard next time we talk.

Goodbye for now, readers. Until next time.

My friend, Max.

2010-02-26T11:54:00.001-07:00

So I have this friend. He has a really long, complicated name. So let's just call him 'Max' for short.

Okay, okay, I'm not going to lie, he's not really a friend. He's more of an acquaintance. We've known each other since probably December, and have learned to co-exist in the same, small space. But i've got to be honest, he's not the best kind of acquaintance. He's some what of a moocher. He's been mooching some really important things from me since we met, and creating a lot of abnormality in my life. And even worse, he has a really big family, and they all mooch off me too. They've gotten under my skin…deep into my insides, and I can never seem to get rid of them. In fact, now that I think about it, Max is more of an enemy than an acquaintance.

Tomorrow I'm going to seek help - professional help, to figure out how to get rid of such negative influences in my life. We can only hope that the treatment will work.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted.

But for now, here's a picture of him:

Oh, and by the way, his real name is Endolimax Nana. Asi es la vida.

The View From the Top

2010-02-18T13:10:00.012-07:00

It didn't matter that I had just hiked for 8 hours straight, up 8,000 feet, or that I was drenched in sweat, chilled, achey, and sun burnt. All of that was washed away by the engulfment of crisp, thin mountain air; the breathtaking views of rolling emerald peaks and mystical-looking lakes; the small 100-square-foot, rocky peak I was standing on at what felt like the top of the world - one of five people at the highest point in Costa Rica at that very moment. They washed all the discomfort away.

I could have been anywhere in the world at that moment. The lushness of the rolling landscape resembling places like Ireland, Switzerland, Mt. Kilimanjaro. My mind went wild on a mythical odyssey, a silent, personal reverie. But I was here, on top of Mt. Chirripo, the highest peak of Costa Rica and the second highest in Central America. And at that moment, I was so thankful for everything - everything that had allowed me to be at that place, in that moment of time.

It all began eight, long hours earlier, just at the break of day, where just enough light in the sky paved our way up the trail. The first kilometer, called The Thermometer, was just that. It warmed us up quickly giving us a omen of the hours to come. It didn't get much easier, minus a nice half of a kilometer or so on a leaf-lined trail with dense, deciduous trees, stepping stones, and wooden plank bridges just before kilometer seven - the Llano Bonito resting lodge where one could fill up on water, take a break and enjoy a snack - also known as the half way point.

The trail ascended rapidly, giving us a satisfying view rather quickly. In and out of the trees, up and down, in between rocks and stones, the trail wound. The last two hours we were out of the trees, above them, exposed to the bare sun, creating a slight burn on only the right side of our body. Kilometer 11, "The Burns," was intense. It's that point where you can't stop because you know you are so close, but also at the point where you just want to collapse over. All you can do is muster up the strength to keep going because you know that good things (and rest) lie ahead. At about kilometer 14, after ascending steeply up, you reach the top of a small valley and what one sees at that point, looking down into the valley, must always be enshrouded in a heavenly light from above with a golden glow - the albergue, or lodge, where people stay the night. And no, that's not the summit. There's still two hours to go till the summit.

So, upon arrival at the lodge, we momentarily collapsed, ate some fuel, changed our sweat-soaked socks, lightened our packs, and kept on trudging up towards the top. With it being only noon, we figured the summit is a doable goal for the day, where as most people choose to go up early the next morning, we decided to beat the crowds and go that afternoon. A moderate hike ensued, but as we neared the top, it became steep, narrow, rocky, and quite elevated. Finally we had reached the point where what we had worked for was beginning to truly pay off. About 200 meters from the top, the trail turned to a bit of a staircase, having to use your hands and feet to climb up the rocky face. The summit sign was in eye's distance, nearly directly over head.

Finally, we summited! A graffiti-carved sign marked the highest point in Costa Rica, the wind blew, light clouds swept in and out of the valley, and the sun shined through them. Silence, beauty, friends, peace. What more could one ask for?

A warm, home-cooked soup, and a good night's rest lied ahead. Dreams abounded that night in my sleeping bag in the lodge.

The following day, we took a detour through Cloud Bridge Reserve on the way back down. No photos to share from this, as I was in extreme pain from too-much "downhill" motion, and had no desire to lug my camera around my neck. Unfortunate, because this was one of the best parts of the whole trip. PRISTINE beauty. Different beauty from the summit. But I have it in my mind forever, the true experience, engrained. And to me, that's the best type of photo - a personal one, one that is yours to keep, your secret.

I eventually recovered. A few days later….still experiencing sore quads and calves. But to me, it was all completely worth it…one of those experiences that I won't forget.

I plan on doing it again next year, when the season opens up next November. So, if you're in Costa Rica, come along for the ride.

Get a 'Clue'

2010-02-06T10:41:00.003-07:00

I think it was Colonel Mustard in the study with the wrench. Or perhaps it was Professor Plum in the dining room with the revolver. Or Mrs. Peacock in the billiard room with the candlestick. No, no, wait, wait. I know what it was. It was the elusive Costa Rican "insect" on the trail in Copey with the stinger.

And the victim was me.

The story went a little something like this:

I go out for my daily morning walk/hike. As I'm hoofing it uphill, all the possibilities of things happening in the universe collide into the perfect moment where a mystery insect and my chin run into each other in that wide open space of the vast mountain terrain. A rapid, angry buzzzzzzzzzz was let out, with a sharp sting, and an instinctual, sudden brush of the hand by me on my chin. "Okay, so I was stung by a bee," I think. "I'm tough, it's happened before, I'll keep going." So i continue to hoof it up the trail. On the way down, minus a little swelling on my chin, I'm feeling good. So I decide to run. I return to near my house, and think I'm feeling extra good, I'm going go a little bit longer today. So I turn down another trail and head off running. Little by little I begin to feel my chin swelling larger and larger into a nice tender balloon-like state. "Okay," I think, "I better hurry back and at least take some benadryl…or at least get back to be near some houses in case anything happens to me."

Thankfully, I make it back home, frantically search my Peace Corps medical kit for anything, grab some ice from the freezer, grab my homeopathic sting stop and apply all. Immediately. Little by little, I begin to feel rather funny. My forehead is breaking out in bumps and swelling. My ears are swelling, my eyes are swelling shut. My neck is breaking out in redness. I jump in the shower and notice that my entire torso, hips and thighs are absolutely ONE. BIG. RED. WELT….itchy as ever, like an ugly red landscape of distorted little knolls.
Oh dear.
In and out of the shower.
Call my mother, the nurse.

"Uhhhh, Mooommmmm? So I was out walking and I got stung by……"
"Oh no," says Mom.
"Weeeelllll, it get's worse……."

Before I knew it, I hung up with her and considered my options as to how to make it to the nearest medical clinic….20 minutes down a steep mountain road, the next bus an hour and a half away still. Quickly, I call my friend Seidy who has a car. She drops everything and we head down to the nearest town to the free, public clinic.

At this point, I resemble a cartoon character…my face nearly unrecognizable to even myself. I put on my shades (my only disguise), and muster up all my will power to not itch my entire body raw on the way down. I walk right in the clinic, and they immediately rush me to the back, question the series of events in Spanish, and stick a needle in the ol' buttocks. They escort me to another room, put me on oxygen, and stick my arm with an IV.

"How long will this take?"
"Oh about two hours…you'll need to stay here for observation after too" the friendly nurse replies.

Midway through I get very, very sleepy. Two benadryl and now this (the Costa Rican version of liquid benadryl) but heading directly into my veins. I could have fallen asleep right there in the institutional, metal, not-at-all-comfortable, social services chair. Thank god I had Seidy there to keep me company.

A couple hours later, my face returned to me. And my skin returned to a nice pretty peach color, and I was on my way with a couple prescriptions in hand. I didn't have to pay, they never asked for my insurance card, and I didn't have to fill out a ton of paperwork. Completely the opposite experience of the US medical system. Michael Moore sure had some obvious rationale to make the documentary, Sicko. Public health care is amazing! Then I proceeded to buy four prescriptions for only eleven dollars (it would have been free had I opted to wait in the long line at social services, instead I went to the regular pharmacy). Wow. Costa Ricans really care about the right to health care. Or at least it seemed so today.

So, that's how the story went. And although the exact criminal still remains unknown, and will probably never be caught, the weapon and the place are clear as water. G-U-I-L-T-Y. And that's enough for me.

And what also is enough for me is to think about all the times that all the possibilities of things happening in the universe DIDN'T collide into the perfect moment where a mystery insect and my chin ran into each other. Those moments are infinite. So, I guess one out of infinity isn't too bad for chances. Asi es la vida.

New Year, Same Juxtaposted Life

2010-02-04T13:25:00.015-07:00

A new year is upon us. 2010.

This year, this March, more specifically, I will complete one year in country. It’s hard to believe. Time has passed quicker than the blink of the eye, and has passed slower than molasses. Oftentimes I feel like Jim Carrey in The Truman Show, lost in a life that is routine, predictable, planned, and protected. It’s a time warp here, and it’s a bubble, just like Jim Carrey’s. I wonder if this is every Peace Corps Volunteer’s experience. Aside from the occasional glance at the New York Times online when I can get to functional Internet, I have no idea what is going on outside my bubble. I barely heard about the earthquakes in Haiti, I have no idea what Obama is up to these days, nor did I know about the State of the Union until the day before. I feel so ignorant about world news. Instead, I hear when the soccer field opens for the season, I learn my neighbor has a fig tree in her yard, I discover a new fruit, I hear of Raquel getting into college, I learn the first day of school was changed to a week later, I learn Rocio and Mario got new chickens.

