Where do I start? So much has happened in the last two months. My family visited, Matt (that’s my brother) stayed here in my site for a week, then Christmas, New Year’s, and back to work. I guess I’ll work in that order.Mom, Dad, and Matt flew into San José on Nov 24th for their two week stay, or make that 3 weeks for Matt. They then came back to my site for two days for some intense cultural exchange. They got to know Doña Albertina and the whole family. They helped me teach an English class, in which one of the highlights was my brother explaining in Spanish that he is a fisícatera-puta...instead of a fisícaterapeuta. Small difference, I know, but it can mean a lot. (For all those folks that aren’t that familiar with Spanish, you’ll have to look up that ending for yourselves)
Other highlights were my Mom trading knitting tips with the ladies of the family. She also brought down some yarns and wooden needles as gifts. She was a big hit. Dad got to learn a little bit about raising cows with one of my host brothers. And Mom cooked them one of her breakfast dishes our last morning here. Also, they were able to come to a meeting of the junta directiva of the bank to learn a little bit about how micro-finance works. We also took a walking tour around the town. It was an action packed two days. Follow the link to see some pictures of our time in San Cristóbal Norte: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hrxv88s.92xblhww&x=0&h=1&y=-1z9qjo&localeid=en_US
From San Cristóbal Norte, we headed to the beach. After picking up a fellow Peace Corp-er on the highway south, we made our way to the Central Pacific coastline. A bunch of volunteers had rented a big house by the beach in a little town called Matapalo to celebrate Thanksgiving.
The original plan was to have about 20 people or so, but due to a flood on the Atlantic side that ruined some of the more veteran groups’ plans, they tagged along with us and the result was about 35 volunteers in one house! The house was dubiously named the “Jungle House”. My parents graciously dropped Matt, Tamara (other volunteer friend), and me off at the beach house and they proceeded on to a little Bed and Breakfast an hour north in Manuel Antonio.
Over the next two days there was considerable debauchery. Don’t get me wrong, this was Peace Corps debauchery, which means it is not some type of evil wickedry were engaged in, but a silly, drunken, half-naked, laugh-until-you-fall-down debauchery. And of course…there were the obligatory late-night swimming expeditions. Let’s just say our presence was felt in the town, and I don’t think they’ll be a group like us there for quite some time.
Another highlight of the Matapalo house was my brother waking up in a daze on the first morning. We were situated in a 3rd floor loft up in the trees. The first thing Matt saw as he opened his eyes was a large Howler monkey staring right back at him – from inside the room!
The monkey had climbed in threw the open window. As Matt woke up, the monkey made its way back outside onto the 2nd floor roof, which was level with our room, and proceeded to jump up and down and side to side for about 15 minutes, successfully waking up most of the 2nd floor.
And so it was in that way we experienced the true “monkey hour”.
It was a great Thanksgiving. Complete unlike any Thanksgiving I’ve ever had, but great all the same. And we actually managed to have turkey. One very noble volunteer bit the bullet and fronted the money to buy two massive turkeys. They had to buy the turkeys in San José, so I’m still not sure how they got them to the house, but it must have been by backpack. Either way, it makes to laugh to picture two Peace Corps volunteers on a public bus with a pack bulging with a large, raw turkeys. It was tasty turkey.
Matt and I had enough after two days at the Jungle House. Mom and Dad came down for the afternoon to hang out on the beach and meet some of the other volunteers, and then we got in the car to head back to the Bed and Breakfast in Manuel Antonio with them.
The next week and a half was a blur of excellently prepared meals, fine wines, luxury accomodations, good books, American TV, and nature tours of the likes which have not been seen since…well…our last family vacation.
Mom and Dad know how to relax and live the high life, I’ll give them that. (No, the beer High Life, was nowhere to be found in this scene.)
Naturally Matt, being a minimalistic climber, and me being the humble Peace Corps volunteer looked on this atmosphere of decadence with complete disdain accompanied by reluctant acceptance.
¡Mentiras! Lies.
It was awesome!
We spent a couple of relaxing days by the beach in Manuel Antonio, then launched our assault on the interior of the country. We passed a couple of nights at a little inn situated alongside a cloud forest in the mountains around San Ramon. Then we made our way to La Fortuna to spend a few days alongside the active Arenal Volcano.
I’m serious! We were only about 4 or 5 kilometers from the lava-oozing crater of an active volcano. We’re talking about a FIRE BREATHING mountain here, folks!!!
We never even saw the damn volcano. A cold front moved in from Nicaragua the day before we arrived bringing clouds and rain that canvassed the area for 4 straight days. We stayed there for four nights and got one tiny, miraculous glimpse of the glowing top of the volcano the night before we left…which was actually pretty cool.
