Sleep tight. Don´t let the bedbugs bite.

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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

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.):