Life here is both funny and serious, peculiar yet ordinary, stress-free yet demanding, uncomplicated yet complex, ambiguous yet incredibly clear, spontaneous yet remarkably calculated. It’s a juxtaposed world of duplets I live in.

And the month of January began in very similar fashion, back and forth between my comfortable North American style life and my adopted other, temporary life.

I rang in the New Year on the Pacific coast, asleep in my hotel, The Pelican. I was there for a wedding of the Peace Corps assistant country director, chock full of out-of-town guests thrilled to attend a destination wedding in Costa Rica. Following that I returned back to my site to “work” for a week. Side note: my town is somewhat of a ghost town -a sleepy mountain town, the Yin of the Yin and Yang, and during summer vacation, even more so ghostly. So by “work” I mean stroll to the local corner store, talk with the people, teach an English class, garden, sleep a sufficient 8 hours a night, and spend a lot of alone time.

Then a week later arrived the Yang to my Yin – my parents, and two weeks of traveling and showing them Costa Rica – in luxury, might I add, something I do not know of this country. The trip was without parallel. How do I sum up two weeks of occurrences, comings and goings, escapades, and mishaps in one blog post? Sure, I could regale you with tales of how we almost got a piece of luggage stolen right off the car seat with us in the car, or how freezing cold wind and rain in a funky mountain town of Costa Rica forced us to sleep in our coats and hats, or how we walked hundreds of feet high in the jungle tree tops on hanging bridges, or swam with schools of fish in the mighty Pacific, or how we ate fresh seafood nearly every day, or how we witnessed herds of both White-Faced Capuchin monkeys and Howler monkeys on the prowl for food as wallflowers from our eye-level, villa balcony, or how we traveled over 900 miles on pot-hole covered roads only to find that Toad Hall (“it was written in Lonely Planet”) was permanently closed, or how we learned on our Costa Rican coffee tour that your $4 latte at Starbucks is worth every penny of it, or how we sometimes felt like we were in Germany due to the plethora for German-owned places, or how we got lost almost every day oftentimes finding ourselves in slums or seemingly unsafe areas with our fancy rental car, or how we turned the wrong way down one way roads a time or two, or how I made my parents help teach my English class, or how my parents learned the Pura Vida lifestyle of the Costa Ricans, or how we ate fresh tropical fruit every morning, or how my parents were both simply shocked and humbled by this tiny little country. But then I thought, ‘Naaaaah, that wouldn’t be so interesting for you.’ So instead, I just decided to post some pictures.

Arenal and the hanging bridges:

My front yard in Copey:

Coffee tour in my site!

Breakfast all the time:

Drove so many miles, only to find out it was permanently closed:

Relaxing over the Pacific:

Getting ready to relax in the Pacific:

And so now my parents are back safely in their North American home, and I’m back to my juxtaposed life, back in my bubble, waiting for something interesting to happen. Perhaps the corner food store will put everything on half price tomorrow, or Carlos Andrés will buy a new bicycle. But until that does, I’m just living my simple, humble life, grateful for a new year….waiting, thinking, being.

A Disease Under the Tree This Year

2009-12-26T16:32:00.004-07:00

PREFACE:

Dear beloved blog readers,

I imagine for the past two months you have been up at night musing on possible reasons as to why I have not written since October 21st. Perhaps you came up with such outlandish stories as I was kidnapped by a herd of wild Costa Rican monkeys and taken deep into the rain forest, escaped into Panama to became a drug mule to Columbia, decided to quit Peace Corps to pick coffee day and night, or became a surf bum and had away with technology. Well, the truth is, no such shenanigans have occurred.

So I have no excuse.

Here it is: I was walking down my road one day in my site to go make Christmas cards with a group of youth. When I arrived, I reached in my bag to pull out my computer to fill the air with musical festivities. Much to my surprise and dismay, along with it came a steady stream of water dripping off from the corner. My careless actions were the result of this - haplessly putting my water bottle in my backpack with my computer, cap not fully tightened.

There it is. I have been without a computer since November, which in the life of a Peace Corps volunteer is almost like living without air. But thankfully, I survived, and I hope you did too, and you are reading this now, graciously rejoicing for a new blog post.

Or so I can only hope. ;)

Anyway, now begins the actual post.
______________________________________

I write this from the comforts of my parents' living room. The Christmas music is blaring from the stereo, the lights illuminate the tree, the house is warm, snow is falling softly outside, comfortable carpet engulfs my bare feet, the shower has the capability to rain hot, hot water, and the fridge is stocked with varieties of diverse foods. Basically, I feel like I am in heaven.

But then things took a turn for the worse. This year Santa brought me something I didn't want....he brought me Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. Yes, that's right, Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease, not to be confused with Hoof and Mouth disease which is found in farm animals (hold the jokes, Jonathan). I spent part of Christmas day in the ER, and am still recovering. It's a bummer I have to spend my vacation laid up in bed, listless, and zapped of all energy, but it's also a blessing I'm not alone in Costa Rica battling some mysterious illness. Thanks Santa.

Perhaps when I have more energy, I'll post more, including photos........from a new computeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! Really, thanks Santa!

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat!

2009-10-21T15:15:00.004-06:00

I thought the United States was bad....Christmas stuff has already hit the stores full-force here!

Autumnal Whisperings

2009-10-03T15:01:00.005-06:00

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. - John Muir

Today I went for a short hike at dusk. I cannot even begin to describe the beauty Copey holds at this time of night. But I will try.

First, imagine a quaint little town tucked in a tiny, tiny valley high in the Costa Rican mountains surrounded on all sides by various shapes and sizes of lush, emerald hills. Now imagine being able to walk up any of those roads/trails to see what's tucked around/in/between/beyond and below them. Now, imagine dusk - that warm golden glow of the sun casting it's light and long shadows upon which it falls. The big dome above still half blue from the day with small, puffy clouds turning mixed hues of pink and orange, and the other half to the west - a flat, white gray where the fog takes shape. It's that very fog that begins to gently cascade lower and lower amongst the hills and into the valley as the sun sets deeper far beyond them, only casting remaining slivers of brilliance here and there. It hangs just below the mountain tops, leaving a vast opening behind the tops themselves, creating a magical illusion of floating peaks. That's why they call this mystical place a cloud forest- where billowy clouds marry the lush, succulent flora. Looking down, the dirt is wet, the rocks in the road are smooth and glassy yet jagged, puddles of water left over from the afternoon's rains look like chocolate milk, and leaves are scattered about...those oversized, polished leaves that evolve with the seasons into new shades of pigment.

On the way back down, as the light dwindled, I stopped to notice these leaves. Something was strange. One, there were leaves on the ground in the first place. Two, these leaves weren't green. They had turned to a golden shade of autumn with black spots, as if just past their prime. And three, Fall doesn't happen in Costa Rica! I took a deep breath, a cool breath of the fresh air and re-evaluted. Where was I? This surely felt like Fall as my scarf engulfed me and my thin jacket didn't stop the chills from occurring. Surely, this did not feel like Costa Rica, as in Costa Rica only two season exist - rainy and dry (also known as humid and hot). As autumn being my favorite season, I didn't care where I was, it just felt amazing to feel the world ripe with autumn, if only for one short walk.

Like the leaves and trees and winds of autumn, I too, experience change during this time of year....even where autumn doesn't exist. Things are a-changin'. How so, you may ask. Well, mostly work-wise, life-wise, all around just -wise. I'm getting into the groove of things. I'm learning that this really is pura vida, as they say, and no one is really too concerned about things. It's okay that meetings go four hours and nothing gets accomplished; it's okay that when it rains no one leaves their houses, its okay that everything closes for lunch, it's okay that it takes 5 months to paint a world map on a wall, it's O. K. Everything here is OKAY. PURA VIDA.

This land of pura vida is becoming not so foreign like it once was. Things are becoming commonplace: I'm no longer annoyed at how much rice and beans everyone eats. I'm no longer bothered that no one here has carpet in their houses. I'm no longer frustrated that I spend half the days doing very little. I'm no longer sickened that I have to share my room with probably 20 different species of spiders. I'm no longer frustrated by my spanish ability. I'm no longer bothered that every bakery in the country has the exact same thing (okay, that's a lie, I'm a baked good snob). I'm no longer wishing I was somewhere else a lot of the time (just some times, but hey, the grass is always greener...). I'm no longer bothered by the fact that bugs like me, and they will eat my legs to pieces. I'm no longer angry that I have to sleep on pieces of foam and wooden slats. I have just learned to deal. Call it cultural adjustment. Call it complacency. Call it what you may. But ch-ch-ch-changes are occurring, and I couldn't be happier with that fact.

I realize I haven't talked much about work. Well, to be honest, that's because there hasn't been a ton. As stated above, things take TIME to get accomplished here. If it isn't the rain, it's another thing. And trust is important - trusting to do work with a white person who just moves into your community for two years. Today, though however, marked day one of my girls empowerment group, Chicas Podersosas. Out of 12 girls, I was very pleased that 9 showed up to the first meeting. I fear that when I listed the themes for the three-month program on a permission slip to the parents including one as "sexuality and dating," I scared off a number of extremely Catholic mothers trying to protect their innocent 5th and 6th grade daughters from the "sexually-liberal" American who is probably going to shove condoms in their daughters' faces and tell them to go have sex. Well, not the case, and I assured the mothers who expressed concern over this topic that I would do none of the sorts. Anyway, day one went well, and things are moving along. Slowly but surely. Now I just have to figure out how to teach a group of sixth graders about the concept of 'ecological footprint'...in spanish on Friday. All sorts of other mini-projects are up my sleeve and currently in the works too. More on those in the future...

