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[ahuna-matata]

5.21.17 Minimal Expectations

Hi I’m back! I dropped the ball last summer and didn’t blog about Hawaii or China, but hopefully I’ll do a better job this summer as I spend two months on DukeEngage in Tucson, Arizona.

After showing up at the airport at 5:30 in the morning only to find that my flight was rescheduled for 4:30 PM, I eventually made my way to Tucson. I landed at 8:30, and although I missed the events of the day, they saved me some quiche and some salad (I think I might turn into a salad person by the end of the summer--this is monumental for me since I hate vegetables).

I’ll be in Tucson for the next 2 months through DukeEngage. I, along with five other Duke students, will be learning about migration and border issues with a non-profit called Borderlinks. Each of us will also be interning with other nonprofits. My internship will be with the Southside Worker Center. This week will be an orientation to Borderlinks, Tucson, and border issues in general. After that, I will start my full-time internship.

Like most of the traveling I have done in college, I really have no idea what to expect from my DukeEngage experience. I expect to do a lot more learning than helping, and I expect to come to a better understanding of the gravity of our border issues and my own immense privilege. I’m excited to get acclimated to this city, these issues, and the dry heat (keep me in your thoughts, I sweat like a monster).

[ahuna-matata]

Costa Rica: Reflexión

It is hard to put into words what I “learned” from my experience in Costa Rica. Obviously, I learned a lot about the healthcare system and culture. My Spanish has gotten much better, and the trip has only made me want to study abroad again in a Spanish-speaking country to improve my skills even more. The real lessons, though, are not things I could ever learn in a classroom.

I never would have realized the full extent of my privilege and my smallness in the world if I had not immersed myself in a completely different place for a month.  I have learned to question aspects of life that I find obvious and to refrain from judgement when I don’t understand. I am reaffirmed in my belief that the world is so large and so diverse, and that I should take any opportunity I can to explore it and understand it just a little bit more.

It will take some time before I am able to fully reflect on this experience. Now, though, I can show full gratitude to Profesora Fernandez, Mami Olga and her family, my incredible classmates, and the country of Costa Rica for showing me a small part of the world and the meaning of pura vida.

[ahuna-matata]

June 25-27: Guanacaste y Hasta Luego

Saturday morning, I said an emotional goodbye to Mami Olga, and we left San Joaquín de Flores for the last time.  We drove up to Guanacaste, stopping at a rest stop with a ton of parrots and colorful birds.  We checked in at Hacienda Guachipelín, a hotel with a pool, restaurant, and a farm.  We went to the spa to take mud baths.  We went into a dry sauna, then painted ourselves with mud and bathed in a hot spring once the mud dried.  We ate dinner in the Hacienda restaurant, watched some kids do traditional dance and then tried it ourselves. After dinner, we piled into one bed and all watched Aladdin together.

On Sunday, we woke up at 6:30 to go milk cows. We were so bad at it that the milk went back up into the cow or something.  We spent the rest of the morning exploring the nearby national park, where we saw monkeys and lots of hot springs and hot pools of mud.  Right before we left, we saw a sloth high up in a tree, fulfilling the dream of my friend Anna.  After lunch, we headed back to the Central Valley, stopping at a café/flower exporter. We ate a last dinner all together in the same hotel we stayed in the first night.

In the morning, I left for the States.  When we landed in Charlotte, we were delayed getting to the gate due to rain.  Five other international flights had the same problem, and I waited so long to go through Customs that I missed my connection to Buffalo.  I waited an hour for the “shuttle” (it was a mini van) to the Microtel Inn before giving up and ubering. I ate a small Domino’s cheese pizza at 1:30 in the morning, then got up the next morning to catch my flight home.

