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.