So, as I head to bed tonight, I am tucked under two blankets and my down sleeping bag, as I am every night. Every night here in my bedroom, my little cave tucked aside from my host-family's house, it feels like Fall. And today, out in the world, felt exceptionally like Fall. I don't know if it was the dusk, the cool, crisp feeling in the air, the feeling of normalcy being in this culture or the feeling that I am actually being needed here now, but I do know every year when this time rolls around, I too, become rich like the colors of the leaves.

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." ~George Eliot

Who knew?!

2009-09-17T14:58:00.007-06:00

Did you know that line-drying two loads of laundry in the sun per week saves as much energy as it takes to run your fridge for four months? I didn't either. So now every time I get out of the shower and have to use that crunchy bath towel and then put on that overly stiff, stretched-out pair of jeans, I will try and remember how I am saving lots and lots and lots of energy (so people with dryers can use it). :)

Today, and its story

2009-09-08T19:03:00.003-06:00

Today I painted, danced, laughed and listened. That's the short story.

The long story went like this: I woke up in my own bed, freshly returned from my first In-Service Peace Corps Training (3 months into service), unsure of what to do with my day, after re-grounding with other volunteers and discussing our experiences. Feeling a little bit overwhelmed from all the ideas I accumulated at training, frustrated that not much has been done at my site thus far, defeated by adversities of international development work, and just completely unsure of where to start all over again, I went for a hike to clear my head. The early morning air was fresh, slightly warm, and rich with untainted mountainous fragrances. The Costa Rican fauna (the area I live in is well-known for bird-watching) was strongly resonant high above me in the trees. And my body and soul were happy - happy to be moving, alive, and right where I was, despite my feeling of lack of purpose.

Shortly upon arriving at home, the unmentionable happened - a youth from my town texted me (yes, I have a cell phone) asking if today she could help paint a world map mural we are working on at the school. Sounds so simple, but I was overcome with excitement and humbled that someone wanted to help me and sought me out to ask. Peace Corps work is difficult for this very reason...oftentimes I feel I am begging people to help me in projects, or having a hard time motivating them to realize their own projects. Apathy is plentiful in these parts. But I was so touched that this one youth cared enough to offer her help on a project that has been on hold for awhile because I was away at training. So it was, I had a purpose for the day (in Peace Corps doing one productive thing per day is considered successful). I would meet her (and her younger sister) at the school and we would begin painting the background ocean color for our 4x8 meter map. Taking up most of the afternoon, the painting led right into my dance lesson. Yes, that's right, I'm in dance. Okay, let's not say I'm in dance - more accurate is that I am learning a traditional Costa Rican dance to perform at my site's Independence Day festivity September 14th (the actual day is the 15th, but festivities begin the night before). I'm prepared for the whole town to silently chuckle at the gringa dancing baile típico donned in full traditional Costa Rican garb. But I can't help chuckle myself! Well, when in Rome....

Then later, I realized something important...though I felt like I had no purpose today whatsoever, as I found myself sitting in the salon comunal (community center) with a woman with nothing around us but the two chairs beneath our bodies, I realized I did have a purpose - I was there to listen. This woman sought me out to ask me a question. She began telling her story of her son who has lived in New Jersey illegally for the past fourteen years. He recently discovered a cancerous tumor on his leg, and has had a hard time receiving sufficient medical treatment...specialist treatment, more accurately. The woman broke out in tears as she retold the fresh news of her son to me. Due to his specific situation, receiving chemotherapy was proving very difficult, and cutting out the tumor would mean cutting the tendons that enwrap it, thus making his lower leg immobile. The tears continued to fall. At this point, I had no idea what this woman was going to ask me...money to visit?...help finding better medical treatment as an illegal immigrant? I had absolutely no idea. But then she said, "My question for you is this: I just want to know if the medical treatment in the United States is advanced?" That was it...a simple request for a little reassurance from someone who knows where her son is living. This land of the United States is so completely foreign to this woman, she has no understanding of most things there...all she simply wanted was to feel a connection to her son through me, and be confident in and comforted by his important journey he is about to embark on...as an illegal immigrant in a foreign land. She asked if I knew the the specific hospital her son was at, and questioned its ability. I assured her that New Jersey and New York yield many very specialized, skilled doctors and that her son would be fine with the medical system there. Though I can't be sure this is the case, I said so because I am confident that our medical system will realize and recognize the importance of every human being, illegal or not, and their right to have adequate health care, ability to pay or not. It was a bittersweet interaction - I felt extremely powerful, yet completely powerless at the same time. I wanted to tell her that I really had no knowledge whatsoever of the medical system in New Jersey, and that getting treatment as an illegal would prove difficult, but I held back. I have learned that hope is what gets me through my days here, and so I continued to exude that same aura in that moment towards that woman. I can only hope it worked.

So you have it...very simple things happened today after waking up purposeless - a text message, laughter, a desire for a lending ear. But then I realized that this is why I am here. I need to give up this strong desire to move mountains. Idealism is important, but too much can lead to frustration. It's in the simple day-to-day things that really make the difference. I am here to listen, to help, to collaborate, to laugh with the people, to dance, to paint, to give advice, to see, to learn, and ultimately, this is what will move mountains.

28 overstuffed envelopes and the passage of time

2009-08-18T23:53:00.001-06:00

Exactly one year ago today, I turned 27. And I can remember that day so clearly. I had spent the day with my lovely roommate Erica playing around in the Blackfoot River near Missoula, Montana, getting lunch and just relaxing. But I also remember receiving something in my mailbox that day. After arriving home from the river, I walked across Pattee Canyon Road to our row of mailboxes. There I saw a huge envelope forcefully stuffed inside. I was giddy with excitement, as I knew just what it was - it was my long anticipated invitation to the Peace Corps, and that day I found out what country I would live in for the next two years. I sat in my backyard by my garden and stream, grasping the overstuffed envelope, barely holding back from carelessly ripping it open like a child and her gifts on Christmas morning. I remember telling myself to be mindful and remember that feeling....that feeling of complete uncertainty, delight, mystery, excitement (what a wonderful birthday present). When I opened the letter and saw the words "Congratulations," and one line below it, "Rica," I instantly knew I was headed to Costa Rica, but I had no idea what was in store for me. So here I am, celebrating one year later in Costa Rica...but this time 28 years.

My day is nearly over and my first birthday in Costa Rica was simple yet lovely. It began at the school where I taught the pre-kinder class to the play the childhood game red-light/green-light. They sang a long rendition of happy birthday to me, and then ten pre-kinder kids swarmed me at once to hug me.....a big group hug. I had a relaxing afternoon at home, and just before dinner went on a run in damp, foggy, mysterious weather. It all ended with the most deeeeeeelicious dinner (yet) of vegetable lasagna, red wine, salad with homegrown yellow, green and orange cherry tomatoes (a welcomed relief from rice and beans) with a wonderful couple in their home (and two more happy birthday songs). This may have marked the latest night out yet (since being in my site)....11 pm......whooew, this Peace Corps life is crazy.

Another year has come to a close. I look ahead (as I did this same time last year) and once again, it is filled with uncertainty, delight, mystery, and excitement...another overstuffed envelope waiting to be opened and unveiled through the passage of time. And so, mindfully I go, into my 28th year.

Thank you all for the wonderful birthday wishes!!!

(pictures to come soon).

Beef and milk.....and electrocutions

2009-08-01T16:44:00.010-06:00

Recently I watched a cow get slaughtered.

More recently, I milked one.

But first, I got electrocuted.

Yes, that's right, electrocuted. I firmly gripped an electric fence with two hands tight as fists as I said "Hola!" to my friend Rafa. You live and you learn. Orrrrr rather, you learn to watch for bright yellow signs that say danger. Then you laugh it off and chalk it up to a "cultural" experience.

Here's some pictures from the two latest experiences. Unfortunately I have none of me being electrocuted nor milking the cow.

**To clear up some confusion: Only the first two photos are of the cow being slaughtered. The rest are from the dairy farm. Alma did not get slaughtered.

iPhone=iFun

2009-07-25T15:59:00.008-06:00

My friend Josh (also in PC-CR) came to visit me in my site this past week. We had crazy adventures and enjoyed lots of relaxing non-work time. Visiting other volunteers and having them visit you keeps one's sanity in this whole experience. We took all these pictures with his iPhone.

I realized I'm having a love affair......with Salsa Lizano.

On the way to the river:

Heeeeere......vaca, vaca vaca.

Little did he know.....

Where I sit most days when I have nothing to do.....but think. And so did we:

Gettin' artsy with the iPhone:

One of these days, I'll use more words.....

Making tamales!

2009-07-16T14:22:00.009-06:00

Recently, I had the opportunity to learn to and make tamales with my family and a few of their friends! We are still eating the copious amounts they made.

A-ha!

2009-07-15T13:19:00.010-06:00

When I found myself sitting around three tents in my pajamas with ten 5th-7th grade girls in their pajamas talking about time zones of the US, how icicles form on gutters in the winter, and what is now in place of the Twin Towers after 9-11, I realized something. Not only did I realize again how fun pajama parties are, but, I also realized, that something has clicked. And by something, I mean that part of my brain that has been stretching and stretching so hard for the past four and a half months to finally feel competent in Spanish.