[ahuna-matata]

June 20-24: La Semana Final

Monday 6/20: Today, instead of class, we went to our final two charlas. In the morning we visited the headquarters of the Instituto Nacional de Seguridad (National Institute of Security) for a talk about the Ministerio de Salud (Ministry of Healthy), a topic we already knew a lot about. After a particularly delicious chicken sandwich in San Jose, we headed to the Hospital Clínica Bíblica, a private hospital in San Jose. It was absolutely gorgeous; especially compared to the public hospitals we visited, the facilities were pristine.  The maternity rooms looked like private hotel rooms with Wi-Fi, the waiting areas had couches, there was a full service café and gift shop, and there was a helipad where we got to see beautiful views of San Jose. What was missing was the people waiting; since only 10% of the population can afford private medical care, the out-the-door lines and full waiting rooms that exist at the public hospitals don’t exist there. Our visit there was proof that even in a system of universal healthcare, socioeconomic inequality still effects the care you receive.

 Tuesday 6/21: Today in class was just a wrap-up of material and a review of some grammar topics.  For lunch, I went with Naod, Greg, Alex and Julia to Super Snacks and ate one of the delicious chicken sandwiches. We then visited our favorite café across the street to study for our test the next day and work on our final project.  After eating dinner, Mami Olga’s granddaughter, Karla, interviewed me in English for her school project.  She is in her final year at a selective colegio (high school) where she studies English intensively. Karla told me she hopes to attend one of the two best universities in the country to study either medicine or education. Her English was infinitely better than my Spanish; we were able to talk about her life, my life, Costa Rica, and the States without any problems.

 Wednesday 6/22: This day was Profe’s birthday! We had our test in class and celebrated with a cake. For lunch, we went to an incredible pork place. Spencer, Thara and I split a giant meal of mixed meats, which included barbeque ribs, barbeque chicken, and chicharrones, some beautiful little fried bites that have something to do with pork. It was hands down one of the best meals I had in Costa Rica. After, my group and I returned to CPI to work on our final project.

 Thursday 6/23 : We spent class time this day doing a bit of reflecting and then working on our final projects.  Alex, Leah and I walked to our favorite restaurant, La Parillita de Pepe, for a last round of arepas with chicken and guacamole and salsa rosada, a mix of ketchup and mayonnaise and probably crack as well. For dinner, Mami Olga and I walked to Santa Elena de San Joaquín to her daughter Xinia’s house.  I ate sopa azteca with Xinia, her husband Gerardo, their son José Davíd, and Karla and her sister. They made a lot of jokes about my lack of Spanish knowledge and I laughed along. The night ended with an intense two-hour game of spoons, in which Mami Olga moved faster than I had ever seen her move before.  Because of timing and my busy schedule, this was the only “family time” I had in Costa Rica. I wish I had been able to experience that earlier and more often, although I am so grateful Xinia and her family welcomed me into their home and treated me like a member of their family for that night.

 Friday 6/24: Our last day in San Joaquín, this day was very bittersweet.  We spent class time giving our final presentations about the most valuable lessons we had learned (check out my group’s: ethanalexleah.tumblr.com). After class, we ate lunch all together at Pollo Sus Amigos. I had the best fried chicken that I’d had yet, but still nothing like fried chicken in the US. After lunch, we went to Le Petit Café de Flores near my house and had cafecito before Profe went and had cafecito with all of our host mothers.  I spent the afternoon packing, had a last dinner with Mami Olga, and played with José Davíd. At night, a bunch of us met up at Julia’s house and headed out to the club Rapsodia, where we had gone the first weekend, to celebrate an incredible four weeks.

[ahuna-matata]

June 19: Cartago

While today was technically a free day, all eleven students, Diego, and Enrique decided to drive to Cartago to visit the city and to have cafecito with Profe and her family at her mother’s house to celebrate Profe’s birthday.

When we got to Cartago, the original capital of Costa Rica, we visited the ruins, which are technically not ruins since they are only a century old.  We then walked to the Basilica, which was architecturally beautiful. There was a service going on inside and many people walking down the main aisle of pews on their knees toward the altar. Diego explained that many people make pilgrimages to the basilica when they have a favor to ask, and they must walk on their knees to the front of the church. Diego’s grandmother made a pilgrimage each time a grandchild was to be born to ask for the baby to be healthy. After visiting the church, we went to drink some holy water. Many locals had brought jugs, water bottles, or containers shaped like the Virgin Mary to fill with holy water.

