Miércoles el 7 de noviembre
I hung out with people my own age today! Sort of. Rebecca was invited to give a presentation to a class on sustainable development at the United Nations University for Peace in nearby Ciudad Colón, and she invited me along as her interpreter and to talk about my project with the association. I really enjoyed putting "guest lecturer for the UN University for Peace" on my resumé today. It was an adventure, and I was both glad and embarrassed that there was someone else who spoke Spanish in the room, to help me out when I missed things and to notice. It is a really cool place though. In this class of like ten students, there were students from the US, from Argentina, from Costa Rica, a couple from Africa, one of whom is going to bring Rebecca African seeds for her garden, and I don’t remember where else.
Lunch was pasta with pesto, and I really enjoyed eating American-style and watching the very international mix of students and talking to Don Rony, who I think is one of the coolest teachers I have ever met. I’m hoping to get some more information and maybe arrange a visit, both for me and for Katie T., since they have masters in peace and conflict studies and in international and human rights law.
After lunch, we took the U’s bus into Ciudad Colón, where we serendipitously caught a ride with a friend of Rebecca’s into San José. We bought the fabric for the dress Cecilia is making me, looked at shoes, hunted through the souvenir stores, and found the cutest manger scene as a gift for my mom. I wanted to get us ice cream at Pop’s on the way home, but Rebecca wanted to stop in the second hand clothing stores they have here filled with the extra clothes shipped in from American Good Wills, and we ran out of time for ice cream.
This has been a week of weird, weird dreams. In the last seven days, I have dreamed that I lost my virginity at a frat party, that I was a hired escort at a prom, and last night, various dreams involving water and old ladies. Those were probably due to the fact that due to heavy rains and landslides upstream, the usually very beautiful Río Tabarcia that runs past our house overflowed its banks and threatened to come up to the house. I was sitting in my room, sorting through photos, when first I got the warning from Rebecca that I had better unplug my electronics because if lightning struck, it could fry them. I spent a few minutes working from battery, and then was ignoring her warning, when she told me that I should pack a bag of essentials because they were preparing in case they needed to leave because the river had grown so much. This was my first experience actually preparing for an emergency, and I must say it is a worthwhile experience to have to go through one’s things and decide what things you don’t want to lose and what things can be pushed aside. I’d like to say I went with a pair of underwear, a pair of socks, and a light heart, but instead I filled my backpack with things I didn’t want to leave behind: my computer, my mp3 player, my bible, my map of Costa Rica with my journeys marked on it, my new shirt from Nicaragua, my camera, and the hideous number of drugs I need to have with me "just in case." We packed up the Land Rover – turns out I am not the only one; Rebecca brought her new silver shoes – and went to my dad’s aunt’s house across the property to wait.
The river shrunk; it’s back to its normal, wet tumult. I was forced to watch a dubbed episode of Hannah Montana – a Disney show that makes me fear for generations to come – and to converse with a very old woman who wasn’t entirely sure of the geographical difference between South Africa and South America, but who knew when the town was founded and who built the church, but that’s all the harm that came to me. Moreover, one of Rebecca’s friends from her education work, a twenty-something English teacher who lives upriver, called to let us know it was going down there, so we needn’t worry. In the meantime, at Rebecca’s behest, he invited me to the talent show at the church on Saturday. We’ll see whether I manage to make friends with someone about whom I know only what Rebecca has told me: he’s an attractive, brown-skinned, shy, recently-converted Catholic.
Today was much less of an adventure, but still interesting. I went with Rebecca and Nago (my dad’s name is Abednago; it makes me really happy) to one of the schools where she works to help a group of kids paint their outdoor tables. Encountering public education in another country is always an adventure; in Costa Rica, unlike in the US, if you don’t do well in your classes, you don’t move on. In the US, social promotion has led to students entering high school who can’t read. In Costa Rica, the lack thereof means that among this group of fourth- and fifth-graders with "discipline problems," there were several kids over the age of twelve. Maybe it was because we were outside painting, or because the kids respect Rebecca, but I didn’t see any behavioral issues with these kids beyond what is considered very low-grade "acting out" in all the schools I’ve attended. However, I have a dozen pictures of kids covered in green paint; I told them splatter-painted pants were quite the fashion in California, and they were all kinds of pleased with themselves. We ate munchies as lunch, and I stopped at the internet café for a delicious, $1.20 hour-and-a-half connected to the world. The water was icy, but I’ve eaten gallo pinto twice today, so I am pretty happy.
At the three-quarters mark:
Things I have gotten used to: ants in my coffee, cars whizzing by at ridiculous speeds, putting my toilet paper in the trash can instead of the toilet, walking uphill (to some extent), not having internet, the rain.
Things I am still freaked out/bothered by: toilets without seats, damp toilet paper, bugs in my bed, dogs licking my feet, cold showers, the fact that trash cans full of used toilet paper smell bad, being covered from chin to ankle in bug bites, the fact that I know fewer than five Costa Ricans my own age.
Lunes el 29 de octubre
Today was my first day with the goats, and although I really enjoyed it, I am sad about the fact that I can’t get the smell of goat udder off my hands. Also about the fact that I didn’t bathe completely today because I still can’t figure out how to make the shower warmer, and I have drunk ice water warmer than this shower. However, I ate very well today, including my first glass of goat milk (it’s really not as different as you might think) and two different not wholly intentional eatings of animals (delicious grilled chicken at lunch and yucky ham in my sandwich at quasi-dinner). I also went to the meeting of the association of organic producers of which Rebecca (my host mom) and Maritza (the goat lady) are a part. Like most meetings, it was productive and even interesting, but way longer than it needed to be, and I was really tired by the end. And then we got to walk home. In the dark. Over a scary, wet bridge with no railings and an unsure weight limit. And then we stopped at one of the lady’s houses, and I somewhat got over my fear of using the awfully omnipresent toilet-with-no-seat because I really had to pee. This phenomenon is one I haven’t figured out, and don’t really want to ask. (Imagine: "The rest of your house is nice; are you really too poor to afford the toilet seat?")
Sábado el 27 de octubre
I’m not sure how many ants I’ve eaten here inadvertently, but I’m sure it’s several since they live in the sugar and in the dishes. I’ve pulled two out of my coffee so far, and I’m sure I’ve missed some. But it’s okay, more protein, right?
I enjoyed and was exhausted by the tour of the neighborhood that I received from María this morning. Our first stop was the house of the Southern Baptist missionaries from Kentucky. They are extremely nice, and it was very welcome to find a bastion of English (especially twangy English) in the midst of my Spanish speaking, albeit also a bastion of slightly crazy folk. I was invited to all four of the church services they hold during the week, in addition to their other activities. I plan to go at least once, just to see what an evangelical service is like in Costa Rica.
After lunch, a nap, some sitting around, and some watching of an odd movie that I think had very young Edward Norton in it, we visited the house of a young couple in the neighborhood to fulfill the family tradition of giving away a manger scene every year. It was an excellent opportunity to talk about holiday traditions (along with the fact that we had pumpkin at dinner) and to let Rebecca know that I am looking for a manger scene from Costa Rica for my mom.
After dinner, I alternately helped María with her homework and did tongue twisters with her. Then, as I was writing this, she invited me to ice cream, which I never turn down. It was an interesting combination, vanilla and fakey lime and the weird strawberry flavoring they have here, but tasty nonetheless. Then Rebecca and I chatted a bit, discovering that Katie T. is not very far away, a half hour or so, and I could probably get there with the twenty-something English professor who works there in Acosta. What luck if it turns out he’s attractive. Then she invited me to join them in watching some weird end-of-the-world movie, which I just left from because it was psyching me out.