Another fun activity that we did around La Fortuna was the SkyTrek zip line tour. There are a lot of zip line tours in the La Fortuna, but this company was supposedly the best, and I believe it. They take you up the side of a mountain in an enclosed ski lift type device, then to get back down you have to do about 7 or 8 zip lines back and forth across a valley. The highest single zip line was about 600 meters off the rocky ground below, and the longest was over a half mile stretch.
We were flying through the forest! We were probably going about 30 miles an hour through the misty trees and valley. The only drawback was that all that friction from the zip line device means the metal cable has to be well-greased. Combine that with the downpour that was falling as we did the tour, and we all looked like a coal miners after about two stretches of zip line. We were covered in oil! We looked pretty funny. The following link has some pictures of us during the tour: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hrxv88s.4nffear4&x=0&h=1&y=ctpj6i&localeid=en_US
Honorable mention goes to Mom for her adventurous spirit and cool headedness throughout the tour. She was dubbed “Extreme Mom” by our fellow tour goers.
From La Fortuna we went to a small inn (Mom likes inns) not too far from the airport and San Jose to recharge after the extremely strenuous La Fortuna adventures (not). Okay, we didn’t really need to do that much more relaxing, but it was enjoyable. After a tough goodbye, Mom and Dad left on December 8th. Matt and I were left to make our way back to San Cristóbal Norte.
First, however, Matt and I had to make one stop before heading back to my site. We stopped at a guitar store in San José and he helped me pick out a decent starter guitar and some other necessary odds and ends. I had been wanting to pick up a new hobby…something other than reading, which I love, but was looking for something different. I was very excited we were able to find a decent guitar, since there weren’t many options, and was also pleasantly surprised when Matt whipped out his credit card to pay for everything. ¡Qué hermano más pura vida!
Back in San Cristóbal Norte I resumed my English classes and dove back into other projects. Matt practiced his Spanish with my family, read books, and went to classes and meetings with me. A couple of mornings we went out and picked coffee on the micro-finance bank’s president. He is a real humble guy, and he doesn’t have any fieldhands, so we thought we could help him out. Fortunately, the weather was great. We both really enjoyed zoning out picking some coffee in the lush green hills with the warm sun above us.
Matt showed me a few basic cords and then a few songs. I’m still picking away at them, and really enjoying practicing. Hopefully it will stick.
Matt has really committed himself to improve his Spanish, and as I was helping him out with Spanish and he was helping me with the guitar, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between
our goals.I was watching Matt play in front of the family on the porch – they were all pretty captivated – and it struck me that he has been playing guitar for about 10 years now. During that time, he has become a really talented guitarist, but it was also humbling to think how many hours and days he had spent practicing and honing his talent.
On the other hand, my Spanish has come a long way since I first started seriously studying Spanish my freshman year in college. That is…about 7 years ago! And after countless hours of study in college, 4 months in Spain, and almost a year in Costa Rica, I still wouldn’t say I’ve come anywhere near mastering the language.I really enjoyed the week with Matt in my site, trading tips on Spanish for some guitar lessons. Matt has really learned a lot of Spanish in a short time, and I hope he sticks with it. Same goes for me with the guitar. Knowing us, I’d give us decent chances of continuing on…which is pretty good considering we both dream big.
Matt flew out on December 14th. It was tough to see him go, both for the company in my site, and for the fact that his leaving meant vacation was over and I really had to go back to work.
But first of course, there was Christmas and New Year’s. I stuck around San Cristóbal Norte and hung out with the family. I was tired of traveling. Also, I wanted to take advantage of the time to experience the holidays from a Tico point of view, as I’m not sure if I’ll be here for the holidays next year.
We killed a pig, made tamales, exchanged gifts, ate entirely too much, drank cheap whiskey, and told jokes...in that order. Basically, it was just like Christmas back home… except for the butchered pig and the tamales. Although I’ve begun to think we should make killing a pig a holiday tradition back in the U.S. Mom..Dad…what do you think?...any neighborhood covenants against the very public butchering of a pig?
There was one gringo-meets-Ticos cultural exchange worth telling here. I’ve imported the “Dirty Christmas” game to my Tico family. It’s a holiday tradition in my family so I thought Doña Albertina’s family might get a kick out of it here. You know the game – where everyone draws numbers and everyone has a choice to either pick a wrapped gift or “steal” an already wrapped gift from someone who already had
their turn.We had 24 people bring a gift on Christmas Day to play the so-called “Navidad Sucia”, as the spanish version has been dubbed. The game took roughly an hour and a half (a Dirty Christmas record, in my experience), and there was rampant stealing. The most contested gifts were 2 cans of Imperial Beer, some lottery tickets, a box of chocolates, and a pillow.
the tamale assemby line
They loved it! Luckily, even after so much robbing of gifts and some people literally physically resisting their gift being stolen, no feelings were hurt and everyone had a great time. They immediately insisted that we must play the same game for their New Year’s Party. I informed them this was highly unorthodox and I didn’t know if the “Dirty Christmas” gods would allow such a sacrilege…but I would not be heard. Thus, Año Nuevo Sucio was born.