We ate lunch in what seemed to be the only restaurant open on Sunday and then went to Profe’s mom’s house. We met her mom, three of her four siblings, a few cousins and several nieces and nephews.  We looked at the fruits and chickens in the backyard and then sat on the patio for sangria, coffee, bread and cake.  Anna, Harry and I played American football with three of Profe’s little nephews, and then we all had a dance party. I was so sweaty that several of Profe’s family members made a comment on the way out. It was incredibly nice of Profe to let us spend time with her family; she, like her whole family, is incredibly accomplished but gracious, and I feel very lucky to have gotten to know her over this trip.

[ahuna-matata]

June 18: Isla Tortuga

We left at 6 AM to being our trip to Isla Tortuga, an island off the Pacific coast named for it’s turtle-like shape. Enrique drove us to a bus stop, where we caught a tourist bus to the city of Puntarenas. After two hours, we got off the bus and took a two-hour ferry ride to the island. The boat had its own entertainer, a loud and flamboyant Costa Rican man. My friends yelled and carried on until I agreed to have a dance off with him.  Of course, on my first move, I tried to spin and wiped out in front of the entire boat. He clearly won, but he gave me a free piña colada for participating.

 The island itself was everything you would want a Costa Rican island to be: a beautiful beach with palm trees and forest behind it, sunny skies, and incredibly clear water. We swam in the strong current and played beach volleyball before lunch, where we spotted a wild boar and her baby. After lunch, we rode a banana boat and spent more time on the beach before we left around 4:00 PM.

 On the boat ride back, an American woman started arguing with a server on the boat that her friend had been charged for eight drinks instead of seven. It carried on for a while, and the woman was getting angrier and angrier. As a very non-confrontational person, I would have quickly given up and let them keep the extra $6. While she’s totally within her right to complain if she was indeed overcharged, it bothered me that she was yelling at a server who was probably younger than me. I doubt he would be working that job every Saturday if he didn’t need the small wages to support his family or his education. It did him no benefit to take six extra bucks from a customer, so I felt like her anger was misplaced. I could see where Americans got their reputation; there was a certain ignorance and sense of entitlement to the way in which she was arguing. I imagine that this incident will stick with me every time I play the tourist role in the near future.

[ahuna-matata]

June 14-17: La Tercera Semana

Tuesday 6/14: On this day we were back in San Joaquín and at CPI. Our class focused on nutrition and obesity. Obesity is a problem in Costa Rica, with 60% of the population overweight despite one of the healthier diets in the world. We had our afternoon free and it was pouring, so my project group (Alex, Leah, Julia and me) had Diego order us chicken sandwiches from Super Snacks so we could work on our investigation project.  Our project focused on the Costa Rican university system, in which public universities are considered superior to private.  In order to get in, though, you need to take a test that is only offered once a year. Your grade on this test, combined with your high school grades, is the only information universities consider. Also, you must pick a career right off the bat and do well every semester in order to stick with it. It’s a very different system than ours, but interesting nonetheless.

 Wednesday 6/15: We spent class time learning about the effects of the environment on health. At the restaurant in San Jose where we went for lunch, we sang for Julia’s birthday and ate more tres leches cake. Profe also ordered Julia and I special flaming drinks, which turned out to be coffee liqueur with tequila in it. Needless to say, I turned rather red rather quickly.  We spent the afternoon touring the Hospital Mexico, one of a few national hospitals in Costa Rica. All the records there are kept in a room of floor-to-ceiling shelves of file folders with papers in them; they are still in the process of computerizing their records. Very disturbingly, we were taken to a museum of stillborn or miscarried fetuses preserved in jars of formaldehyde, which is a sight that cannot be unseen. We also saw the department of radio oncology and got to go into the Intensive Care Unit with its chief medic. He told us very bluntly in English what was wrong with each person in the ICU and how there are more patients who should be in the ICU but there aren’t enough beds. He shed light on what a lot of us had been thinking: though it’s great that healthcare in Costa Rica is free, there are not sufficient resources to maintain the system as well as the people need it to be maintained.