Although I still have the vaguely persistent desire to go home, I think I will be sad to leave this place in just three and a half weeks. I still love this town, and I’m excited to get to see the "town center" of Tabarcia tomorrow.
Viernes el 26 de octubre
Today is my first day at my independent project in Tabarcia, and after nine hours, three of which I spent sleeping, I love it. The outdoor kitchen overlooks the river, Río Tabarcia, and the constant rush of the water sounds like rain and is very relaxing. Everything so far is very tranquil, despite the fact that there are four dogs, one of which (the nicest actually) is the size of a small pony, and a ten-year-old daughter who reminds me of me at her age in that she is starved of playmates by the fact that her brother is almost seven years older, and so we played a horrendously long game of Uno, and I had to turn her down for a game of Life after dinner so that I could go to bed. My host mom is much more the mom I was expecting than Haydee; where Haydee is frenetic and insistent even in her accommodating-ness, Rebecca is easygoing and very kind. We talked for some two or three hours, from the time I got up from my nap until Maria assaulted me for a game before dinner, about the environment and people and racism and traveling and love. The house is not what I expected after the niceness of my house in Curridabat, but I think more like what I was expecting when I came to Costa Rica. I have my own very tiny room where I haven’t figured out quite where to put things, and I am mildly perplexed by the fact that there is no sink in the bathroom. However, the house is comfortable, my pillow is soft, and the dogs don’t lick my feet.
Martes el 23 de octubre
Too long since I’ve written, and lots happened. I pierced my tongue ten days ago, I went to Nicaragua for five days, and I’ve all but chosen my goat project. Nicaragua was an excellent experience, worth the fun bus ride up and the somehow hideously longer and more uncomfortable return trip. We saw immense poverty, but actually not as bad as Tijuana, and amazing efforts at reducing it.
Here I am having a much better day with the world, after a weekend of being tired and grumpy and annoyed. I feel loquacious in Spanish, speaking better and again willing to ask questions to improve. My host mom, a very kind and earnest woman, sometimes just annoys me with her dogmatic and fatalistic world view, and I don’t always do as well as I should letting go her comments about God’s will and the shame of lost purity. But I do find that I learn from her, and I want to be grateful for that anyway, even when, for the thirty-seventh time, she points to my plate and says, "PiZa! PiZita!"
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Pins and Needles
jueves el 11 de octubre
It is still weird to me to be writing the date as October. By the time I get used to it it will be November, and then what will I do. There are a few pumpkins out in the vegetable markets, and I saw one costume display, but there is not the usual festivity for Halloween I’m used to, especially from living in Orange, the land of the keeping-up-with-the-Joneses yard displays. I guess that’s good because it means the US hasn’t foisted all of its culture on the rest of the world yet, but I’m realizing that having lacked a real fall for the last several years, I have clung to Halloween and Thanksgiving as my vestiges of celebrating the dark and the harvest even where those things don’t coincide with "autumn."
This week’s challenge is that my insulin pump went on the fritz, so I stayed in Curridabat while the rest of my class travels to Guanacaste, doing the multiple shots thing and trying to figure out a way to get my replacement over international boundaries without needing a dozen governmental forms and paying hundreds of dollars in taxes. I’m actually really enjoying my time to myself; the intense Field Course schedule was beginning to grate and I’m taking pleasure from five days without anything I have to do on a schedule. I’ve been getting up and coming to ICADS anyway, but using the time to procrastinate on Facebook, to read about social change, and to write about immigration. Hopefully it will leave me refreshed and happy for the journey to Nicaragua Monday, which I’m going to take regardless of my pumplessness because I am so excited.
lunes el 8 de octubre
Yesterday was the big election – sí o no al TLC – on the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Clearly voting here is more a part of the national consciousness, with all the schools crowded with voters and dozens of campaigners of all ages for both sides at all the polling places. Sí won, much to my sadness, and by the time I worked up the nerve to go chat with the campaigners, they didn’t have any more t-shirts for the neighborhood I live in, "Curridabat dice NO al TLC" with a really cool image that I’m told is the Curridaba for which the neighborhood is named.
Today was mostly good. It started with the for some reason always awkward conversation with my Tico parents over breakfast; my dad has this habit of asking me questions without any context whatsoever. This has the dual effect of making me irritated at the irrelevance and confusing me because I have no context from which to draw meaning out of the Spanish he speaks, frequently quickly and somehow without moving his lips. Then at ICADS I helped Tess deliver "our" presentation on our Nicaraguan immigration project, which was made only slightly awkward because we agreed that she would do the analysis/presentation and I would write the paper, which is great except that I had to try to pretend I had any idea what was in the presentation. Then, being the Katie show, I had to give my presentation on our agroforestry project, which was great until David pointed out that none of it really met his scientific expectations, a result of our being crappy samplers of scientific data and my apparent inability to do math. Then David gave his presentation, and I wished that I had been able to pay attention because I feel like it could have been interesting if I were in a different mood.
After that, I felt like I just desperately needed some peanut butter, so for lunch I bought crackers and a banana and a jar of peanut butter, of which I ate like four tablespoons and then felt much better about life; I think I needed some protein in my life. Then we had the afternoon free, so I facebooked and e-mailed and worked on my application for my fellowship and on my immigration paper that I should be working on now. I also went to the bank to finally get my messed up traveler’s check fixed, which was a fun adventure with ever-crazier professor Matt.
On the way home, we stopped at Pequeno Mundo, and I bought footy pajamas to match the hat I bought for Magnus, my sister's baby, who is confirmedly a boy (as I told her from the beginning). Upon coming home, I discovered that we were to have dinner with Laura and the nietos, and I am very glad I have no children. Valeria is cute enough, but she is ever-present, and Axel gave me the disgusting cough I have, and he is whiny, and I have to lock the door to keep them from walking in on me, and it’s kind of leading to a seething hatred for them, which is not the best thing ever. Also, my fingers smell like bad pizza. I guess the best thing that can be said for the day is that I did a lot; now I think I will do some Spanish reading and try to sleep through the obnoxious children noise.
miércoles el 3 de octubre
I’ve decided that when I get home I will touch people more. I will embrace the tactile part of myself, hold hands with my friends, kiss strangers, and generally fondle anyone who happens to be sitting on my bed or couch. I imagine a sign reading something like, "If you don’t want your personal space violated, find a chair in the corner. If you feel you’re lacking human contact, sit on down." I don’t know how guests will react to this, but so far I think positively.
For now I am listening to the rain and Sam is fiddling about on his guitar.
It is still weird to me to be writing the date as October. By the time I get used to it it will be November, and then what will I do. There are a few pumpkins out in the vegetable markets, and I saw one costume display, but there is not the usual festivity for Halloween I’m used to, especially from living in Orange, the land of the keeping-up-with-the-Joneses yard displays. I guess that’s good because it means the US hasn’t foisted all of its culture on the rest of the world yet, but I’m realizing that having lacked a real fall for the last several years, I have clung to Halloween and Thanksgiving as my vestiges of celebrating the dark and the harvest even where those things don’t coincide with "autumn."
