Time - noun, the indefinite continued progress of existence

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.