 Thursday 6/16: Today, each group gave their presentation. One group presented about diseases carried by mosquitos (zika, dengue and chikungunya), another talked about Catholicism and religion in Costa Rica, and my group gave our spiel on the higher education system. In the afternoon, we went to the office for the Organization of Tropical Studies (OTS) for a talk about the integration of biodiversity and the environment and health. At least, I think that’s what we learned. Leah and I may or may not have spent the whole lecture doing math conversion problems to keep ourselves from falling asleep.

 Friday 6/17: Instead of class at CPI in the morning, Enrique drove us downtown for a charla at the court building in San Jose.  There, we met Profe’s older sister Xinia, who works at the court and is an expert in women’s rights. We learned about domestic violence and about women’s rights, which are a challenge to uphold in Costa Rica due to a traditional culture of machismo that labels men as powerful and dominant and women as submissive and at the will of their husband. Toward the end, the first female president of the Poder Judicial came in and talked to us for a bit. She’s a big deal in Costa Rica and looked powerful the second she walked in the room. We took a photo with her that made the court’s website and then had casados for lunch in downtown San Jose.

                 After lunch, we walked through a market, and then Leah and I took an uber to Avenida Escazu, an outdoor shopping area in the wealthier part of San Jose province. We might as well have been in Miami or Los Angeles; the shopping center was incredibly upscale an American-feeling, complete with a P.F. Chang’s. Leah and I went to the tech store that carried Apple products to get our appliances fixed. We immediately felt like idiots; Leah’s phone that wasn’t charging started working fine as soon as the employee cleaned out the charging hole, and my computer that did not turn on FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK turned on as soon as the guy plugged it into a charger. We went to Starbucks with hordes of Costa Rican middle tweens while we waited for a tech guy to get my data chip out of my phone, and upon returning to the store, I accidentally said “We are Gringos, we are nothing” instead of “We are Gringos, we know nothing.” Feeling very American already, we decided to stop for sushi before ubering back to San Joaquín.

[ahuna-matata]

June 12-13: Guayabo, La Casa de Profe, y Las Maternas

Sunday morning, we visited Guayabo, which is sometimes referred to as “The Machu Picchu of Costa Rica.” It was a trading center before the Spanish reached Costa Rica, and it has a working aqueduct. While the architecture is impressive considering the time it was built, it’s a lofty goal to compare it to Machu Picchu. Still, it was cool to see. We also saw a snake and those leaves that close up when you touch them, and we fought several wars with bugs: Greg stood on an anthill, Alex’s ankle started swelling oddly, and Julia sprayed my bug spray at anything with wings.

 In the afternoon, we went up to my professor’s vacation home on the mountain of Volcan Turrialba. Her house and property is absolutely beautiful. She has a ton of exotic plants in her yard and trees with colorful bark. We met some of her neighbors, one of whom gave us fresh-baked bread and one of whom, Doña Susan, has two horses, a mule, koi fish, a dog, two cats, and a beautiful view of the Caribbean when there are no clouds.  We had cafecito in Profe’s house surrounded by a cloud before returning to Turrialba for our last night in the Bed and Breakfast.

 On Monday, we went to Mamasol, a center for pregnant women and new mothers started by Rebecca, a woman from the US. She talked to us about her goal to make giving birth comfortable for women and her struggle as an American woman in a male-dominated Costa Rican society.

 After, we visited Doña Miriam, a midwife. She was married at 14 to a 28-year-old and gave birth to 19 children.  Over her many years, she has helped deliver over 2,000 babies. She talked in vulgar vernacular without a filter and forced us to drink agua dulce and eat arepas. It’s hard for me to comprehend her life and lifestyle, but it is incredible to think how many people’s lives she has impacted.