This week’s challenge is that my insulin pump went on the fritz, so I stayed in Curridabat while the rest of my class travels to Guanacaste, doing the multiple shots thing and trying to figure out a way to get my replacement over international boundaries without needing a dozen governmental forms and paying hundreds of dollars in taxes. I’m actually really enjoying my time to myself; the intense Field Course schedule was beginning to grate and I’m taking pleasure from five days without anything I have to do on a schedule. I’ve been getting up and coming to ICADS anyway, but using the time to procrastinate on Facebook, to read about social change, and to write about immigration. Hopefully it will leave me refreshed and happy for the journey to Nicaragua Monday, which I’m going to take regardless of my pumplessness because I am so excited.
lunes el 8 de octubre
Yesterday was the big election – sí o no al TLC – on the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Clearly voting here is more a part of the national consciousness, with all the schools crowded with voters and dozens of campaigners of all ages for both sides at all the polling places. Sí won, much to my sadness, and by the time I worked up the nerve to go chat with the campaigners, they didn’t have any more t-shirts for the neighborhood I live in, "Curridabat dice NO al TLC" with a really cool image that I’m told is the Curridaba for which the neighborhood is named.
Today was mostly good. It started with the for some reason always awkward conversation with my Tico parents over breakfast; my dad has this habit of asking me questions without any context whatsoever. This has the dual effect of making me irritated at the irrelevance and confusing me because I have no context from which to draw meaning out of the Spanish he speaks, frequently quickly and somehow without moving his lips. Then at ICADS I helped Tess deliver "our" presentation on our Nicaraguan immigration project, which was made only slightly awkward because we agreed that she would do the analysis/presentation and I would write the paper, which is great except that I had to try to pretend I had any idea what was in the presentation. Then, being the Katie show, I had to give my presentation on our agroforestry project, which was great until David pointed out that none of it really met his scientific expectations, a result of our being crappy samplers of scientific data and my apparent inability to do math. Then David gave his presentation, and I wished that I had been able to pay attention because I feel like it could have been interesting if I were in a different mood.
After that, I felt like I just desperately needed some peanut butter, so for lunch I bought crackers and a banana and a jar of peanut butter, of which I ate like four tablespoons and then felt much better about life; I think I needed some protein in my life. Then we had the afternoon free, so I facebooked and e-mailed and worked on my application for my fellowship and on my immigration paper that I should be working on now. I also went to the bank to finally get my messed up traveler’s check fixed, which was a fun adventure with ever-crazier professor Matt.
On the way home, we stopped at Pequeno Mundo, and I bought footy pajamas to match the hat I bought for Magnus, my sister's baby, who is confirmedly a boy (as I told her from the beginning). Upon coming home, I discovered that we were to have dinner with Laura and the nietos, and I am very glad I have no children. Valeria is cute enough, but she is ever-present, and Axel gave me the disgusting cough I have, and he is whiny, and I have to lock the door to keep them from walking in on me, and it’s kind of leading to a seething hatred for them, which is not the best thing ever. Also, my fingers smell like bad pizza. I guess the best thing that can be said for the day is that I did a lot; now I think I will do some Spanish reading and try to sleep through the obnoxious children noise.
miércoles el 3 de octubre
I’ve decided that when I get home I will touch people more. I will embrace the tactile part of myself, hold hands with my friends, kiss strangers, and generally fondle anyone who happens to be sitting on my bed or couch. I imagine a sign reading something like, "If you don’t want your personal space violated, find a chair in the corner. If you feel you’re lacking human contact, sit on down." I don’t know how guests will react to this, but so far I think positively.
For now I am listening to the rain and Sam is fiddling about on his guitar.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Bread y Chocolate
Martes el 25 septiembre
So I have decided not to do all the reading for Sociology/Ecology this week. I am discovering that Tess is the only other one who does it, so this will be an experiment to see if I am more or less stupid for not having read it. I think this will leave me more time to do things that I actually care about, like applying for this fellowship program at UC Berkeley next summer. I am really excited about the possibility of getting free room and board and $1000 to study public policy and law and get a free LSAT or GRE course. I have no idea if I have any chance of getting into the program, but they say they’re looking for financially needy students who either come from underrepresented groups or have good experience working in diverse communities. WASP that I am, I am not underrepresented, but I’m hoping that the financially needy and experience with diversity quotients will kick in to my advantage. If nothing else, I think it would be a really good experience to help me figure out if I really want to go to law school. I feel much more productive editing my resumé (it was really exciting, by the way, to change my language skills to "Proficient in French and Spanish") and writing personal statements than I do reading; I think I will skim. Also, I have been rather enjoying this really weird book I borrowed from the ICADS paperback exchange shelf called "The Passion."
We had a substitute in Spanish today, which like in high school was at first was rather frustrating, but turned out to be helpful because we got to spend more time on the presentations we have to give tomorrow – six to eight minutes on an aspect of Costa Rican culture; I am discussing dance, and so I made a poster today of various feet doing the dance steps for tango, merengue, and salsa. I am unduly proud of the thing, it’s so pink and cheery.
Lunes el 24 setiembre
Nuestro viaje ayer fue muy largo, pero con desayuno otra vez en Bread and Chocolate, fue muy bueno. The only awkward moment was when I was talking to my Tico dad about animals I saw in Limon, he was like, "Monos? Pezes? Negros?" (Monkeys? Fish? Black people?) and then chuckled. It’s too bad that for such a nice man he says an awful lot of kind of inappropriate things.
Today was a magically good day. With no classes in the morning, I slept for some twelve hours and loved breakfast. Then I walked to ICADS to use the internet, which was great except that I got there and discovered I had left my power cord at home, so instead of the two or three hours I had planned to use it, I got one. But it was long enough to work on my blogs/Spanish diarios and clear out my e-mail, which was pretty full for it only being a day and a half since I checked it. I then spent an unreasonable amount of time stalking facebook and being annoyed that clearly it is early in the semester, because nobody is spending like five hours a day on facebook procrastinating. Finally I gave up and worked on my oral presentation on Costa Rican dance for Spanish class. That’s Wednesday, which makes me very nervous, but I’m hoping this irritating inclination I have to express myself in Spanglish will make the Spanish flow easily, since we aren’t supposed to read.
I also didn’t mention in my Spanish journal that Saturday night was very interesting for me. We decided to follow Sam in his adventures, which was actually a lot of fun. We met up with a bunch of people, including a guy from San Francisco who seemed like he was going to be a bro, the male equivalent of the California dumb blonde, but who turned out to have traveled all over the world and done a lot of cool stuff with his life. We also hung out with Vic, a really funny Finnish guy who told us about lizard dreams, the result of delaying one’s hangover for several days, and with whom we had fun with interlingual translations. Our waitress and cook were Swedish, and we met up with them later at Jhonny’s, and though I didn’t get to talk much to him, she was really a lot of fun in an infuriatingly gorgeous and worldly sort of way.
This next part is taken from my Spanish journal, so those of you who speak Spanish can see how atrocious my grammar is and those of you who don't can be impressed by my wordliness. Also, my ~s don't seem to work.
Sábado el 22 setiembre
Hay mucho tiempo que no he escrito, pero pasé unos días muy largos y interesantes. El jueves, fuimos en una playa de Punta Uva por la manana. Estaban hublado, pero la temperatura del agua estaba perfecto, no demaciado frío ni calienta como lunes. Habia dos otras personas en toda la playa, entonces teniamos mucho espacio por natar y descansarnos. Las olas estaban muy pequenas, pero estaba bueno por ver unos pezes y animales. Pude ver unos monos en los arboles!
