More tales from the land where people only stop having sex long enough to eat some dogs

Sweet! Now I have your attention!  Even though that title was pretty self-explanatory (if we're being real), I'll explain more later in the blog.  So, I've been in Costa Rica for about 11 days now and as expected, it feels like it has been 26 years.  Also as expected, it has been an 11 day roller coaster of ups, downs, sharp turns, and moments of surreal adrenaline immediately followed by brief whimpers of "I wanna get offfff I wanna get offfffffff".  Moments of surreal adrenaline include a beautiful hike into the rainforest near our town to visit a semi-loco man named Nano who literally lives in a treehouse with no electricity, a woodfire stove, and a dog so skinny that it makes Calista Flockhart look like a contestant on The Biggest Loser (Calista Flockhart jokes are in style still, yeah?).  I spoke to Nano in Spanish for a long time and essentially struck up a deal that if I come back at the end of the year and call him up (though I think his phone is two cups tied together with a string), he will let me stay in his extra room in the treehouse and work in the coffee fields and help him start up a small restaurant in the middle of the forest.  I couldn't actually tell how serious he was, but I would love nothing more than to be the Mogli to his Balu, so we shall see if that actually happens!  So that was one of the great moments. The only real moment where I wanted to get off the ride was a few nights ago.  I went on a run with several other volunteers through a pouring rainstorm up this massive hill around Orosi with an amazing view despite in the mini monsoon. That was the awesome part and I felt really great right afterwards, but about 30 minutes later, I came home to an empty house, showered, ate the dinner that was left for me.   Even though my family came home about an hour later so my time alone was short, the massive reality of the amount of potential isolation and solitude that I could be facing over the next year struck me and a feeling of "Get me the hell off of this ride before the kid behind me barfs up his chili dogs!" was hard to surpress.  Until this point in orientation, the prospect of a year in Costa RIca was starting to feel like an easily manageable piece of cake... getting 3 square meals a day for free from a family that has decided to take me in! A cozy bed! Being friends with everyone in the community!  My gosh...I'm a cocker spaniel! Life is looking good!  It was at this moment that I realized reality:  In two weeks I will be in a town of 200 people for 11 months to serve as the ONLY other teacher in the school besides the headmaster.   

Well, this past weekend, I became acquainted with my town!  Though the 3 1/2 weeks of orientation is in this medium sized (3000 people) town of Orosi, as part of orientation, we all got to travel independently to our real sites for the year for one day to meet the family, meet the town, and have the shit scared out of us but then have the chance to come back and talk about it as a group.  As my life during Orientation is defined by 3 hours of Spanish class every morning followed by 6 hours of various meetings about everything, there were naturally a plethora of meetings prior to our departures focusing on the unforeseable that was to come with our site visits.  Such scintillating group discussions included what to do if your family forgot you were coming and decides they don't want a volunteer when you knock on their door and specifying to the cab driver that you want to go to the busstop, not the potential 7 hours to your site in the cab.  However, of all the mind-tingling and kind of hillarious talks, my favorite by far was the 20 minute (literally 20 minutes) heated debate that we all had about what to do on the 7 hour bus ride to your site if you have to poop uncontrollably and the bus won't stop for you.  Future educators of Costan Rican youth...party of 22, your table is ready! 