[ahuna-matata]

June 11: La Población Indígena Cabecar

This day, one of my favorite days of the trip, we visited the Cabecar indigenous people.  To do so, we had to use some unorthodox methods of transportation.  First, our driver Enrique drove us two hours through banana fields to a market. This market is the closest sign of civilization to the Cabecar village and is where the women of the village come to get food. From there, we met up with our Cabecar guide, a plantation owner, and the plantation owner’s wife.  The plantation owner, whose name I can’t recall, owned the land that borders that of the indigenous. Usually, one needs to cross a river on foot and walk for two hours through the plantation and forest to reach the indigenous community. Thanks to the kindness of the plantation owner and his relationship with the indigenous community, we were able to ride his tractor.

 The hitch on the back of the tractor was essentially a giant rusty box on wheels, typically used for cargo. We all stood on the hitch under the hot sun, holding on to the sides of the hitch to keep us from being thrown around. We crossed the river, then were bumped and jostled through the plantation and then later through the forest. We rode past the soccer field, church, and center of town, then got out of the tractor and walked 15 minutes up a hill to our guide’s house. His wife, son and daughter cooked us lunch and we ate as it started to rain.

 We walked up the hill a little bit further to a new structure built for intercultural exchange. Some of the mothers and daughters in the community taught us how to do different tasks that they do often: making a baby carrier out of tree bark, making hemp out of large fronds, and making paint.  We got to try our hand at painting with the natural paint and then were able to buy crafts that the women made. I bought a sloth ornament, and we handed out snacks we had bought to the children, who are used to a simple diet.

 The Cabecar people dress like us and have electricity, but their lives are so different from mine. They talk quietly and smile sparingly.  They need to make the two-hour trek to the market where we started every week in order to get food. Their lives are simple but fulfilling, and I feel fortunate that they allowed me to get a glimpse into their lifestyle.

 By the time we were ready to leave, it was pouring rain. We stepped in mud and cow poop on our way back to the tractor, then rode soaking wet back through the forest and plantation to the bus. It was such a cool and surreal experience that definitely stands out as one of my favorites of the trip.

 We ate pizza in Turrialba that night and hung out at our Bed and Breakfast. A few of us tried out a local bar but couldn’t communicate with anyone. Overall, a very cool day.

[ahuna-matata]

June 10: Hogar de Ancianos

This morning, I got up bright and early and headed to the church with a small suitcase, ready to be picked up for a weekend in Turrialba, a city in the valley of a C-shaped mountain area in the province of Cartago. The kids heading to the Escuela de los Estados Unidos across the plaza from the church were all dressed in costumes (that school seems lit—there’s hype music coming out of there relatively often). We got on the bus and began our four-hour drive.

 We stopped outside Profe’s mom’s house in the city of Cartago and said hello to her mom before continuing on to our first stop, the Hogar Sanbuenaventura de Ancianos (St. Bonaventure Home for the Elderly). One of the employees talked to us about elderly homes in Costa Rica. The facilities were not as pristine as you would find in the States; there are 4-6 beds in a room and the buildings aren’t nicely painted or beautifully furnished. What stood out to me was that the cost to stay in a home like Hogar Sanbuenaventura is higher than the pension Costa Ricans are allotted. Therefore, it is often up to the family of the resident to contribute financially.

 After our talk we were instructed to go hang out with residents. After watching the ceremony in which the Virgen, an important religious statute (“virgin”), was brought in, I talked to a man in a wheelchair. He was missing his teeth and I understood almost none of the Spanish he spoke to me. He soon became more interested in my friend Anna, so I moved on. I walked up to a woman and said “cómo está” and immediately received a reply of “muy, muy mal.” I spent the next 20 minutes holding her hand as she babbled to me how she thought she was going to die and where was her family and she is going to die. I later found out she had Alzheimer’s. We were interrupted by a woman in a wheelchair who kept asking me for help. I wasn’t sure what she wanted or how to help her. It turned out she wanted to remove the restraint keeping her in her wheelchair, which wasn’t allowed. I stood there for five minutes telling her I couldn’t help before I decided to just leave.