Despues, Mateo y Sam (se llama hoy Samurai por los Bribris) y you fuimos en un restaurante buenisimo sin nadie pero con muy buen comida. Maqteo tuvo un argumento conla propriadora, y ahora no podemos vovler.
Por la tarde, hablamos con una director de una projecto por conservar los bosques. Su opinion fue muy interesante, pero despues de la playa el el sol, tuvi mucha dificultad a permanecer despierta.
Ayer por la manana, fuimos en la finca de Jose Rodriguez. Despues, Mateo estaba muy cascarrabia, un poco como un pequeno nino cansado.
Hoy a sido un día muy bueno. Dormé hasta las ocho y media, y Katie Roja y yo fuimos en un soda se llama Bread and Chocolate. Los huevos con salsa caribena, las papas, y la fruta fueron buenisimo, y el chocolate fue perfecto.
Despues de nuestras conferencias con Mateo y David sobre nuestros proyectos independientos, alquilamos bicicletas para volver en la playa de Punta Uva otra vez. Fue largo y caliente el viaje, pero you estoy muy feliz, si consada y covierta de arena.
Miércoles el 20 setiembre
Lo siento por mi escrito muy pequeno, pero cuando estaba escribiendo en la playa, conoci un hombre se llama Emanual, que me halaba por mucho minutos, y no pude terminar antes de tener que salir. Tambien, ayer fue un día muy largo. Fui mordita para una hormiga zompopa porque no llevaba mis botas porque son muy incomodas. Pero el almuerzo fue delicioso, y nadie mató David.
Hoy, fuimos en el reservo de los Bribris (un grupo de indigenos de las montaZas Talamancas). Damos un paseo largo en la bosque, donde los Bribris manejan los recursos sosteniblemente. Almorzamos sandwiches muy soborosos, y despues hablamos con dos hobres sobre el desarollo y el TLC.
Nada grande me mordió, y no conoci nadie en la playa, pero vise David cuando el llevó una culebra por demonstrarnos sus dientes.
Martes el 18 setiembre
Estoy en la bellisima playa en frente de nuestra casa de Limón, el Hotel Maritza de Puerto Viejo. A mis pies está un perro café y blanca, que me oló y decidó que soy asi bien para ser una campanera. Esta playa es muy protegido por una dota de tierra con muchos palmas y no mucho más, y pues el agua es muy tranquila. Ayer, tan temprano que estuvimous en Puerto Viejo, fuimos en la playa para natar.
Sábado el 15 setiembre
This week was an interesting week because it was very full, which means we had a lot of interesting experiences, and also that it was the week when a couple of people in our group reached their exhaustion, nervous breakdown, yelling at the professors, breaking point. Friday afternoon, everybody was so ready to go out and blow off some steam, and then Friday night when it came time for us to meet up to go out, the two who had been most gung-ho decided to stay in because they were sick with exhaustion. I hope they use this weekend to relax since we leave for the Atlantic coast Monday morning, and a week in close contact with people just on the edge of psychotic explosion will not be much fun.
The cool thing that’s this weekend is the Quinze, the celebration of Costa Rica’s independence. Yesterday, a dozen local fourth graders dressed in traditional clothes came and did traditional dances for us. They were not very good, but they were very cute and very proud. Then we ate really delicious typical food. When we walked home, the three of us stopped by the park in Curridabat where pretty much the whole town showed up to sing the national anthem and see the kid’s fulares, sort of like luminaria on sticks, many of which were very elaborately homemade. After dinner and watching the highschoolers go by our street drumming, Tess, Sarah, and I went to a bar in Curri that was very chill and very fun, and I enjoyed watching a couple of locals dancing on the tiny dance floor.
At the moment Haydee (my Tico mom) is asleep, and I have no idea where Mano (my Tico dad) is, but I’m very content.
So I have decided not to do all the reading for Sociology/Ecology this week. I am discovering that Tess is the only other one who does it, so this will be an experiment to see if I am more or less stupid for not having read it. I think this will leave me more time to do things that I actually care about, like applying for this fellowship program at UC Berkeley next summer. I am really excited about the possibility of getting free room and board and $1000 to study public policy and law and get a free LSAT or GRE course. I have no idea if I have any chance of getting into the program, but they say they’re looking for financially needy students who either come from underrepresented groups or have good experience working in diverse communities. WASP that I am, I am not underrepresented, but I’m hoping that the financially needy and experience with diversity quotients will kick in to my advantage. If nothing else, I think it would be a really good experience to help me figure out if I really want to go to law school. I feel much more productive editing my resumé (it was really exciting, by the way, to change my language skills to "Proficient in French and Spanish") and writing personal statements than I do reading; I think I will skim. Also, I have been rather enjoying this really weird book I borrowed from the ICADS paperback exchange shelf called "The Passion."
We had a substitute in Spanish today, which like in high school was at first was rather frustrating, but turned out to be helpful because we got to spend more time on the presentations we have to give tomorrow – six to eight minutes on an aspect of Costa Rican culture; I am discussing dance, and so I made a poster today of various feet doing the dance steps for tango, merengue, and salsa. I am unduly proud of the thing, it’s so pink and cheery.
Lunes el 24 setiembre
Nuestro viaje ayer fue muy largo, pero con desayuno otra vez en Bread and Chocolate, fue muy bueno. The only awkward moment was when I was talking to my Tico dad about animals I saw in Limon, he was like, "Monos? Pezes? Negros?" (Monkeys? Fish? Black people?) and then chuckled. It’s too bad that for such a nice man he says an awful lot of kind of inappropriate things.
Today was a magically good day. With no classes in the morning, I slept for some twelve hours and loved breakfast. Then I walked to ICADS to use the internet, which was great except that I got there and discovered I had left my power cord at home, so instead of the two or three hours I had planned to use it, I got one. But it was long enough to work on my blogs/Spanish diarios and clear out my e-mail, which was pretty full for it only being a day and a half since I checked it. I then spent an unreasonable amount of time stalking facebook and being annoyed that clearly it is early in the semester, because nobody is spending like five hours a day on facebook procrastinating. Finally I gave up and worked on my oral presentation on Costa Rican dance for Spanish class. That’s Wednesday, which makes me very nervous, but I’m hoping this irritating inclination I have to express myself in Spanglish will make the Spanish flow easily, since we aren’t supposed to read.
I also didn’t mention in my Spanish journal that Saturday night was very interesting for me. We decided to follow Sam in his adventures, which was actually a lot of fun. We met up with a bunch of people, including a guy from San Francisco who seemed like he was going to be a bro, the male equivalent of the California dumb blonde, but who turned out to have traveled all over the world and done a lot of cool stuff with his life. We also hung out with Vic, a really funny Finnish guy who told us about lizard dreams, the result of delaying one’s hangover for several days, and with whom we had fun with interlingual translations. Our waitress and cook were Swedish, and we met up with them later at Jhonny’s, and though I didn’t get to talk much to him, she was really a lot of fun in an infuriatingly gorgeous and worldly sort of way.
This next part is taken from my Spanish journal, so those of you who speak Spanish can see how atrocious my grammar is and those of you who don't can be impressed by my wordliness. Also, my ~s don't seem to work.