The last I heard one of the town soccer teams had played Navidad Sucia for their yearly holiday party, spreading the game even further into the community. And to think…they used to just draw names out a bag and give a gift to that person as a Christmas gift exchange. Ha! Welcome to Christmas gift exchange gringo-style.
One of the main goals of Peace Corps at a worldwide level is to promote cultural exchange. Check.
Now, following Christmas and New Year’s, things are becoming a little more routine. I’ve started back English classes, work with the Boy Scouts, and some of the micro-entrepreneurs here in town.
The latest excitement is that a Foundation here in-country that promotes IT in communities has approved for us to be provided a fully equipped computer lab. The equipment will be located in the school, but available for the use of the whole community. In addition, the Foundation can provide maintenance, as well as training of those in the town who would wish to teach computer classes to others here in the community. It is an incredible opportunity!
The only challenge is that the town must furnish the proper electrical wiring, air conditioning, alarm system, and furniture to the room before the equipment can be installed. If the room is not ready by the time they wish to install the equipment, probably within 3-4 months, then Foundation will move on to another school.
Our Education Board president informed us of this opportunity last week in the meeting of the Unión Cívica, and since then we are starting to get organized for a fundraising drive. Everyone agrees that this is too good to pass up. We have now tentatively planned an activity for the end of February. This could be a great opportunity for the town to come together for a common cause. I’ll will include an update on this project in future blogs.
In other news, we now have a cat…or a kitten, I should say. Here is a pic of it nawing on my shoelaces. It’s very cute…for now.
I hope those reading this enjoyed the holidays. Thanks for the random emails and gmail chats. It is great to keep up, and I appreciate all the encouragement. The tentantive plan right now is to come back and visit the U.S. in July for a couple of weeks…so mark your calendars.
Will stay in touch. ¡Pura vida!
This blog is dedicated to my buddy Kelly Rejent who just graduated with a degree in Accounting from Ole Miss. Kelly, or Stigs, as we call him sometimes, has been plugging away at this degree for a while, and finally got it done. For what it’s worth, I’m proud of you man. Congratulations!
The last I heard one of the town soccer teams had played Navidad Sucia for their yearly holiday party, spreading the game even further into the community. And to think…they used to just draw names out a bag and give a gift to that person as a Christmas gift exchange. Ha! Welcome to Christmas gift exchange gringo-style.
One of the main goals of Peace Corps at a worldwide level is to promote cultural exchange. Check.
Now, following Christmas and New Year’s, things are becoming a little more routine. I’ve started back English classes, work with the Boy Scouts, and some of the micro-entrepreneurs here in town.
The latest excitement is that a Foundation here in-country that promotes IT in communities has approved for us to be provided a fully equipped computer lab. The equipment will be located in the school, but available for the use of the whole community. In addition, the Foundation can provide maintenance, as well as training of those in the town who would wish to teach computer classes to others here in the community. It is an incredible opportunity!
The only challenge is that the town must furnish the proper electrical wiring, air conditioning, alarm system, and furniture to the room before the equipment can be installed. If the room is not ready by the time they wish to install the equipment, probably within 3-4 months, then Foundation will move on to another school.
Our Education Board president informed us of this opportunity last week in the meeting of the Unión Cívica, and since then we are starting to get organized for a fundraising drive. Everyone agrees that this is too good to pass up. We have now tentatively planned an activity for the end of February. This could be a great opportunity for the town to come together for a common cause. I’ll will include an update on this project in future blogs.
In other news, we now have a cat…or a kitten, I should say. Here is a pic of it nawing on my shoelaces. It’s very cute…for now.
I hope those reading this enjoyed the holidays. Thanks for the random emails and gmail chats. It is great to keep up, and I appreciate all the encouragement. The tentantive plan right now is to come back and visit the U.S. in July for a couple of weeks…so mark your calendars.
Will stay in touch. ¡Pura vida!
This blog is dedicated to my buddy Kelly Rejent who just graduated with a degree in Accounting from Ole Miss. Kelly, or Stigs, as we call him sometimes, has been plugging away at this degree for a while, and finally got it done. For what it’s worth, I’m proud of you man. Congratulations!
p.s. A couple hours before posting this we actually had a small earthquake in Costa Rica. It registered about a 6.2 and registered in the Northern Zone around Volcano Poas, or so I´m told. It was the first one I had felt. (We´ve had two others in the last couple of months, but happened at night, and I slept through them like a baby)
It was weird. I was in my room and watched my dresser slowly bump across my room. Anyway, all is well! Hopefully these tremors aren´t a foreshadowing of something stronger to come.