 Quite honestly, it was an overall uncomfortable experience.  I had never been to an elderly home before in the States, let alone in another country.  The residents’ Spanish was fast and jumbled and I couldn’t converse or help them like I wanted to.  At dinner, some of my classmates had to spoon-feed residents who could not eat on their own. There were several residents who were totally self-sufficient; I had a long talk with one man after dinner about me and Costa Rica in general, and Leah, Spencer, Harry and I had a dance party with a man who was great at the guitar. Still, the majority of the residents had deteriorated physically or mentally and were desperately looking for companionship my nervous, English-speaking self could not provide.

 The most impactful experience of the visit for me was the time I sent with Don Pedro.  I ran into him and Profe sitting in chairs outside his room. He had a portable radio, a walker, and what appeared to be a paralyzed right arm. He was trying to tell Profe his last name but could not talk and got frustrated (I later found out it was Urbina, and he was very pleased when I told him I knew). I spent the next hour with him, letting him roughly write his name in a drawing app on my iPhone. He would struggle to form the “d” and get frustrated, so I would erase it and he would start over. When he was done, he grunted satisfactorily and we started over.

 I later learned that he was an immigrant from Nicaragua who originally came to Costa Rica to help support his family. He would pick coffee in the fields and send his earnings back to Nicaragua. One day when he was walking home, some men on the street beat him up and took his money. When he gained consciousness in the hospital, he immediately asked where his money was. Ten minutes after he was told it was gone, he had a stroke. He is one of a few people who do not pay at all to stay at the home; his family probably has no idea where he disappeared to.

 I left Hogar Sanbuenaventura with a newfound respect for people who work in elderly homes and an even greater appreciation of how lucky I am to live the life that I do. In another time and place, I could have been Don Pedro.

[ahuna-matata]

June 7: La Carpio

This afternoon we went to La Carpio, which my professor compared to “the projects” in the United States. It is an enclosed neighborhood in San Jose of about 4,000 people. A majority of people there are Costa Ricans, but there are populations of Nicaraguans, Mexicans, and other immigrants as well. La Carpio is right next to a landfill that is three stories tall. There are rivers on either side that are 80% trash and garbage in the street. If a child fell into the river during one of the many flash rainstorms, he or she would die.

We walked around the neighborhood in the early afternoon. There is a lot of garbage in the streets, and while the houses aren’t cardboard and plastic bags like they were when the neighborhood began, they are not nearly as nice as the area where I am living.  The streets were busy; there are too many kids to fit in the school, so they go in shifts and only get 3 hours of class a day. Stray dogs, toddlers without shoes, touchy couples, the elderly, and teenagers playing soccer sat outside houses or ran through the streets.

I couldn’t help but notice how happy pf eople seemed. I was very wrongly expecting that, because they were poor and lived in a garbage-infested neighborhood, the people would seem beaten-down and unhappy. Contrary to my pretentious expectations, everyone I saw seemed to be incredibly content with their life. It was an important reminder of the absolute lack of correlation between money or possessions and happiness.

In the afternoon we visited a grassroots NGO started by a woman named Gail, who came to Costa Rica in the 80s with the Peace Corps. We spent a bit of time drawing pictures with children there. They were incredibly friendly; I drew a house and a car with a five-year-old named Bryan, who asked me “chino?” (Chinese) right off the bat (I replied, “un poco”).

Gail talked to us about the history of poverty to give us some background about the people’s situation in La Carpio. Then a group of women presented a play about a girl who immigrated from Nicaragua. It was the true story of one of the women. She had fifteen children, was regularly assaulted by her alcoholic husband, and left her parents and husband to immigrate to Costa Rica with her children. Three days before our visit, her grandson was murdered. She almost didn’t come to present the play, but she decided it was more important to move on and get her message across.