Sábado el 22 setiembre
Hay mucho tiempo que no he escrito, pero pasé unos días muy largos y interesantes. El jueves, fuimos en una playa de Punta Uva por la manana. Estaban hublado, pero la temperatura del agua estaba perfecto, no demaciado frío ni calienta como lunes. Habia dos otras personas en toda la playa, entonces teniamos mucho espacio por natar y descansarnos. Las olas estaban muy pequenas, pero estaba bueno por ver unos pezes y animales. Pude ver unos monos en los arboles!
Despues, Mateo y Sam (se llama hoy Samurai por los Bribris) y you fuimos en un restaurante buenisimo sin nadie pero con muy buen comida. Maqteo tuvo un argumento conla propriadora, y ahora no podemos vovler.
Por la tarde, hablamos con una director de una projecto por conservar los bosques. Su opinion fue muy interesante, pero despues de la playa el el sol, tuvi mucha dificultad a permanecer despierta.
Ayer por la manana, fuimos en la finca de Jose Rodriguez. Despues, Mateo estaba muy cascarrabia, un poco como un pequeno nino cansado.
Hoy a sido un día muy bueno. Dormé hasta las ocho y media, y Katie Roja y yo fuimos en un soda se llama Bread and Chocolate. Los huevos con salsa caribena, las papas, y la fruta fueron buenisimo, y el chocolate fue perfecto.
Despues de nuestras conferencias con Mateo y David sobre nuestros proyectos independientos, alquilamos bicicletas para volver en la playa de Punta Uva otra vez. Fue largo y caliente el viaje, pero you estoy muy feliz, si consada y covierta de arena.
Miércoles el 20 setiembre
Lo siento por mi escrito muy pequeno, pero cuando estaba escribiendo en la playa, conoci un hombre se llama Emanual, que me halaba por mucho minutos, y no pude terminar antes de tener que salir. Tambien, ayer fue un día muy largo. Fui mordita para una hormiga zompopa porque no llevaba mis botas porque son muy incomodas. Pero el almuerzo fue delicioso, y nadie mató David.
Hoy, fuimos en el reservo de los Bribris (un grupo de indigenos de las montaZas Talamancas). Damos un paseo largo en la bosque, donde los Bribris manejan los recursos sosteniblemente. Almorzamos sandwiches muy soborosos, y despues hablamos con dos hobres sobre el desarollo y el TLC.
Nada grande me mordió, y no conoci nadie en la playa, pero vise David cuando el llevó una culebra por demonstrarnos sus dientes.
Martes el 18 setiembre
Estoy en la bellisima playa en frente de nuestra casa de Limón, el Hotel Maritza de Puerto Viejo. A mis pies está un perro café y blanca, que me oló y decidó que soy asi bien para ser una campanera. Esta playa es muy protegido por una dota de tierra con muchos palmas y no mucho más, y pues el agua es muy tranquila. Ayer, tan temprano que estuvimous en Puerto Viejo, fuimos en la playa para natar.
Sábado el 15 setiembre
This week was an interesting week because it was very full, which means we had a lot of interesting experiences, and also that it was the week when a couple of people in our group reached their exhaustion, nervous breakdown, yelling at the professors, breaking point. Friday afternoon, everybody was so ready to go out and blow off some steam, and then Friday night when it came time for us to meet up to go out, the two who had been most gung-ho decided to stay in because they were sick with exhaustion. I hope they use this weekend to relax since we leave for the Atlantic coast Monday morning, and a week in close contact with people just on the edge of psychotic explosion will not be much fun.
The cool thing that’s this weekend is the Quinze, the celebration of Costa Rica’s independence. Yesterday, a dozen local fourth graders dressed in traditional clothes came and did traditional dances for us. They were not very good, but they were very cute and very proud. Then we ate really delicious typical food. When we walked home, the three of us stopped by the park in Curridabat where pretty much the whole town showed up to sing the national anthem and see the kid’s fulares, sort of like luminaria on sticks, many of which were very elaborately homemade. After dinner and watching the highschoolers go by our street drumming, Tess, Sarah, and I went to a bar in Curri that was very chill and very fun, and I enjoyed watching a couple of locals dancing on the tiny dance floor.
At the moment Haydee (my Tico mom) is asleep, and I have no idea where Mano (my Tico dad) is, but I’m very content.
Friday, September 14, 2007
La Lingua Pegajosa
Martes el 11 setiembre
Today was a wholly pleasant, and very fast, day. My alarm clock rang too early, but maybe one of these days I won’t feel tired. My shower was hot, and I felt good in my clothes, and I parted my hair according to a dream I had (as strange, I think, as the one in which my sister gave birth to a strawberry plant. The largest and most important strawberry’s name was Magnus.). Then we had gallo pinto (rice and beans) for breakfast, which I love, with eggs and fried cheese, and a piece of bread for me.
Katie took pictures of graffiti while we walked to school, and we had a few (sadly internetless) minutes before class. Matt did the lecture today, about different economic paradigms of development, which was actually really interesting because I love alternative economics. After our break, he sort of ranted about how traditional tourism is killing the environment and itself and thus Costa Rica, and how (his form of) rural community tourism is much, much better. Katie and I enjoyed talking over lunch, my leftover bread and generic nutella and banana, with celery and cream cheese that needed more fat in it. You could say alternately that we processed verbally or gossiped, depending on your perspective. Spanish class was a lot of fun, and I was only frustrated like twice, and once it was because I got something right and the professor heard me wrong. We played parto-de-cuerpo go-fish, and I finally correctly remember cejas (eyebrows) instead of obejas (sheep).
Earl: I missed you a lot in Spanish today because, to practice the progressive tense, we had to list our four most important people and say where they were and what they were doing, and my list was my mom and dad, you, and Katie. Since it was around 3:15 here, 2:15 California, I said that you were either in class or at home, and in either case probably eating an afternoon snack.
Lunes el 10 setiembre
Sunday, I’m sure my family was under the impression that I was sleeping off a tremendous hangover, but no, I was just really rather emotionally exhausted. Taking care of friends is hard work, especially when they don’t want it, and though I try to avoid it in the realization that it can just get worse, sometimes I would rather sleep than try to communicate in a foreign language and culture.Today, though, was better. We had an incredibly relevant lecture on certification systems for agriculture (organic, Fair Trade, etc.) from this really hot (if like forty-something) Belgian man. Then, I lunched with Sarah on warm, freshly baked bread and cheese and bananas with an interesting generic Nutella in the ICADS garden. She is fun, the food was tasty; it was magical. Then we had Spanish, and since it was Monday, it was our next professor, Rolo, who is the funniest yet, without the distracting attractiveness (and obnoxiously-good-smellingness) of Jhonny. Also, Jose gave us this Peruvian tea with eucalyptus flavor and coca extract, so we were all a merry bunch of Spanish-speaking minstrels after the break, during which we watched an episode of the Office.
Topher: I’m listening to All For You. It always makes me think of eating vegan hotdogs on the beach with SPEAK and singing backup for you on guitar. I get the impression our guitar-playing kid doesn’t think I’m very cool, so he gets no backup singing from me.
Sábado el 8 setiembre 2007
So there is this aspect of Latin American culture that makes it acceptable, and seemingly almost required, for men in cars to honk at women in the street. It comes from private vehicles, taxis, and bus drivers, and if their windows are down or there are guys in the back of a truck, they are almost guaranteed to talk to you. I don’t understand this; it doesn’t seem to have any purpose, as I’ve never seen or given any response other than to ignore it, and it doesn’t even appear to me to intensify when I’m dressed attractively or provocatively. However, even though I (in all my ethnocentric cultural bias) don’t get it, it doesn’t really bother me that men whistle and holler at me on the street. What bothers me is that they do it in English.