My other friends in Peace Corps in other countries (and ahead of me by half a year) kept telling me that an “a-ha” moment would occur…I didn’t believe them. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I think it has. Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from fluent. But understanding the natural flow of a conversation and being able to respond has become so easy lately. I don’t fear anymore that I won’t be able to understand someone, or that I won’t be able to respond. Especially when I am being barraged with questions about the US and my culture by ten 5th through 7th grade girls…even then, I understood...

This inquisitive bunch of pre-adolescent teens sat around in their pajamas at 10 pm munching on Pringles and other midnight snacks. I’m not sure I exactly how I ended up at this overnight leadership/values camp in a different part of Costa Rica from where I live, but I did, and it wasn’t long before I reverted back to being a giddy 5th grader curious about the world. But at this slumber party, I felt different. I was an oddity, novel and something exciting for my new friends. That must have been the reason for their barrage of questions, like I was the guest of the party, each question on top of each other, creating space for an awesome exchange of cultures.

Some of their questions were just too interesting, I had to note them, and share them:

1. Are there parts of America where people speak only Spanish?
2. What time is it in the US?
3. Do a lot of people build “snowdolls” (i.e. snowmen)? Have you built a snowdoll?
4. Have you been to Disneyland?
5. Is it true there are a lot of theme parks in the US?
6. What is in place of where the Twin Towers were?
7. Was this your first time in an airplane?
8. Did a lot of people in the US cry when Michael Jackson died?
9. Do you know the Staple Center or Michael Jackson’s ranch?
10. Is it true that there is no trash in the US?
11. How much does Playstation or Nintendo cost in the US?
12. The US is really big, right?
13. Is the US really cold?
14. Do you live with your parents?
15. Are there lakes in the US you can ice skate on?
16. Do snowstorms sometimes prevent cars from passing through a road?
17. What are you parents’ names?
18. What other countries have you been to?
19. How many states are in the US?
20. How did you learn Spanish?
21. Is skiing the sport where you have two boards on your feet?
22. Do you have kids?

Interesting, right??!?! Nothin' more to say, except a couple photos to share from the camp that I took with my crappy point and shoot Canon.

Where we slept:

Talking about the world:

In the US we go snow sledding, here, they go mud sledding:

Images

2009-07-07T14:06:00.015-06:00

No words today, but images of note, as of late:

Kids photography camp:

Manzanitas de agua:

Fourth of July celebrations:

Don Lorenzo y Doña Elba, my neighbors, and their fruit stand:

I'm conjuring up my next post....stay tuned.

Shades of green…and how it’s always greener somewhere else

2009-06-27T20:58:00.007-06:00

This time of year Costa Rica is incredibly green. But right now, the grass is greener somewhere else…on the other side of the fence. The fence I speak of is the fence that separates me from the United States…or more specifically, my home state of Colorado, where right about now a retirement party for my father is winding down in my backyard. I can just imagine it…the sun is setting, the tables of gourmet, homemade food are emptying, the trash cans are full, and the last of the party stragglers are laughing boisterously after a few too many drinks. For this reason, this post is dedicated to my father, and his forty-some years of hard work in the field of Educational Administration. Wow, if only I could be that diligent and stay longer than two years in one job… ☺

Anyway, this is a chronicle of my day…in photos, in honor of my father, who was my original teacher of photography, and Master of ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’. (Blogger has done something horrible with the saturation...please excuse the lack of brilliant color).

First, after an early-morning hike up the mountain, I got dressed up (in Peace Corps terms) in honor of dad’s special day, while listening to some of his favorite music (Willie Nelson)…

Then I called home to attempt to get in on some of the pre-party fun. After my mother passed me around to everyone else (because she was too busy to talk), my sister (with uncompleted tasks still at hand), snuck on Skype to chat with me.

Then dad, still in his work clothes, joined in for a bit.

On my walk home from the Internet (i.e., my neighbors), I stopped to notice the post-rain beauty and took these photos.

Upon arrival at home, my host dad was just sitting down to his afternoon cafecito, and I, to my lunch, a soup with vegetables and what else, but rice and beans, and homemade tortillas.

After lunch, I went into my bedroom to unwind. In the very same window that I wrote about in the last post where the Buddhist prayer flags hang, so do sit seven small plastic animals with interchangeable heads. As I looked out the rain-covered glass, I took all the heads of these previously normal animals and switched them all around. I thought their new state was photo worthy. And I couldn’t help but think I was feeling a bit like these strange, mismatched, frozen figures, all courageously poised on my sill.

After, I decided to head out and explore our property with camera in hand. But first I took this photo of my host dad and my 18-year-old host sister, Raquel.

Here’s a few photos I took from our property behind the house.

Peeeeaches (with my house in the background)!

Avocados!!!!

My house is the one on the right:

This is looking out from the hill behind our house:

Upon getting back to my house with muddy feet, I noticed how much I love my new rug. And how I partially wished that bicycle could cycle me all the way home…thousands of miles, in time to make it for the retirement party.

Buuuuutttt, since it couldn’t, I decided to walk less than one mile into town with my host sister and meet her friend to sit on a park bench and talk. It rained (surprise, surprise), so I took these photos, most of them from the under hang of a small super market of my site.

Costa Rican footwear...of high schoolers:

Downtown at my site:

And finally, the church with the fog settling in over the mountains:

After more rain, we made it home just by dark (unfortunately this time of year it’s about 6 pm), ate dinner, thought about my family in Colorado (some more), and got into my bed, all bundled up.

So my day has come to an end. And I survived it…even though I didn’t think I would this morning, so green with envy for that greener grass on the other side of the fence. And by now, dark has fallen upon that greener grass in Colorado. Father is probably fast asleep in his bed, exhausted from a night of celebration, ready to greet this next stage of his life with eagerness and desire tomorrow. Even though I couldn’t physically be there to celebrate, I spent a day in your honor…being rather than doing and just noticing the simple things. Throughout, I sent blessings your way for your new life of retirement! Congratulations, and go pick yourself out that new puppy now.

Move over Picasso!

2009-06-26T15:56:00.006-06:00

These drawings, gifted to me by various children, speak for themselves. Okay, almost...the last two are my town that I live in.

On people and places

2009-06-12T17:22:00.017-06:00

My bedroom window is six pieces of glass, each separated by a medium-colored wood. The mini Buddhist prayer flags fall smack in the middle of all of them, their colors illuminated by the light.

But what lies beyond is most important. Every day when I get up, I get to look out at the down-sloped apple orchard of my family’s yard that rolls down the dirt road, eventually leading into town, and meeting mountains and steep rolling hills in the distance. It’s green, it’s lush, it’s temperate, and it’s not the Costa Rica I had imagined. In fact, I imagined palm trees, flat jungle-like terrain, never-ending sun, and unbearable heat. But I’ve got quite the opposite and I couldn’t be happier. This is the Zona de Los Santos.

If you open the back door of my bedroom, you look steeply up the mountain at more apple trees, avocado trees, peach trees, a few citrus trees, and one elusive, pure white horse that roams among them munching on the tropical flora. The climate here is the most desirable in all of Costa Rica, I believe; cool mornings, cool afternoons, cool evenings. I find myself wearing long pants, long-ish sleeves, my many scarves, and an occasional sweater or hat. I eat breakfast every day on the front porch looking out toward town at the mountains as the sun rises over the hills. Usually, you can find crates and crates of apples or peaches or zucchini on the ground ripening in the sun in the front yard.

That brings me to the family that has adopted me for the next 6 months to two years. Who are these wonderful Costa Ricans that have so generously opened their home and their hearts to me (and bought me a brand new porcelain white sink to install in my bedroom, which is in fact a bit more like a mini apartment)?

Here’s who they are (pictures to come soon):

Miguel, my host father: a happy, happy man, curious about American culture; sits at the dinner table repeating random words in English like fork, spoon, sugar, carrots; works hard picking fruit on the land and in nearby communities to sell to vendors who attend farmer’s markets.

Carmen, my host mother: a warm gentle woman with long sable-colored hair with streaks of gray always in a pony tail who makes homemade tortillas every morning; owns the local pulperia (a mini-all-purpose store) so, nearly everybody in town knows her.

Annabelle, my 24-year-old host sister: a smart, well-educated, easy-going young woman who teaches math at a high-school in a nearby town; loves politics and is rooting for the first woman president in Costa Rica in the upcoming elections next February.

Rosybelle, my 22-year-old host sister: doesn’t live here but visits on the weekends; a more-traditional Costa Rican young woman who loves high heels; studying human resources at university and working in another province of Costa Rica.

Raquel, my 18-year-old host sister: a funky, typical high-schooler who loves her friends; is curious about American culture; is studying tourism; heading to college next year, and moved out of her bedroom into a spare one for me to use indefinitely.

And I can’t go on without mentioning my neighbors. They are the owners of El Toucanet Lodge (www.eltoucanet.com), so that means for all you friends and family looking to visit, I could not recommend a more beautiful, relaxing place to stay with a peaceful, romantic ambience. Edna is a warm, spiritual, lovely Costa Rican and her husband Gary is a laid-back American from LA who has barely been back to the States twice in nearly 20 years. Together they run a great business (with excellent food) and have brought a lot of good things to this community through the lodge. They also let me use their wi-fi and come over for the occasional dinner. How lucky I am.