The women and their story left me speechless. All of the women were immigrants from Nicaragua who had suffered from abusive husbands, poverty, and numerous other hardships. They all remarked that they love La Carpio. It’s home to them; it’s stable and familiar, and there is crime everywhere, so they have no desire in moving just because of the crime rate. They had all found something to make them happy; for example, the woman whose story was told now sells mangos to pay for her own expenses. I always pitied people who need to sell stuff on the street to make a living; this woman couldn’t be happier that she was doing so.

Rape and sexual assault is a huge issue in our society. The incredibly unjust ruling of the Stanford rape case is proof of that, and rape and assault is disgusting and horrifying in any case. Yet in the US, there is at least a conversation happening about domestic and sexual abuse. The women I met that afternoon were consistently abused as part of their culture. They had no support and got no attention; instead, they had to continue on and raise their families. I cannot fathom half of the strength that that takes.

My visit to La Carpio was the most valuable part of this trip so far; it was a very necessary reminder of how unbelievably lucky I am. None of my “problems” even come close to what these people face.

[ahuna-matata]

June 6-9: La Segunda Semana

Monday: In the afternoon, we toured a local hospital in Heredia. The tour took us places we could never go in a US hospital, like the maternity wing and the emergency room area. A mother let us gush over her day-old twins, and we walked by dozens of people lying in stretchers in the hallway. It made me uncomfortable; I felt like I was looking at these people’s life events like they were museum exhibits. My professor explained to me that privacy is not as important here; hospital rooms have more than one bed because the patients like to talk to each other. It was an important realization for me; not every culture is like mine.

Tuesday: We went to La Carpio, a lower-class neighborhood in the province of San Jose.  My experience there was the most eye-opening yet; I’ll write a separate post about it.

Wednesday: We had a free afternoon, so we went to Carillita de Pepe for lunch and got delicious arepas and fries with a delicious sauce that was just a ketchup-mayonnaise mix. I ran back to CPI in one of the worst downpours yet to do some work before going home for dinner.

Thursday: With another free afternoon, we went to Longo’s Pizza and shared a gigantic pizza. After we found a really cool cafe and drank strange iced coffees in yet another rainstorm. For dinner, we went to Caracoles de Colores and listened to live music.

[ahuna-matata]

June 4-5: Fiestas de Cumpleaños

On Saturday, June 4, we took a beautiful bus ride to Volcan Poás and walked the trail to the crater. We couldn’t see much of the crater since the volcano is in a cloud forest, which is literally a forest in the clouds. Catalina, our weekend guide, gave us an overview of Costa Rican history, back to Pangaea when the landmass that is now Central America did not yet exist.

We drove to the La Paz waterfall for lunch, where we ate pizza and french fries and garlic knots at an amazing outdoor restaurant with beautiful bathrooms. After lunch we took a ride in a caretta wagon pulled by ox (one of which pooped so much while pulling us) and saw snakes, frogs, exotic birds, butterflies, and jungle cats. We walked down to the waterfall, which was small but beautiful nonetheless. I can’t believe how many beautiful views I’ve seen since I got here.

That night, nine of us took a private bus that slightly resembled the mystery machine to Manuel Antonio, a beach about 3 hours away. I turned nineteen on the mountain highway of Costa Rica, and we miraculously made it to our hostel without the breaks giving out a little after midnight.

Our hostel, Vista Serena, was a giant room of beds that looked particularly sketchy at night. There were ants on the beds and one sketchy bathroom, but it will be such a cool birthday story to tell. We spent a few hours playing cards and rapping (?) on the patio in a rainstorm before I sweat myself to sleep.

In the morning, our drivers, Cuco and Rosalin, took us to breakfast and then to the Manuel Antonio National park. We walked through the rainforest for about half an hour until we reached the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. It was crescent-shaped with rainforest right beyond the sand and warm, blue-green water. A raccoon ate my whole bag of pretzels, but we spent the day in the water and saw monkeys in the tree line. I felt like I was on a movie set; definitely a birthday to remember. We grabbed burgers before heading back to San Joaquín. Pictures to come, I promise!