Am I really so obviously American, even from behind and yards away? I know I must be, but what is it? My walk? My clothes? My hair? I just can’t quite identify it, since there are any number of people here just as white and blond as I, and yet I know I can always identify Americans on the street too, especially if they’re in a group. But when I’m walking to Katie’s house at 7a.m. so that we can all meet up, what identifies me on the street as being someone so obviously alien to the culture that "Hey baby" (or more like, "Haaa-eey, bay-beeeee") will be somehow better than "Hola chica"? It’s a close kin to the indignance I feel in Hawaii when I’m mistaken for a tourist, knowing that in some ways I am an outsider but I am also enough a part of the culture not to be treated as completely foreign.
But that’s okay, I’m working to take things in stride, be easygoing and flexible and open-minded and loose and all that other b.s. they tell study abroad students to be. Yesterday, for example, I was licked by an ox. It was a little traumatizing, I’m not going to lie. Oxen have really big tongues, and apparently I tasted like a sweet vegetarian morsel, because one of them reached out its four-by-nine inch gooey tongue and probed it into my new green tank top. I was vaguely wet and sticky for a good hour or so, but I am hoping that I will get enough mileage in my life out of the sentence, "I got licked by an ox once," to make it worth it.
Today I had more fun with human animals because I got up at the same time I get up for school (quarter to six, although this morning I woke up at 5:30) to go to the Poás Volcano, northwest of where I live in San Jose. It has a big round crater, very different from the one at Hawaii Volcanoes, but with the same eye-watering smell of sulphur. We caught it early enough to see it in daylight, though they say on a clearer day you can see all the way to the Atlantic Coast. There were also an excessive number of American tourists, most in a gigantic group, one of whom had a deep red sunburn the exact shape of a tank top, including a big, scabbing blister. I tried to flirt with one of them (not the sunburnt one) by asking him to take our picture, and endeavor slightly hindered by Sam’s suavery when Kate asked, "Where’s Tess?" and Sam replied, "Fuck Tess." My picture taker, clearly amused, said, "1-2-3, Fuck Tess!" and that was the end of that exchange. Sometimes I really loathe Americans.
Joy: I am listening to Simple. There are no skyscrapers here. But the truck horns play a pretty tune.
Bethany: I saved Katie’s life today. Thought you should know.
Earl: You can get what I estimate to be roughly a forty (it is a big-ass stein) of beer for ¢1000, or about $2. Even you could get drunk cheaply here. Though you would feel very blond and white doing it.
Josh: One of the kids in our group bought a cigarette today (you can still buy just one here) and I am annoyed that I have come to associate that particular form of high with you. I wanted one; I think it’s because I miss you.
Emily: They are very neat here. Everyone closes their cupboard doors all the time; I make my bed every day. I miss you.
Today was a wholly pleasant, and very fast, day. My alarm clock rang too early, but maybe one of these days I won’t feel tired. My shower was hot, and I felt good in my clothes, and I parted my hair according to a dream I had (as strange, I think, as the one in which my sister gave birth to a strawberry plant. The largest and most important strawberry’s name was Magnus.). Then we had gallo pinto (rice and beans) for breakfast, which I love, with eggs and fried cheese, and a piece of bread for me.
Katie took pictures of graffiti while we walked to school, and we had a few (sadly internetless) minutes before class. Matt did the lecture today, about different economic paradigms of development, which was actually really interesting because I love alternative economics. After our break, he sort of ranted about how traditional tourism is killing the environment and itself and thus Costa Rica, and how (his form of) rural community tourism is much, much better. Katie and I enjoyed talking over lunch, my leftover bread and generic nutella and banana, with celery and cream cheese that needed more fat in it. You could say alternately that we processed verbally or gossiped, depending on your perspective. Spanish class was a lot of fun, and I was only frustrated like twice, and once it was because I got something right and the professor heard me wrong. We played parto-de-cuerpo go-fish, and I finally correctly remember cejas (eyebrows) instead of obejas (sheep).
Earl: I missed you a lot in Spanish today because, to practice the progressive tense, we had to list our four most important people and say where they were and what they were doing, and my list was my mom and dad, you, and Katie. Since it was around 3:15 here, 2:15 California, I said that you were either in class or at home, and in either case probably eating an afternoon snack.
Lunes el 10 setiembre
Sunday, I’m sure my family was under the impression that I was sleeping off a tremendous hangover, but no, I was just really rather emotionally exhausted. Taking care of friends is hard work, especially when they don’t want it, and though I try to avoid it in the realization that it can just get worse, sometimes I would rather sleep than try to communicate in a foreign language and culture.Today, though, was better. We had an incredibly relevant lecture on certification systems for agriculture (organic, Fair Trade, etc.) from this really hot (if like forty-something) Belgian man. Then, I lunched with Sarah on warm, freshly baked bread and cheese and bananas with an interesting generic Nutella in the ICADS garden. She is fun, the food was tasty; it was magical. Then we had Spanish, and since it was Monday, it was our next professor, Rolo, who is the funniest yet, without the distracting attractiveness (and obnoxiously-good-smellingness) of Jhonny. Also, Jose gave us this Peruvian tea with eucalyptus flavor and coca extract, so we were all a merry bunch of Spanish-speaking minstrels after the break, during which we watched an episode of the Office.
Topher: I’m listening to All For You. It always makes me think of eating vegan hotdogs on the beach with SPEAK and singing backup for you on guitar. I get the impression our guitar-playing kid doesn’t think I’m very cool, so he gets no backup singing from me.
Sábado el 8 setiembre 2007
So there is this aspect of Latin American culture that makes it acceptable, and seemingly almost required, for men in cars to honk at women in the street. It comes from private vehicles, taxis, and bus drivers, and if their windows are down or there are guys in the back of a truck, they are almost guaranteed to talk to you. I don’t understand this; it doesn’t seem to have any purpose, as I’ve never seen or given any response other than to ignore it, and it doesn’t even appear to me to intensify when I’m dressed attractively or provocatively. However, even though I (in all my ethnocentric cultural bias) don’t get it, it doesn’t really bother me that men whistle and holler at me on the street. What bothers me is that they do it in English.
Am I really so obviously American, even from behind and yards away? I know I must be, but what is it? My walk? My clothes? My hair? I just can’t quite identify it, since there are any number of people here just as white and blond as I, and yet I know I can always identify Americans on the street too, especially if they’re in a group. But when I’m walking to Katie’s house at 7a.m. so that we can all meet up, what identifies me on the street as being someone so obviously alien to the culture that "Hey baby" (or more like, "Haaa-eey, bay-beeeee") will be somehow better than "Hola chica"? It’s a close kin to the indignance I feel in Hawaii when I’m mistaken for a tourist, knowing that in some ways I am an outsider but I am also enough a part of the culture not to be treated as completely foreign.
But that’s okay, I’m working to take things in stride, be easygoing and flexible and open-minded and loose and all that other b.s. they tell study abroad students to be. Yesterday, for example, I was licked by an ox. It was a little traumatizing, I’m not going to lie. Oxen have really big tongues, and apparently I tasted like a sweet vegetarian morsel, because one of them reached out its four-by-nine inch gooey tongue and probed it into my new green tank top. I was vaguely wet and sticky for a good hour or so, but I am hoping that I will get enough mileage in my life out of the sentence, "I got licked by an ox once," to make it worth it.