So, after many bus transfers, late busses, missed busses, busses that never came, and a taxi ride with a friendly driver who once lived in "Noo Yarzee" (New Jersey), I made it to the bus stop at the entrance to the dirt road to my beautiful town of La Esperanza.  During one of our pre-site visit meetings, Cara (our awesome field director) reminded us to go into our one day site visits with an open mind as the previous volunteers had typically commented on their first site visits saying, "This is exactly what I asked for!  Hooray! What the fuck was I thinking???".  Well, as the dust settled from the spin of the taxis tires as he disappeared into the distance, I had a zen moment of tranquility and surreality.  La Esperanza and all of the surrounding hills exist for one reason and one reason only: to grow coffee.  As such, the town is at an elevation of around 6000 feet and I found myself literally inside of a cloud.  As I stood standing there in the foggy embrace of my new cloud friend, holding the flowers I had bought for my new madre, staring wide eyed ahead at the winding rocky 3.5 km "road" that would eventually lead to my "town", a peaceful voice in my head whispered softly (in Spanish! woohoo!!:-), "Ahhhh...this is exactly what I hoped it would be...What the FUCK was I thinking?!".  Then in the distance, a white speck peaked around the furtherst turn of the nearby mountain and moved slowly up the hill.  That white speck was my new host brother in the families 4 x 4!  He picked me up and as I got in I was met with the most unexpected greeting of "Hey what's up man?"  Along the 3.5 k trek to the "town" on roads that are only meant for a tank, a pack of mules, or a tank being pulled by a pack of mules, I learned that my host brother was fluent in English and like my cabbie friend, he had also lived for a while in Noo Yarzee (apparently New Jersey is the mecca for Costa Rican immigrants...who knew!)  Though this realization that my host brother speaks English was a little disheartening at first because if I get lazy, it could make it harder to learn Spanish, I also think it will ultimately be a good thing.  He's 25 and happens to be an awesome dude so I think we will get on really well and it is good to already have a friend there and I think I will try to strike up a deal with him where I will help him with his English for an hour a day if he speaks the rest of the time to me in Spanish!  Anyhoo, as we talked and traversed over the boulders that define the alleged road to my town, just as the white speck of my brothers Land Cruiser appeared in the distance like a beacon of civilization, so too did the spire of the tiny tiny church of the town.  We approached the town and by the time I even realized it was a town, we had already past it!  There is a tiny church, adjacent to my tiny school (on the fence was a sign that read "Welcome teacher Marck!"..despite the interesting typo it actually really warmed my heart:-)., and right next to the school is my house.  My host mom runs the only "store" in "town" which is literally attached to the house...I open the living room window directly into the shop.  An awesome advantage to this is that the house is literally the social hotspot of the whole village so there will always be people there and it will be easy to meet all 200 inhabitants of the town.

Now, to explain the title of this post.  Let's play a game...it's called how many brothers and sisters does my host mom have?  I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 13.  If you guessed 13 you are right!  She is one of 14 kids!  We went to a fiesta, which was really a carnival, the first night I was there and met 7 of her sisters and one of her brothers...I swear everyone we met was her family.  And now to explain the second part of the title.  The street festival was packed with tons of people and I eventually found my way to a big food stand to grab some grub.  On one side was a painted sign that read "hamberguesas" (hamburgers), and on the other side saw a sign that simply read "perros".  For those who don't habla the espanol, perros means dogs, and I immediately freaked out...between all of the supposed brothers and sisters making out and the dog consumption, I couldn't help but wonder where I had decided to place myself.  So, just as I was about ready to buy a phone solely to call the ASPCA, a very tall man who was standing in front of the sign moves to the left to reveal underneath the word "perros", the word "calientes"......perros calientes = hot dogs.  I told my new host family what I saw and they thought it was hillarious so I think if nothing else it was a great ice breaker and you can all sleep well tonight knowing that if you go to a Costa Rican street festival, you don't have to worry about accidentally eating Lassie.  Sooooo, ultimately, on a scale of 1-10, my site visit was confusing.  I am both super excited to return to such a ridiculously beautiful place (I can see the ocean from my house and the ocean is about 60 miles away!), but also very nervous to be in suchhhhh a tiny place.  The other thing on my mind is the house itself...I was hoping to be experiencing a really minimalist style of living (i.e. partial electricity, no running water, wood fire stove, community dinners...basically just experiencing the opposite of American life).  Incidentally, my new house is only 4 years old and has electricity, internet, a tv, running water, and a washing machine.  Though it was disheartening at first, I am spending the next 2 weeks prior to returning their to adjust my expectations and focus on what the site will be able to give me.