So that’s my life as of late, and the people in it. It feels nice to be done with training and to be finally getting to the point of why I came here. Right now, it’s gray out and pouring down rain on the tin roof above me, it’s this way nearly every afternoon until November. I left my cobalt blue rain boots at home, so I am looking forward to buying a pair of tall black rubber rain boots here. Shortly, I’m walking up the road to the Lodge to dine with a couple from Chicago (music professors) staying at the lodge. They so generously offered for me to join them this evening, and I eagerly obliged. Today is my ninth day at my site; it humbles and excites me to think about all the experiences yet to be had.

Street life in a nearby community (mine is not so hustling and bustling):

Time - noun, the indefinite continued progress of existence

2009-06-12T17:15:00.002-06:00

I have arrived at my site, and my two years as a Peace Corps volunteer have officially begun. And here, I am discovering, I lead a very simple, spontaneous life. I usually wake up bright and early with the Costa Rican sun, or with the typical Costa Rican sounds that permeate my thin wooden walls in my mountain community that is supposedly so quiet Lonely Planet says you can hear the coffee drying. These typical sounds include cows, roosters, washing machines, people speaking Spanish in the road, birds, dogs barking, and the list goes on. Though it may sound like I am living in a hustling and bustling metropolitan tropical locale, it is quite the opposite. I usually head out for a walk to enjoy the fresh mountain air and the rolling emerald mountains blanketed with coffee plantations and apple orchards. Upon return, breakfast usually consists of some type of fruit – pineapple, mango, papaya, banana – and pan casero (the typical bread), or if I’m lucky, cereal or oatmeal (I can no longer do rice and beans three times a day).

Then I usually stroll into town (by strolling I mean walking down a beautiful dirt road lined on both sides with bright green pastures and streams), sometimes with an agenda for a meeting or two, but most times I usually just take what comes my way. For example, I had plans the other morning to head to the school to help paint a mural. On the way into town, I ran into Don Lorenzo, a warm, elderly gentleman who sells apples from a fruit stand in front of his house. His greeting welcomed me to stop and talk. I introduced myself to the man standing at his fruit stand, Rodolfo. Turns out Rodolfo is just the person I needed to meet. Not only is he Don Lorenzo’s son, but he also makes furniture in a shop in his house (could be a potential skill to learn in the next two years), and lucky for me, is the President of the Junta de Educacion, or the Board of Education at the school, just the person I need to talk to to make connections. After spending a good portion of time talking about projects in my community, I forgot what I was doing and where I was going. Once I realized it, I continued into town towards school and began to help with the mural. Later that morning a woman on the bus asked if I was the Peace Corps volunteer in town and asked if I needed a place to live, and that it would make her very happy if I came and lived with her.,.this is after the school director called two families telling them I needed a place to live (which I didn’t). When the lunch hour rolls around, nearly all shuts down. People retreat to their houses and the sound of forks clinking against plates can be heard from the open doors when one walks down the road between 11:45 and 1. For lunch, I never know where I am going to be, and I never turn down the offer to dine with someone new. Lunch always consists of rice and beans, and usually some type of salad or picadillo, tortillas and freshly made fruit juice. Friday for example, after lunch I returned to the school to sit in on the theater class practicing for a play that will show in July. I laughed internally to myself as I found myself practicing play lines with 5th grade peaches and apples in the school play. While at the school that very same day, Arturo, a man I had met earlier in the week came by to see if I would help him learn to design brochures for his mountain cabanas that he owns for a tourism fair. Also that same day, the son of a woman I met who runs a used clothing store dropped by to bring me a newspaper I was looking to read. When 5 o’clock rolled around, and it was dumping down rain, and I was found sans umbrella for my 20 minute walk home, I passed time just sitting at the school waiting for the rain to stop. It never did, but the preschool teacher lent me her umbrella for a not-so wet walk home. That night, Friday, I found myself banging on phone books with my 5-year-old neighbor for nearly an hour, making rhythms and repeating them back to each other. I’m usually in bed under my bug net by 8:30 or 9 with a good book, my computer, or a cup of tea. Again, the next day is all repeats, with a few variations. Simplicity.

During these first three months as a PCV, we have to just take life as it comes. We have no agenda, no one to report to, no 9-5 job, simply the goal of getting to know our community, getting to know the people, the projects, the desires, the hopes, and their history. For these first three months we are simply students, with the task to write a 30 page in-depth diagnostic report about our community, about their strengths, weaknesses, projects, goals, failures, problems, etc. This will in turn lead up to create sustainable projects that are wanted and needed by the community. Right now two years seems like a long time. But the concept of time in the Peace Corps is so different than the time I knew in the states. And I’m not talking about the fact that it’s 9:16 at night and I can hardly keep my eyes open. I’m talking more about the fact that time is warped here. The minutes go by slow, the hours-less slow, the days-fast, and the months-they hardly exist. And if I have something to look forward to, nothing exists in the meantime. Tomorrow is Saturday, I have a whole week ahead of me, and in fact I still have almost two years ahead of me, but I know that Saturday will happen, and I will know many new faces tomorrow, but after Saturday, my family comes to visit in January. That will be here before I can even blink. Back in the states, January would seems like an eternity away, a summer away, and a semester worth of school away. But here, January is just around the corner. Time is so indefinite, so transforming, so existing, and progressive, and here I am just so wrapped up in it...existing. It’s not even ten, and I am already nearly asleep. Farewell, until next time…when I explain my lovely host family that I am living with for the first six months. Think apple orchard, avocado trees, peach trees, and one surreal white horse that roams among them.

On pain and becoming an official Peace Corps volunteer

2009-05-31T15:23:00.013-06:00

Friday we officially committed the next 24 months of our lives to Costa Rica...legally, I am bound to serve this country until May 29, 2011. This means training has ended and we are finally beginning what we have come here to do.....be Peace Corps Volunteers. Here’s some pictures from the big ceremony.

The ambassador and the Peace Corps Costa Rica Country Director:

Adrienne and Chase becoming official:

That´s me becoming official:

Okay, I´m official!

This is the group of Children, Youth and Families volunteers with program managers and spanish language facilitators:

So with that being said (and shown), today, Sunday, all of the new volunteers are going to their sites all scattered throughout the country. That is, everyone except me. Why? you ask. Well, the answer is in the two trips to the hospital, the two shots in the buttocks, the two xrays, the one abdominal sonogram, the five types of medicine, and the two blood tests I have had over the past week. Don’t be alarmed. It sounds worse than it is.

Earlier this week, I left our second to last Spanish class due to the beginnings of an illness: cramping and pain in the abdomen and pain in the lungs. Later that day it all worsened. By nightfall, it was unbearable, and instead of trying to force myself to sleep in loads of uncomfortable pain, I called the Peace Corps Medical Officer and told her I would be escorting myself to the ER in San Jose. Trying to explain the type of pain I was having in to the doctors at the hospital in Spanish must have been entertaining. I think it probably translated to something a little bit like this in English: My lungs hurt. I can’t breathe. There is pain in my abdomen. It feels [motion with hands a symbol that is supposed to mean tight]. I can’t breathe strongly. I cant be flat in my bed. Needless to say, they got the point and sent me to the ER for an xray. I thought my Spanish was pretty good until the point when the xray technician left the room for me to change for my xray. There I waited eagerly for him to return in my hot pink bra, anxious to know the source of my pain. He opened the door and quickly said "No, no, no, camisa SIN braseirre," meaning shirt no bra. I understood the opposite: bra no short. Ha, I’m sure he got a good laugh at that one…the gringo that came in and wanted to have an xray done topless.

Anyway, long story short, I was told I had an infection of the lining of my lungs…inflammation that caused those breathing pains, oftentimes known as pluerisy. Fast forward to Thursday, after being on three medicines and not getting better, I take myself back to the hospital. More tests, and pokes and prods later, I was told some ambiguous thing about my lungs and nerves and given two more medicines.

I made it to my swearing-in ceremony early the next morning eventhough I was in extreme pain as I took the official oath. So here I sit, in my training community, the last, the only Tico 19 former Peace Corps TRAINEE left. Though it’s loud and cars and motos buzz by and the rain pounds on the tin roof above me, it is so silent. All my training mates have scattered throughout this land, eager and ready to embark on this adventure we all came here to do. Soon, with a little more rest, TLC, and a few more days of these meds, I will be back on my feet, heading south to my new home as well, ready to insert myself into the little community of 400 in the mountains of Costa Rica.

Read below to see where you are going to come visit me.

2009-05-10T20:26:00.008-06:00

Friday was site assignment day.

This means two things:

1) After much ambiguity during this whole Peace Corps process, and months of people asking where I am going and not being able to give them an answer, I finally know where I am going to be living. So here is your answer.

2) More importantly, this is the post where I get to brag about my site placement so I can entice some visitors my way!

Where to begin? Well, first, due to publicity of this blog, I am unable to post the specific name of my site for Peace Corps security reasons, so I posted a picture below showing you where I am going. However, don’t be discouraged. I will tell you plenty so that you will shut down this computer and be on the next plane to Costa Rica.

So, here´s where I am going:

Okay, okay, here´s more: On May 30th I will be packing up my life from the past three months and head south. For the next two years I am going to be living in the Los Santos region of Costa Rica about an hour and a half from the capital of San Jose. Now, for this I am grateful: close proximity to the capital, the beach and national parks (more on this later).

Here´s a picture from the Internet of the general region:

And here´s a picture of a church in one of the communities:

But that´s enough photos for now....since I didn´t take them, and I will be visiting in a week. So stay tuned for more.