Today I had more fun with human animals because I got up at the same time I get up for school (quarter to six, although this morning I woke up at 5:30) to go to the Poás Volcano, northwest of where I live in San Jose. It has a big round crater, very different from the one at Hawaii Volcanoes, but with the same eye-watering smell of sulphur. We caught it early enough to see it in daylight, though they say on a clearer day you can see all the way to the Atlantic Coast. There were also an excessive number of American tourists, most in a gigantic group, one of whom had a deep red sunburn the exact shape of a tank top, including a big, scabbing blister. I tried to flirt with one of them (not the sunburnt one) by asking him to take our picture, and endeavor slightly hindered by Sam’s suavery when Kate asked, "Where’s Tess?" and Sam replied, "Fuck Tess." My picture taker, clearly amused, said, "1-2-3, Fuck Tess!" and that was the end of that exchange. Sometimes I really loathe Americans.
Joy: I am listening to Simple. There are no skyscrapers here. But the truck horns play a pretty tune.
Bethany: I saved Katie’s life today. Thought you should know.
Earl: You can get what I estimate to be roughly a forty (it is a big-ass stein) of beer for ¢1000, or about $2. Even you could get drunk cheaply here. Though you would feel very blond and white doing it.
Josh: One of the kids in our group bought a cigarette today (you can still buy just one here) and I am annoyed that I have come to associate that particular form of high with you. I wanted one; I think it’s because I miss you.
Emily: They are very neat here. Everyone closes their cupboard doors all the time; I make my bed every day. I miss you.
Friday, September 07, 2007
Tristes Tigres
Jueves el 6 septiembre 2007
We ate lots and lots of fruit today. Some of it was gustatorially thrilling, but that was not always good, as a picture Sam took of me can attest. The fruit I particularly was given to try, I had to break open, and it was like autopsying an alien’s head. (Unrelatedly, it took me a moment to write that sentence because I had forgotten where the punctuation keys on an American keyboard were.) I pushed my thumbs into its hard, yellowy exterior until it cracked, revealing a layer of what looked like white sponge underneath. Beneath that was the apparently edible part, a goo the texture of sinus infection mucous with big black seeds in it. I have no recollection what it’s called, but I’m willing to bet it’s the fruit to which Melissa Polsenberg, a previous Interterm student at ICADS, refers as an alien brain. Despite that, it was pretty tasty, like passion fruit almost, once I got past the feeling I was sucking on cold, chunky snot.
I’ve also been working on taking more pictures; the landscape here is incredible, with mountains on three sides, and I’m arriving at the point where I don’t feel like I will simultaneously be mugged, be raped by rampant taxi drivers, and fall in an open manhole if I stop to take pictures on the street.
Yesterday was also an interesting challenge, as we spent the first half of the morning looking at bugs. Large, dead ones. Preserved in a substance that smelled rather like the jungle juice at Adelpho parties, only less fruity and more, well, like death. After the centipede slithering through my bathroom a couple of nights ago, it was perversely satisfying to hold a giant (I’m talking half an inch wide and five inches long) crunchy millipede in my tweezers for the purely scientific purpose of examining its legs and what my ecology professor very enthusiastically calls its "chewing parts." I was relatively pleased to find out that the centipedes here a sting similar to the ones in Hawaii (I said very coherently to my host father something like, "there is a very big, um, animal in my bathroom, and they are very bad in Hawaii." He replied, "Yes, here too," before squishing it beneath his shoe.), and not like the ones in Guam and parts of South America that bore through flesh. The second half of the morning brought our interviews on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, here known as the TLC. We six (with Caroline and our professor floating around) stood in the large mall in San Pedro harassing people walking by for their perspectives on the treaty and its potential implications. It was incredibly scary, very trying on my Spanish, and really rewarding that I managed to engage twelve people in conversation in a still fairly foreign language in an hour.
Speaking of language, the preterite is killing me. I loathe, loathe, loathe memorizing vocabulary and conjugation rules. Especially since our book is actually wrong in several places. But today’s linguistic excitement was listening to Sam talking about his first face (carra) dying. He meant his first carro (car), but we spent a good several minutes laughing at him anyway.
Domingo el 26 agosto 2007
So it turns out my Spanish is not as bad as I had thought. Sure, I can only converse in the present tense, and I screw up my agreements all the time, but I seem to communicate about ninety percent of what I want to say and understand about seventy percent of what is actually said to me (much less of what is said around me), and my homestay parents say that I speak Spanish very well and should be in the lots-of-Spanish class when I take my interview tomorrow.
Today we went to church; honestly it wasn’t that much different than the not-knowing-what’s-going-on I felt going to Catholic mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York last spring. After that we had brunch, tasty tasty red beans and rice. (My homestay parents asked after dinner if I was happy here; I lacked the ability and gall to tell them that they are nice and feed me really yummy food, and that’s really enough for me.) Then we went to a farmers market, which was really cool. It is much like the one in Hilo, only about ten times the size. Similar smells though, and similar fruits, although there were papayas literally the size of my head.
Then we met up with my friend Katie (who also goes to Chapman) and her host mother to walk to ICADS. It is a beautiful old house with really lovely gardens; I am excited that I get to spend half my day there every day. We all also met our ecology and sociology professors and read a bunch of stuff they handed out; I’m a little nervous about the science stuff, but so stoked about the traveling we will be doing. I still have no clear idea what to do for my research project, but I guess I’ll figure it out.
Sábado el 25 agosto 2007
Revelation of the day: I like coffee. Costa Rican coffee with sugar and milk is like the richest chocolate milk but better. Which is good, because although I feel like I am communicating pretty well considering I haven’t ever actually studied Spanish, I am making a lot of mistakes and being very confused and I’m sure I sound like an idiot. I try to make up for it by smiling a lot and making friends with the abuelitos, whose names, I think, are Axel and something like Amarilla.
I also discovered that, unlike in Europe, people here eat a big lunch and then eat a small dinner very early. I was slightly expecting the Spanish-style midday snack at five, and so I didn’t eat very much, and snacked on my Goldfish and Luna bars before bed (which will be in a few minutes). So far my host family is incredibly nice; my room is simple but really very comfortable, and I’m going to church in the morning. Hopefully this American Protestant doesn’t make too big an idiot of herself at Costa Rican Catholic mass.
We ate lots and lots of fruit today. Some of it was gustatorially thrilling, but that was not always good, as a picture Sam took of me can attest. The fruit I particularly was given to try, I had to break open, and it was like autopsying an alien’s head. (Unrelatedly, it took me a moment to write that sentence because I had forgotten where the punctuation keys on an American keyboard were.) I pushed my thumbs into its hard, yellowy exterior until it cracked, revealing a layer of what looked like white sponge underneath. Beneath that was the apparently edible part, a goo the texture of sinus infection mucous with big black seeds in it. I have no recollection what it’s called, but I’m willing to bet it’s the fruit to which Melissa Polsenberg, a previous Interterm student at ICADS, refers as an alien brain. Despite that, it was pretty tasty, like passion fruit almost, once I got past the feeling I was sucking on cold, chunky snot.
I’ve also been working on taking more pictures; the landscape here is incredible, with mountains on three sides, and I’m arriving at the point where I don’t feel like I will simultaneously be mugged, be raped by rampant taxi drivers, and fall in an open manhole if I stop to take pictures on the street.