Other than a very very eventful weekend, life here in Orosi is trucking on as per usual.  I had a fantastic 2 hour conversation with my family about a week ago (all in Spanish!) and found out that it was his brother who had died:-(.  He died last January and the service we were going to was actually a memorial service that is held for 9 consecutive nights exactly one year after the passing of the loved one.  I went for another night to see the family again and ended up serving aguadulce (a very sweet coffee looking drink that comes from a sugarcane plant that tastes like a very thin milkshake) to everyone at the oracion.  That was a very much needed conversation and it felt great to break through with my family, but in the past week, my relationship with them has not blossomed much past that, but I have been able to get to know the other volunteers families really well because mine doesn't demand or expect much time from me, so that has been a valuable silver lining.  My Spanish seems to be bi-polar as sometimes I feel, during the same conversation, both almost fluent and completely hillariously incompetent, but the moments when I feel really able to communicate are great and I hope by the end of the year I will be really fluid.  Just as before our site visit, we continue to have about 13727 meetings a day, but given how much I love all of the volunteers, it is actually some good bonding time and feels good to have some good conversation and learn some valuable things...however, if you know me well, you know that there is no way I can take all 5 hours of a 5 hour meeting seriously.  Specifically today, we were coming up with ideas for some guided practice (guided practice is a step of the lesson plan where you guide the students along leading them towards independent practice so they can demonstrate understanding of the new concept on their own).  Well, me and my friend Jess were feeling a little loopy from the coffee we had (by the way, I'm addicted to coffee now...I see the light Rina I see the light!), and instead of coming up with ideas for Guided Practice, we came up with ideas for Guido'd Practice: Proper hair gel/spray tanning ratio application coinciding dependently with students GTL to rocking out to house music in proper apparel, thus enforcing holistic knowledge of the codependent relationship between gold necklaces and graphic t-shirts.  Though me and Jess loved it, the rest of the class kind of just stared at us...possibly it was an inside joke that shouldn't have gone outside to play.  Ultimately though, I think/hope that seeing the humor in my life here will help me with my teaching.  Okay!!! So, what I said in my last post about not writing so much anymore...clearly I didn't really mean that so if you actually did read all of this, I both thank you for your time and applaud you for your impressive dedication!  We started teaching to the students of Orosi this week as a practicum and so far I feel really good about the lessons I have taught!  I have taught two classes to a group of 5 3rd graders and it has gotten me really excited to dig in at the school in La Esperanza (especially because I used the theme from Seinfeld as a teaching implement in a game of Musical Chairs).  I'll let you know how the rest of the teaching goes in the next blog.  For now, I have to get dressed and ready for a WT volunteers/Ticos (Costa Ricans) soccer match...something tells me we don't stand a chance.  I promise to post some photos on my next post and in the meantime, everyone be safe, smile lots, and I miss you!