First, the Los Santos region is mostly known for it’s coffee plantations (some of the best coffee in the world comes from this region) and stunning topography (very mountainous) and scenic beauty. When my program manager announced this site, he said it was a photographer’s playground, and before I knew it I was walking to the front of the room to add my name to the map of Costa Rica. I guess I will begin to explore landscape photography…

So, more specifically my site…I am located in the Los Santos National Forest Reserve at about 6,200 hundred feet elevation next to Tapanti National Park and not far from Chirripo National Park (the highest mountain in CR is located here, so for all you hikers out there…). Not only I am one of the coldest Peace Corps site, but I am also thrilled about the fact that I will get to wear all my scarves and fleeces and an occasional beanie at night. I was beginning to wonder how I was going to handle this heat for two years, now I don’t have to! Also for those who like birds and watching them, you can come spend time at my site looking for the elusive Quetzal, a rare bird that is prolific in this area. Also, this region is one of the best trout fishing regions in Costa Rica. Aside from coastal sport fishing, this is where people come inland to fish for trucha, or rainbow trout in the many clear mountain rivers. Rare to most other parts of Costa Rica, this region is also rich with apple trees, avocado trees, and peach trees. And I am only a couple hours from some great beaches and four hours from Panama if you like crossing borders. Not to mention there are several mountain lodges scattered throughout the valley, so there is no lack of places to stay. The Internet described my site as a once in a lifetime experience you will never forget…a dream town that you would think it never existed. But it does.

But folks, don’t get me wrong, I am in the Peace Corps, not the Posh Corps and they place us in these communities for a reason. So yes, it sounds wonderful, and I’m sure it is, but as with any place, it also has its problems. And this is where I hopefully come in.

But if mountains, forest reserves, national parks, birds, quality coffee, fishing, stunning topography, fresh fruit trees, beaches, cool weather in an incredibly hot country, and me, doesn’t entice you, I don’t know what does. My door is open!

Freckles and Del Monte Pineapples.

2009-05-05T19:48:00.021-06:00

I’m not sure if it’s the food, the water, the sun, or the culture. But the other morning as I was diligently smearing my usual SPF 100 all over my face, I noticed, for the first time in my life, I have freckles. My nose is covered in a mask of spots and part of my cheeks as well. No matter how many times I got sun in the past, I never developed freckles as a result. But now I have. I just think it’s interesting. And there’s really no other point to the story than that.

Can you see my freckles? I´ve got ´em on my nose:

So now I will begin with my real blog post…

Living with host families can be awkward. And by awkward I also mean draining, uncomfortable, humorous, challenging, unfamiliar, confining, tricky, precarious, entertaining, wacky, and sometimes just downright ridiculous.

This past week, I spent time in the southern part of Costa Rica on a site visit visiting two different current volunteers. The purpose of the visit is to get us into the field to see the ins and outs of being an official Peace Corps Volunteer. During these visits, we stay with host families. So, I left behind the comforts of my own home and family near San Jose that I have been living with since March to go be a stranger in the house of two new families for a few days each.

The first site visit was a small indigenous community of about 700 people near the larger city of Buenos Aires. Here the roads were made of stones and dirt….rich, crimson-colored dirt that was contrasted with the lush rolling emerald Costa Rican countryside, the two complimentary colors unknowingly bringing out the beauty in the other. The houses were spread far apart, cars were few and far between, the soccer field was the town’s hang out, there was one small school, one high school, lots of roosters and chickens, and no grocery store. But since this is about host families, back to that…my host mother and father were a married couple 4 years younger than myself…23, married one year, and with a 4-month-old baby who didn’t cry once during the night of the three nights I was there. Their house was simple. Made of cement. The walls inside were more like partitions made of wooden planks. They didn’t reach the ceiling, but rather left space so that the tin roof that covered the entire structure could be seen throughout the whole house. Not to mention any noise could be heard throughout the whole house as well. My room had a mattress on the floor and an old wooden closet. It was simple, basic, and extremely different that where I live right now during training. The couple was young, seemingly educated, and more than willing to go out of their way to make me feel comfortable.

Mid week, we moved 30 minutes down the road to a neighborhood of Buenos Aires called Santa Cruz. Here you had many more than 700 inhabitants, more like 5,000-ish. Pineapple and sugar cane fields surrounded the city, and high numbers of people, including my host father, worked at Pindeco, the company that packs and ships Del Monte pineapples to the US. Because of this, every meal not only came with rice and beans, but also with pineapple. And if you didn’t get pineapple in slices, you got it in a juice form. And if you didn’t get rice (wait, that never happened)…correction, in addition to rice on the plate, you also got it in juice form mixed with the pineapple – fresco de piña con arroz, a delicious, refreshing drink. My host mother was a generous, older, caring woman of short stature with a hint of eccentricism. She willingly offered to wash my nearly completely dirty weeks’ worth of sweaty clothes. The awkward part came when she came to me after lunch two different times once day holding two of my shirts up to her commenting how much she liked them, asking me if I like them, and continuing to stand there with a questioning look on her face. Now, in a culture of indirectness this was to be interpreted as “won’t you please gift these shirts to me?” At the time, I knew what she wanted with this seemingly innocent compliment, so with my American ways, I played ignorant and just thanked her profusely for the compliment and for washing my clothes. Phew, crisis diverted (all in Spanish, not to forget). Well, not so fast. Later that week, one of those two shirts mysteriously disappeared from my clothes pile. Again, I played ignorant, of course to not accuse her of stealing my shirt, and simply asked if she had taken it to iron. When I did, she quickly said yes and grabbed the shirt from her bedroom and handed it back to me. Upon my departure, after 20 questions of how I liked living in her house, she gifted me a small trinket of Mary and Jesus on a wooden base…something that she obviously pulled off her shelf and handed to me with all its nicks and bangs and dust. She gave me well wishes for Mary and Jesus to protect me always and sent me on my way, not without her phone number and a promise from me to call her.

Here is a comparison of my two rooms during my site visit:

The point is, these two experiences couldn’t have been more interesting…and awkward. From the quieter young couple to the eccentric woman in her 50s, I have had a lot of awkward moments…just in the past week (too many to even retell). I can’t explain how good it felt to get ‘home’ to my training community and be back in the comforts of my own bed, my own family, my usual food, my room with walls that reach the ceiling, and the thought that things are starting to feel comfortable. But just when they are really starting to feel that way, we up and move to another host family. In just one week, I find out where I will be placed for the next two years. And in four weeks I will move yet again to go start over with that new host family in my new site.

When you think about it, it really is interesting how so many families let complete strangers (Peace Corps volunteers) into their house in countries all around the world. Inevitably, when two different cultures collide, there is bound to be some tiredness (always trying to speak Spanish); some uncomfortableness (indirect, culturally different questions); some humor (figuring out how to open a Costa Rican lock at 11 pm when all the people are already all in bed); some challenge (figuring out how to not eat the 4 pounds of rice they give you); some tricky situations (figuring out how to get your clothes back); some entertainment (the mountain of people in the house at all times); and sometimes things that are just downright ridiculous (all of it). But the biggest lesson I learned this week is to laugh and embrace this awkwardness, because with time, things will change. Besides, by the time I make it to my fifth host family at the end of this month, I should be an old pro.

A few pictures from the site visit.

Those fields are fields of Del Monte pineapple. If you´ve ever eaten one of those, chances are it came from here! Eat up:

Government housing in Costa Rica:

We did a group project of painting recycling bins and shared the importance of recycling:

This was my and my friend Josh´s group of girls whom we helped....they had the best bin by far:

Then we hiked to the top of a mountain and saw pineapple and sugar cane fields for miles:

And finally, did our fair share of goofing off:

The end.

Friday, I find out the fate of the next two years! Hope it´s somewhere good!

Two hydrogens and an oxygen that tried to be milk and coffee

2009-04-23T20:42:00.002-06:00

Water. It’s a hot topic all around the world. And when you’re in the Peace Corps, even hotter. Since arriving in Costa Rica, I have only been drinking boiled water. They say the water here is safe, but every now and then there can be a bicho in it that could very easily make you sick. So for now, I continue to boil it, like they recommend. But that’s not the point of this story. The point is the following: I never know what’s going to come out of my faucet.

Last week, I woke up, bleary-eyed one morning and headed to my (private) bathroom still half-asleep to brush my teeth. I turned on the faucet and pouring out came what looked like muddy flood runoff or slightly watery coffee. Costa Rica being the land of coffee, the latter didn’t seem too impossible. It woke me up rather abruptly and I questioned my host family. They seemed to believe that this was a common yearly occurrence after Holy Week here…something having to do with cleaning out some sort of pipes or system (at least that’s what I understood in Spanish). So we just waited it out and drank the next run of clear water. Earlier this week, I went to wash my face in the bathroom, and this time milk came out. Okay, not milk literally, but the water was as white as milk pouring right out of the faucet like you could just hold a bowl full of granola below it and grab a spoon. Instead, I washed my face with it, and who knows if it made it cleaner or dirtier, but I wasn’t really hungry for granola. Finally, two nights ago, nothing came out of my faucet. Nothing. No water to be found…not even milky nor muddy. No one in my host family was sure why, and no one else (neighbors, etc) was experiencing this. We just waited it out (it lasted about a day or so), and though it didn’t last long, it seemed much longer. And finally finally, on the topic of ‘no water’, this morning, in the shower halfway through, my high pressure, rain-shower-like showerhead slowed to nearly a dribble and turned scalding hot. I quickly finished and proceeded on with my morning in my regular fashion.