Yesterday was also an interesting challenge, as we spent the first half of the morning looking at bugs. Large, dead ones. Preserved in a substance that smelled rather like the jungle juice at Adelpho parties, only less fruity and more, well, like death. After the centipede slithering through my bathroom a couple of nights ago, it was perversely satisfying to hold a giant (I’m talking half an inch wide and five inches long) crunchy millipede in my tweezers for the purely scientific purpose of examining its legs and what my ecology professor very enthusiastically calls its "chewing parts." I was relatively pleased to find out that the centipedes here a sting similar to the ones in Hawaii (I said very coherently to my host father something like, "there is a very big, um, animal in my bathroom, and they are very bad in Hawaii." He replied, "Yes, here too," before squishing it beneath his shoe.), and not like the ones in Guam and parts of South America that bore through flesh. The second half of the morning brought our interviews on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, here known as the TLC. We six (with Caroline and our professor floating around) stood in the large mall in San Pedro harassing people walking by for their perspectives on the treaty and its potential implications. It was incredibly scary, very trying on my Spanish, and really rewarding that I managed to engage twelve people in conversation in a still fairly foreign language in an hour.
Speaking of language, the preterite is killing me. I loathe, loathe, loathe memorizing vocabulary and conjugation rules. Especially since our book is actually wrong in several places. But today’s linguistic excitement was listening to Sam talking about his first face (carra) dying. He meant his first carro (car), but we spent a good several minutes laughing at him anyway.
Domingo el 26 agosto 2007
So it turns out my Spanish is not as bad as I had thought. Sure, I can only converse in the present tense, and I screw up my agreements all the time, but I seem to communicate about ninety percent of what I want to say and understand about seventy percent of what is actually said to me (much less of what is said around me), and my homestay parents say that I speak Spanish very well and should be in the lots-of-Spanish class when I take my interview tomorrow.
Today we went to church; honestly it wasn’t that much different than the not-knowing-what’s-going-on I felt going to Catholic mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York last spring. After that we had brunch, tasty tasty red beans and rice. (My homestay parents asked after dinner if I was happy here; I lacked the ability and gall to tell them that they are nice and feed me really yummy food, and that’s really enough for me.) Then we went to a farmers market, which was really cool. It is much like the one in Hilo, only about ten times the size. Similar smells though, and similar fruits, although there were papayas literally the size of my head.
Then we met up with my friend Katie (who also goes to Chapman) and her host mother to walk to ICADS. It is a beautiful old house with really lovely gardens; I am excited that I get to spend half my day there every day. We all also met our ecology and sociology professors and read a bunch of stuff they handed out; I’m a little nervous about the science stuff, but so stoked about the traveling we will be doing. I still have no clear idea what to do for my research project, but I guess I’ll figure it out.
Sábado el 25 agosto 2007
Revelation of the day: I like coffee. Costa Rican coffee with sugar and milk is like the richest chocolate milk but better. Which is good, because although I feel like I am communicating pretty well considering I haven’t ever actually studied Spanish, I am making a lot of mistakes and being very confused and I’m sure I sound like an idiot. I try to make up for it by smiling a lot and making friends with the abuelitos, whose names, I think, are Axel and something like Amarilla.
I also discovered that, unlike in Europe, people here eat a big lunch and then eat a small dinner very early. I was slightly expecting the Spanish-style midday snack at five, and so I didn’t eat very much, and snacked on my Goldfish and Luna bars before bed (which will be in a few minutes). So far my host family is incredibly nice; my room is simple but really very comfortable, and I’m going to church in the morning. Hopefully this American Protestant doesn’t make too big an idiot of herself at Costa Rican Catholic mass.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
I Am an Angry Dualist
I had no idea I connected so much emotion to socks until I found myself crying about them. I have, in my sock drawer, three pairs of Halloween socks, two pairs of Valentine socks, and a pair of Christmas socks. I also have cat socks and slightly used stripey socks. With the possible exception of one or both of the pairs of socks speckled with pink hearts, all of these were given to me by my grandmother, my dad's mom, the good grandma. She is dying.
I don't understand how such an intelligent, attractive genetic line could have survived such a crappy mixture of diseases. My grandmother, at 77, has survived breast cancer. She is the one who talks about taking food to the old people in her church. She waited in Maine for my bombadeer grandfather to return from the Pacific theater so that they could travel to Texas to find a place away from their families. If the doctors are right, and she has only a few weeks left, I won't be able to go to her funeral because I will be in Costa Rica, learning to speak Spanish and save the world from itself. I am so proud to have inherited her adventure, her wit, and her passion, and so fearful of her diseases, and finding myself attached to her socks.
I don't understand how such an intelligent, attractive genetic line could have survived such a crappy mixture of diseases. My grandmother, at 77, has survived breast cancer. She is the one who talks about taking food to the old people in her church. She waited in Maine for my bombadeer grandfather to return from the Pacific theater so that they could travel to Texas to find a place away from their families. If the doctors are right, and she has only a few weeks left, I won't be able to go to her funeral because I will be in Costa Rica, learning to speak Spanish and save the world from itself. I am so proud to have inherited her adventure, her wit, and her passion, and so fearful of her diseases, and finding myself attached to her socks.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Whine Country
Counseling day camp in Sonoma County is an interesting venture in upper-middle class, suburban spoiled-ness. Some of these kids are amazingly charming, cute, polite, and funny. Some of them, however, are well trained in the fine art of arrogance, rudeness, and a sense of entitlement that is embued only upon children who are given much more in the way of stuff than positive attention. It is hard to say which type of child is in the majority, because the ones that leave the greatest impression are the ones with the angriest tantrums and the shrillest whines. The quiet, unassuming child, who follows instructions with respect for her teachers and stands up to snobbish bullying with respect for himself, rarely gets the notice he or she deserves. He or she is left, instead, to appreciate the beauty of the world around him, which he has learned to do, and the silliness of her peers, which she is learning to do, unhampered by the watchful eyes and increasingly shrill voices of her counselors.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Princess, of, well, Princessery
I am a princess. Or so I think. I am trying to remember what inspired that particular alter ego, since it came about in adolescence instead of the more, um, normal, toddlerhood. I don't know whether it was Disney cartoons or Buttercup in the Princess Bride, but I think it may simply have been my own sordid imagination coming up with a scheme by which I could change the world for the better and get anything I personally wanted. I think I would use my powers for good, reducing poverty and disease worldwide, building the world a home and keeping it company, walking down the road with a man, letting there be peace on earth and all that. But I think I would also have a ridiculous amount of sex. There are moments each day when I enjoy playing the games of human society, the particular play and counterplay of interacting daily with the people around me who haven't quite decided how they feel about me. But for every instant of that, there is a moment when I just want to look each person I talk to in the eye and tell them exactly what I want from them and have them reciprocate. If those things differ, we work it out; if they differ irreconcilably, no hard feelings, we'll move on to someone else, thanks for playing, here's a cookie as your consolation prize. And if they're the same, we can be the best of friends or the deepest of lovers, or we can walk away having learned something from one another, according to our wishes. Perhaps I can instate a time limit; after ten cumulative hours of interaction, you must declare your feelings to the other person, even if they're ambivalent, and prepare for the consequent interactions. Perhaps one day I'll be princess, and I'll fly to the moon with Kermit the frog and watch rainbows on earth over the lovers and dreamers, singing songs of freedom to a world of peace and eat organic strawberries and cream, wrapped in moonlight and the arms of someone pleasing. Who will know exactly what I feel about him, and want exactly the same. Perhaps.
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