[ahuna-matata]

June 3: Una Noche Satisfactoria

Tonight at CPI, there was a party celebrating the school’s 25th anniversary. The whole staff and their families were there, and there were tacos, latin music, a local band, and different games. Some of the workers and their kids would pull us onto the dance floor with them to dance in a circle or spin with a partner. I am still so amazed at how friendly people are in this country, especially when you make the effort to get to know their culture. I didn’t know most of them and I was sweating like an animal, but they welcomed me to their party anyway.

During dinner, I interviewed my mama tica about her 32 years as a nurse and the healthcare system in general. She told me about her experience working in a hospital and then an ebais and how she loved being able to help people for a living. We then talked about me, my education, and my future. She is very interested in me, and I don't think it’s just because I’m American; she wants to learn about American culture, but she wants to get to know me as well. I am so glad she is my host mother; she is incredibly wise and happy, and I can’t wait to spend three more weeks with her.

Tomorrow, we are going to the Poás volcano during the day. Hopefully, if plans work out, a bunch of us will take the bus tomorrow night to Manuel Antonio, a beach and national park, and I’ll spend my birthday on Sunday on the beach.

Trying to figure out how to post more than one picture at a time but also so busy with school and visits and homework and Spanish and sleeping--I’ll try to be more active going forward!

Buenas noches!

[ahuna-matata]

May 30 to June 3: Mi primera semana

Each day, my mama tica made me breakfast at 8 AM. I had coffee and a bowl of mango, manga (which is apparently different), pineapple and bananas every day. Some days, I had gallo pinto (rice and beans) and eggs; others, I had essentially a grilled cheese or even a ham sandwich with cheese and tomatoes. I leave at 8:30 and walk 15 minutes to CPI, past the church and down the Calle Cemetario. We have class from 9-12 every day, with a short break to use the bathroom, drink some jugo de cas, and eat some pineapple and watermelon. This week we talked about Costa Rica in general, its national identity, the phenomenon of immigration (especially from Nicaragua), and the universal healthcare and insurance system that exists here.

After class, every day is different. On Monday, we prepared our own arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) and corn tortillas. The tortillas were more like pancakes, but the rice was delicious. After, we stayed at CPI to do homework and then walked home. 

Tuesday, we ate lunch at CPI and then took a dance lesson in salsa, merengue, and bachata on the basketball court. The instructor kept pulling me out to be the example with her even though I was sweating everywhere. We stayed again to do homework and walked home on our own.

Wednesday we went to the mall of San José and ate in the food court. The mall here is very similar to American malls, complete with a McDonald’s where I ordered my delicious lunch of a bacon chicken sandwich with a free ice cream cone. We then walked around the University of Costa Rica, the most competitive public university in the country, and talked with Professor Jimenez, a leading export on immigration in Costa Rica.

Thursday we ate at a nice restaurant in San Jose, then made our way in the pouring rain to The Caja, which is the organization that provides universal health coverage and social security to Costa Ricans. We talked with an administrator about how the system works. Who knew that healthcare was completely free for all citizens of Costa Rica.

Today (Friday), we went to a cool restaurant in the mountains (that served french fries!), then went to an ebais (a local clinic for basic medical care) in San José de la Montaña, a mountain town. We talked to the doctor, the nurse and the tech, about their jobs at the ebais. There is only one doctor and nurse there at a time, and the doctor goes to various parts of the area once a month for people who cannot come to the clinic. 

It pours faithfully every afternoon. It makes it difficult to walk home, especially when sidewalks don’t always exist, and when they do, they are separated from the street by deep trenches that serve as the plumbing system (the plumbing system is not too great--I’ve clogged the toilet twice already). When there aren’t sidewalks, you have to walk against traffic and try not to get hit by a speeding car or bus.

[ahuna-matata]

View of the gardens from my hotel balcony

[ahuna-matata]

Our hotel