After such incidents of surprise lately by what does (or doesn’t) come out of my faucet, I have really begun to appreciate water. Pure, clean, clear water…something we maybe take for granted in the US to always flow clear and potable with the turn of a knob. But since being here I have learned a lot about and appreciated water (I don’t even have it nearly as hard as my friends in the Peace Corps in other parts of the world). So, even though my water may have bichos in it, I can just boil them out; If it’s milky or muddy, I just have to be patient and wait till it runs clear again; If there is none, let’s hope I didn’t just go for a run or hope I have some boiled reserve in the fridge to drink. It’s that simple.

Soon, the water will be flowing plentiful, but this time from the sky.

And it won’t stop until November.

Sleep tight. Don´t let the bedbugs bite.

2009-04-19T20:10:00.005-06:00

This week marks the midway point of training. This means three things - one: we still have six weeks to go (ugh); two: we’ve already completed six weeks (yay); and three: it’s about time my first big challenge comes up (more on that later).

The other day someone said something to me that really resonated with the state of things lately. They said that time in training (or Peace Corps in general) passes in the following manner – slow days, fast months. To me, that couldn’t be truer. Training is a period of intense learning whose days seem to drag by, yet it’s hard to believe I’ve been here over a month. During training, not only are we learning how to carry out international development work five days a week (sometimes six), but among that, we are learning how to design sustainable projects, how to do community analysis, how to speak like a true Tico, how to make authentic Costa Rican food, how to get around the country safely, how to culturally adjust, how to deal with unwanted attention, how to implement non-formal education techniques, how to gesture a’la Tico and all the meanwhile maintain a level of enthusiasm and professionalism while we feel our way around this murky pool with our eyes somewhat closed. Phew! And that only covers one-fourth of it. So, with that in mind, I’m happy we’re halfway there. In three weeks we find out our permanent site placement for the two years. I’m learning more and more each day what I want for my site, and hope that wherever it is, it will fit me well (and elicit more than a few visitors).

Until now, things have been going quite smoothly in training. That’s why I thought it’s about time my first big challenge comes up. Well, call it a challenge or not, it’s just one of those things that is added to the list of cultural adjustment difficulties; one of those things that just makes a hard day a little bit harder; one of those things that makes you want to go retreat to your own comfortable world of whatever bit of American culture you have with you – for me that is my music and my Yoga Journal and News Photographer magazines my mother sent from home.

So onto my situation…….for the past month or so my legs have been covered in bites…..an absurd amount of bites…more like it looked like I had chicken pox or some rare disease. At first I thought they were just mosquito bites, and then I realized that this was not possible considering I wear repellent almost daily and mosquitoes aren’t really that big of a problem right now. After my real mother and a couple friends here in the Peace Corps suggested this, I began to research the situation of bedbugs on the Internet. Turns out, I most likely have bedbugs. Though this is not 100% confirmed, my situation seemed all too similar to that of my research. So there you have it, problem solved. Weeeelllll, not really. Source of unknown bites solved. Situation? Not solved.

As one knows, getting rid of bedbugs is quite a process…..if you live in the States, that is. But if you live in Costa Rica and aren’t all that sure what bedbugs are, all you do is spray your mattress with Raid, put it out in the hot Costa Rican sun all day, continue to inhale fumes of Raid nightly, and hope for the best. Well, that’s what I was instructed to do. So that’s what I did. But until I was able to do that, I took certain precautionary measures to prevent any further bites. These measures, perhaps a bit extreme, gave me, if anything, peace of mind. They included the following:

1. Sneaking around my host family’s kitchen late at night looking for garbage bags to sleep on.
2. Lining my bed with the garbage bags.
3. Wearing socks and tucking my socks into my pants.
4. Wearing longs sleeves and a scarf (if I had mittens, I would have worn those too).
5. Sleeping with the light on (since bed bugs like dark and warmth).
6. Wearing an eye mask to block out the light.
7. Sleeping on top of the bed, on top of the garbage bags, sans covers.
8. Fan on full power (of course, to blow any bugs away).

See below for this ridiculousness:

I have slept two nights in my supposed bedbug-free bed. I have to believe that the power of positive thinking works, because I’m hoping that it can overpower that fact that Raid actually probably doesn’t kill bedbugs. Buuuuuuuut, we’ll see. I mean, what is Peace Corps without ants in my tea, and bugs in my bed. Right?

In other news, today I made cream cheese brownies, and got three packages from Mom. Now, that’s a good day in the Peace Corps.

Side note: I have been meaning to post this picture for awhile now. It´s my last live memory of my parents at the Denver International Airport. Thinking of you daily!

Not much to say....but some to show.

2009-04-14T18:52:00.006-06:00

These first few pictures are from my family´s cabin in the mountains that we went to over Holy Week.....a time when pretty much the entire country shuts down.

This is their pool which I swam in every day:

We saw toucans, igunas and hunted for Tilapia......with a gun. Then we ate them for lunch (the tilapia, not the toucans nor iguanas):

This was lunch one day, and it was DEEEEELICIOUS:

Then, when we returned, I spent Easter with two fellow Peace Corps trainees. We went to the mountains and hiked to some waterfalls. It was steep and we were soaked in sweat by the time we arrived:

But, here we are!

That´s all I´ve got for now. I will share more....in words, again soon. My mind is overloaded right now after hitting the books again.

Farmer´s markets, serendipitous discoveries, and fish-egg-looking fruits

2009-04-07T20:22:00.030-06:00

Todays post is dedicated to my lovely friend Mary Rizos, who I think about rather often. It is dedicated to her because she is also a photographer and is the queen of dyptychs (two photos paired together). I´ve created a few dyptychs in her honor of todays activities.

First, it began on a street corner waiting for our Language and Culture Facilitator to arrive to begin class:

Once she arrived, we had class in the kitchen of a fellow trainee´s host family. There we learned one of the most important lessons ever - how to cook arrecache, tortillas, and of course, something sweet, arroz con leche (rice pudding Costa Rican style), the best part? We got to enjoy it all, only an hour after eating lunch:

After class, my host father, who owns a fruteria, goes to the Ferria de Agricultor (farmer´s market) to buy all his produce for his tienda for the next morning. It was a lot like Missoula´s farmer´s market. And by a lot, I mean.........well, not very much, but some similar produce at least, and by some, I mean.......well, I can´t think of one thing actually:

Below, the picture on the left was at the market. The picture on the right is my host father in front of his produce shop (it was closed....we just dropped off the goods):

Oh, and I almost forgot.....the importance of the title of this blog. I´ve jotted down some moments over the past week of things I thought were interesting, difficult, culturally challenging, fun, exciting, random, etc. Here they are:

First, I really miss Peanut Butter (it´s few and far between here), so when I was in San Jose a couple weeks ago, I splurged on a six dollar jar of JIF. One night in my room I was craving a spoonful, but since I had nothing normal to dip in the peanut butter, I decided to try the Starburst I had left over from my time in the States. Much to my surprise, Strawberry Starburst and Peanut Butter became the most serendipitous discovery I have made in a long time. (Hint hint: we don´t have Starburst here, and now I´m all out. Wink wink).

Second, I laugh at myself when I have to try and explain something difficult in Spanish. Examples as of late are explaining the meaning of AC/DC´s song ´Overdose´ to my 30-something-year-old host brother, and also explaining the meaning of ´picky´in Spanish, as in ´I´m picky with my beers and I´m picky with my boys.´ Apparently, they have no such word.

Third, was a lovely, very Costa Rican moment. I was hanging out with my host father in our backyard, and he picks this ball-looking thing from a tree, pops open the top and hands it to me with a spoon. I look inside and it appears to be filled with slimy fish eggs, each one covered in a clear amniotic-type sac. I reluctantly put some on my spoon and place them inside my mouth. Surprisingly, this granadilla fruit has now become one of my favorite things to eat!

Finally, on the topic of food. I think of my friend Laura who is in the Peace Corps right now in Uganda......there she is eating potatoes and grasshoppers for dinner as there is often a food shortage in her town. Here, I think I eat every two hours. I am never hungry, always full, and always willing to try new foods. What a contrast. But on that note, I have also begun to eat bugs. Here, there are hormigas, or ants, everywhere. They infest foods, they are on my bedroom floor, they are on the kitchen counter, they are in my shower. They´re tiny, but they´re there. A few days ago, I realized I had been eating them in my cereal. When I poured the last bowl from the bag, I noticed what I thought were whole grains in my Komplete all along, actually turned out to be a bunch of little teeny tiny ants that I had been munching on every morning with my 2% milk. I promptly threw that bowl away. But today, when I noticed ants floating in my tea water, I chalked it all up to a cultural experience, and continued to sip my morning Earl Grey.

Dia-a-dia, dia-por-dia

2009-04-05T14:55:00.017-06:00

Friday during safety/security and cultural training we had a session on culture shock. Basically, what I took from it is the following:

1. I’m over the honeymoon stage.
2. I’m on a steep upwards (sometimes downwards) hill towards temporary adjustment.
3. The hill will go back down yet, again.
4. Eventually I will get back up that hill towards feeling at home.

Also, the biggest thing I learned was to take things dia-por-dia, or day-by-day. So that’s what I’ve begun to do. Looking ahead to the next two years can be difficult and somewhat challenging, but my new motto has helped me to enjoy the little things of the Pura Vida which I am so lucky to be living.

In honor of celebrating dia-por-dia, I will post a number of pictures of my day-to-day life. You can see more photos at: CLICK HERE!

(Oh, and I´m sure many of you won´t believe this, but I was forced by my situation to buy a POINT AND SHOOT Canon camera. I know.....unheard of! But there are definitely times where it would be a huge risk to be carrying around my large camera.....they place Peace Corps volunteers in marginal communities for a reason. Anyway, some of these pics are from that camera and some are from my regular one).