Estoy Aqui!!! - January 9, 2011

Costa Rica Blog 08/01/2011

Estoy aqui!! Right now, I am sitting on my bed in my room with my orientation host family  trying to comprehend the misplaced juxtaposition of life that seems to define what I have seen of Costa Rica.  The fancy exercise bike (that I happen to share my room with...it lets me be the little spoon) sits just below a water stained ceiling with a single unprotected lightbulb dangling from a loose wire below it (mmmm safe!).  The sound of the flatscreen TV in my temporary host parents bedroom(they are watching Family Guy right now...Pedro Griffin sounds pretty funny in Spanish!)  is complimented by the cacophany of roosters, chickens, and barking stray dogs right outside my window. The kitchen has a microwave, oven, hot running water, and a fridge, but we eat all of our meals outside, surrounded by a canopy of exotic trees and clothes drying on the clothes line.  "Interesante" is the unica palabra to describir my vida aqui (just showing off some of my Spanglish skills!).
So, for the first month or so we have orientation in a town called Orosi, which is about an hour and a half outside of San Jose.  I was welcomed to Costa Rica just past the customs booth at the airport by a big cardboard cutout of a VERY creepy and disconcertingly happy looking guy holding a sign that basically translated to "Remember, sex in Costa Rica with people under 18 is illegal!".  It wasn't quite the Costa Rican beauty in a swimsuit holding a bowl of freshly cut mangos in one hand and a cold cerveza in the other for me that I, and I can only assume the other volunteers naturally expected, but it did indicate to me that I was about to explore life in a very interesting culture.
   Though we literally spent only 16 hours in San Jose, I was already glad to leave and head into a quieter and more rural part of the country.  Again, Costa Rica feels like a world of unlikely contrasts, and the dirty streets and barbed wire protected casas of San Jose didn't quite match up with the surreal picturesque beauty of its surrounding mountains.  I'm glad I am now in those mountains!  However, given that we really only explored the lines at the different immigration offices, I would like to travel back to the city with some locals at some point to explore more of what it has to offer.
My host family has been extremely accomadating to me which has been really nice during this transition, but they haven't extended that much warmth and friendliness to me, so my time in the house can be lonely and they seem to spend most of their time just hanging around the house.  They speak zero English and I have actually been very pleasantly surprised by my abilities to communicate with them thus far.     My mom, Marta, cooks and cleans the house all day and doesn't speak much to me, but she makes a killer gallopinto (rice and beans, the staple of a Tico diet).  I would like to get to know her better, but striking up conversation has been hard so far because I usually just get a simple answer to all of my questions and then the conversation stops.  I also have a 28 year old host brother named Guillermo who is out of the house most of the time with his girlfriend and a 22 year old host sister who seems really shy.  My host dad, Orlando, has been the most outgoing and has been really patient with my currently very small, but growing proficiency in Spanish. I have also been having trouble keeping track of who is who in the extended family as tons of people are always coming in an out of the house.  I was soooo positive that I finally deduced who were brother and sister, but then they started making out and I realized that either I'm wrong, or Costa Rica is a liiiiittle more liberal than I expected. Though the family keeps to themselves and right now I feel much more like a random guest who happens to live in their house than a welcomed temporary addition to the family, one of my major goals of the next month is to try to break through the anguage/culture barrier and connect to them in a deeper way and really get to know them.   However, with all that said regarding the Sanchez family's reclusivity, I did have quite an amazing experience with them last night...
I was talking with Orlando on the porch yesterday right after they picked me up and was able to decipher in our conversation that someone in the family had recently died.  I shared my condolences and really wished that I knew more Spanish, both so I could really understand the details of what he was saying and so I could extend to him more than just, "Lo siento, lo siento.  Mi corazon es con tu familia".  So then, about an hour later, Orlando asked me if I wanted to join them.  I was about 20% sure that he was inviting me to dinner, but in the spirit of maintaining solidarity with one of my resolutions to do anything that a Tico friend invites me to, of course I said yes.  As we were walking down the street, I realized we definitely weren't going to dinner, but since I had already agreed to join, I didn't want to then ask "uhhh..a donde vamos??".  We showed up at a tiny tiny house with about 50 people shoved in like sardines, all of whom were surrounding an ornately decorated table, covered in flowers and a picture of a Jesus and I realized that we were at the memorial service for the lost loved one.  Still today, I do not know who died, as it seemed inappropriate to ask at the service and Orlando had already told me.  I'm realizing that if I really want to learn this language though and get the most from this year, I'm going to have to let go a little more of my apprehensions when it comes to looking stupid and not be afraid to learn what I want to learn, even if I have already been told and just didn't understand.   Anyway, the oration was amazing and I definitely had some moments where I had to ask myself, "Where am I?? Whaaaaaaaaaat am I doing".  For about an hour straight, all 40 or 50 so members (none of whom speak any English) of this massive family chanted the same short passage from the bible over and over and over again in typical ridiculously fast Spanish.  All I could make out was, "Santa Maria"...I'm not going to lie...it took me the first 7 or 8 times they said it for me to realize that they were talking about Saint Mary and not the boat that the pilgrims used to come to America.  I think I need more sleep.  The 6 of us (including Guillermo's girlfriend) left the service around 9pm and came back to the casa to chat and drink coffee.  Though I mostly sat there in bewilderment as the 5 of them laughed and talked too quickly for me to understand, it at some point came up that Orlando plays guitar and I mention that I like to sing.  Next thing I know, Orlando whips out a guitar and the brother tells me to sing.  After a long two days of traveling, confusion, nervousness, and immigration lines, I went to bed feeling pretty darn good after a night filled with new experiences that ended with me singing "Yesterday" by the Beatles as my new host father played some Spanish guitar.  Goal number 2 of my time in Orosi is to get Orlando to give me some lessons!
In many ways, and by many, I mean almost all ways, orientation thus far has felt a lot like summer camp.  This morning, all of the volunteers and their host families met on the field in town for some outdoor games like balloon toss and tug of war.  Unfortunately, my family didn't join:-(.  I was a little worried I would be the only volunteer flying solo, but it was actually a really nice opportunity to get to know the other volunteer's families and play with the little kids, as there are none in my house.  The volunteers all seem really cool and are all in their 20s and 30s so I think it will be a good month of bonding with them, but the best part of the day was when I decided to stay on the field after everyone left and try to mingle with the locals.  I brought a frisbee with me and a friendly toss with some local teenagers blossomed almost instantly...it was really fun but there was one flaw to my plan when it came to frisbee and meeting new people: you are standing really far away from them!  We played for about 20 minutes and then they left, but there were these three kids playing soccer who came up to me and wanted to learn frisbee, so for the next two hours we talked and laughed and made jokes and I tried, slightly successfully, to teach them to throw a frisbee.  One of the kids was named Marcos, who is 13, and we were bragging how we were "nombre hermanos".  The other two were named Oscar, who was 7, and Carles who was 11.  I actually felt really confident in my Spanish talking to Carles and Marcos and learned that they love America because we have Metallica and the girls have big boobies.  How refreshing to see that the true American ideals and values have made it to Costa Rica!...yikes.  I think the two hours that I speng hanging with those kids speaking only Spanish and pretending to fight like Jackie Chan and sing songs by Guns N' Roses has been my favorite time so far, plus it got me really excited to go to my placement and have 25 kids to teach and hang out with!  I realize that this is an absurdly long post for only two days of action, but I wanted to start it off right!  Thanks so much for reading and I can guarantee future posts to look forward to!!  In the meantime, I think I can confidently say that two days ago, we were just a group of awkward, loud, confused gringos y gringas who spoke barely any Spanish, but now we have transformed, like a timid caterpiller into a proud and majestic butterfly, into a group of awkward, loud, confused gringos y gringas who speak a little Spanish.