Drinking my first Pipa, fresh from the tree:

This is the house I live in:
This is the street I live on (and my goofy host dad, Jorge):

My backyard is filled with sweet flora and fauna. Today I saw an iguana there, but this is a picture of something else in my backyard:

Hiking in the Chilamate Rainforest Eco-Retreat Center in Sarapiqui:

Presenting seasonal calendars during Technical Training (a community assessment tool):
Emilia, our language facilitator and my language class in Language Training:
Eating a cake I made for my mama tica´s birthday:

And finally, I just had to share the video of my host mom´s birthday party. It was she, my host father, and my friend Lindsay, also a Peace Corps Volunteer (small, but lovely). And please ignore the horrible singing (and the fact that we sang the song wrong):

Roosters, Goats, Birds, Cows and Pipas: Which one doesn't belong?

2009-03-30T22:17:00.007-06:00

Those are all animals that I have seen in the past four days. Except the last one is something I ate/drank. This past weekend I got a glimpse of what life in the Peace Corps is like. I have spent the past four days in a town in the NE part of Costa Rica called Sarapaqui with a current PC volunteer. My mom informed me that the guidebooks call Sarapaqui a hot spot for adrenaline junkies, with lots of opportunities for whitewater rafting, kayaking, ziplining, etc. Though, none of those activities were on my agenda this weekend to peak into the life of a current Peace Corps volunteer, many other things were. Some of them were firsts, and include the following:

1. I drank and ate my first Pipa (coconut water and the coconut) 30 seconds after it was pulled from the tree.

2. Met people from South Africa, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Canada, and the US.

3. Did yoga in the Chilamate rainforest (www.chilamaterainforest.com) with some of the above persons (which was actually more like Bikram's yoga due to the temperature).

4. Hiked through the Chilamate Rainforest and was eaten alive by bugs (probably carrying Malaria and Dengue, but hopefully not).

5. Ate my first fried cannoli (the italian pasta filled with cheese, but Costa Rican style, fried, like most things here).

6. Practiced english with a High School class preparing for jobs in the field of Tourism in Costa Rica

7. Ate a mango on the street corner.

8. Showered two times every day and enjoyed the cold showers for the first time ever (thank you, humidity).

9. Drank a coke (unheard of for me!).

10. Got a tour of the town/village by three local young boys who also included the history of the area before and after the earthquake, and important social problems they see in their community.

What a weekend it was. I will post more pictures from my camera, this is just one from the PC volunteer's camera who I visited. Mine to come soon.

Hola, ¿Como esta? Buena suerte.

2009-03-19T17:57:00.017-06:00

For any of you that know Spanish, you know that the title of this post means, “Hello, how are you? Good luck.” Sounds like a little bit of an odd sentence……but not too odd. Unless of course you are meeting your host mother for the first time. Yes, that’s right, out of nervousness, excitement, and partly my language level (even though I got placed at Intermediate Middle and know better than to greet someone with ´Buena suerte´), I mumbled those exact words as I leaned in to greet my new host mother with a kiss on the right cheek (the official greeting of Costa Rica). I hoped she didn’t hear it, as I sort of mumbled it under my breath once I realized what was coming out of my mouth. I tried to brush it off with repeated “Buenas Dias” and lots of smiling. Thankfully, after that encounter they still decided to keep me.

And so it began…three months of living with my new Tico family during Peace Corps training. And by ‘living with’ I mean sitting with, smiling at, awkwardly laughing with, unknowingly nodding at, and enjoying new cultural situations and language barriers galore. Though I still continue to make language mistakes and say things like, “yesterday we will go to the grocery store and bought roosters,” or ´Is this the soup I use to wash the dishes?´ I try and remind myself that I’ve only been here a week, and I have much to learn. My family is wonderful though. I have my own entrance, bedroom and bathroom. We have a big back yard with a common area for parties (most of their family lives on the same street) with an outdoor bar, ping-pong table, and lots of couches and chairs. The backyard is filled with new and interesting fauna and flora including many wild orchids. Today while in the yard, my host dad pointed out a flower that I apparently ate in a meal the day before. Huh, not sure what it was but I must have liked it. Anyway, we have two roosters (that wake me up at 4 am right outside my window), many birds, a large green parrot, and a golden retriever named Bruno. I am lucky for sure, being the animal-lover I am. I live with Ana and Jorge, and two of their three 30-something-year-old sons.

My training community is semi-urban, but a bit more semi-rural. I have Spanish class three days a week, six hours a day with two other trainees. It is about a 25-minute walk to the classroom, which strangely enough is located in a funeral home next to a cemetery. Today we had a lovely picnic in front of the cemetery under the intense Costa Rican sun. My SPF 20 sunscreen that I brought has proven useless, as my skin is already red. One day I week I meet with my entire program training group (18) in a nearby training community, and the last day I travel to the capitol of San Jose to meet with the entire group of volunteers (52) for safety and health training. Days are long, and they don’t end when we come home…..we have to continue to stretch our brains to say simple things like, today I did this or that. I usually retire to my bedroom around 8 or so, as it’s nice to have some alone time and rest the brain. Getting used to a new culture is extremely mentally exhausting. Now I see why I am here two years. I’m hoping just living will become more natural/secondhand/easy.

All in all, I am loving things so far. I couldn’t be happier with my Tico family, my training community, and of course, the amazing food I am fed more than three times a day (not to mention my host father owns a fruiteria, thus every meal is filled with bowls of fresh tropical fruit). And for all those who know how much I hate coffee and swore I would not become a coffee drinker here……well, there’s a small chance that may become a reality. I had my first cafecito the first day with my family, and I enjoyed it. Of course it was chock-full of milk and sugar, but less bitter and more pure than in Los Estados Unidos. For now, I will stick with my té, but time can do so much.

Algunas fotos para ustedes:

Our retreat center where we spent the first five days:

A few new Peace Corps friends: Morgan (very serious), Brigitte, Lindsay, y Joshua at retreat:

Some ruins of an old church destroyed in an earthquake in Cartago near San Jose:

Getting ice cream en Cartago:

On the bus to our new host families, Me, Josh and Lindsay:

A church of Our Lady of Los Angeles in Cartago, and a pilgrimage site for Costa Ricans:

Te y cafe time!!!!

In my bedroom at my new host family with my gorgeous mosquito net:

The most important lesson of living in Costa Rica.....I learned on day one

2009-03-12T23:50:00.018-06:00

Yesterday I arrived in Costa Rica! And it was then that I learned the most important lesson of all - we should expect unfamiliar movements from the earth on a fairly regular basis. Both simple and strange at the same time.

It was a particularly beautiful day here and we were on break from retreat sessions. Many of us were lying out in the sun beneath the flowering tress enjoying the breeze. Suddenly, I felt a strange movement. I brushed it off to being hot, tired, and probably dizzy from my 5 hours of aggregate sleep the two previous nights. Well, that wasn't the case. When someone said "do you feel that?" I realized I wasn't alone. It continued on for what seemed like 3 minutes, but in reality was only about 20 seconds. It was a slow undulating movement that emanated from deep below the ground on which we were all lying. One of the Peace Corps directors came running out asking if we all felt that. The movement? The result of a 5.9 magnitude earthquake that hit down in the South Pacific region of Costa Rica, and the aftermath is what we felt (i.e tremors or small magnitude 'quakings of the earth', not to be confused with 'earthquakes.') Important insertion here: we were told that although it was 5.9 'earthquake' and that seems high on the ol' richter scale, that is not necessarily the case. So don't worry. 5.9 magnitude earthquakes can often never be felt.

When another small tremor happened again today while in Program Training Sessions, it later led us all to an intense Q & A regarding earthquakes versus tremors. And this is where I learned the most important lesson of all.

Costa Rica lies on what is called the Ring of Fire - a seismically active region that makes a ring throughout countries from the western part of North America down through South America to the Eastern part of Asia and the South Pacific. This I was aware of. However, I did not fully know the difference between earthquakes and tremors, the latter one being quite frequent around here. With tremors happening two out of the three days I have been here thus far, I would say that statement is pretty dead on. But they assure us not to worry. The term "earthquake" is used for movement of the earth's plates beyond a certain magnitude. But often times many of those cannot even be felt. A tremor was described to us as something much smaller. We were told a very clever way to think of a tremor - "it is simply the earth stretching.....it is good for it to stretch so it lets out some of its energy, thus preventing larger quakes and harsh movements from happening." We then went on to learn all the protocol should a larger quake happen.

So there you have it - the most important lesson of all, I learned on day one and two of 27 months in this beautiful country! Though I haven't seen much (airport to the retreat center only), I have a feeling I am going to really love it here. And even though the concept of experiencing tremors and earthquakes is new to me, and to be honest, a little trippy, next time there is a tremor I will remind myself that the earth is just stretching. When I stretch I feel much more grounded, collected, and in control of things. Let's just hope the earth does too.

For your viewing pleasure, three random pictures:

On the bus with one third of the group to the retreat center upon arrival in CR:

This is the field in which I experienced my first tremor (i.e the retreat center):

And finally, Costa Ricans know La Pura Vida (and love to eat GOOD food. Often.):

A plus B must equal C

2009-02-26T17:42:00.010-07:00

This is my disaster of a room right now (A):

These are my suitcases in which I will fit two years of my life (B):

I MUST PUT MY DISASTER OF A ROOM IN MY SUITCASES (C).

T minus 10 days.