My Town!

A few photos to give a better idea of where I am living


a view of the soccer field, aka the only flat area in my town


my house!



the road towards the school


view of the mountains. wayyyy in the distance on a very clear day, you can see the Pacific Ocean from here (unfortunately it takes about 4 hours by bus to actually get there because the road is in poor condition)


this is just a tiny of idea of the ¨rivers¨ that form in the roads in my town which, during torential downpours, literally flood to the point that when I walk thruogh, the water goes above my ankles


my dog, Ron (Rum), who I call Roncito-- isn´t he cute?

Comida y Tiempo

I was thinking of topics to write about and it came to me to write about two of the most obvious topics there are: food and weather. So here goes!

Comida:
As a preface, let me say that as a result of informal polling among PCV friends it appears that I have one of the best food situations around, for which I say “Gracias a dios,” as everyone here says in relation to any give situation. In addition there is “Sí dios quiere.” “See you at the meeting tomorrow?” “Yes, if God wants.” ¨I hope to do well in that math test.¨ “If God wants.” And then, yes, there is the “thank goodness” which I suppose we say a lot in English, too. Enough on that tangent. Anyway, the point being that I am extremely thankful for the fact that my host Mom is quite the good cook and I am learning tons of good recipes which I can’t wait to make for everyone which I come back, but I will now give you a sneak peak into the Tico diet. Two words: rice and beans. Really, Ticos can absolutely have rice and beans for breakfast (gallo pinto which consists of fried rice and beans with a side of cheese or sour cream called natilla), lunch (which could also include fried plaintains and luckily for me includes chicken, salad, and a picadillo which is a kind of vegetable side dish) and dinner (similar to lunch). Every day. The other key word of the Tico diet is carbohydrates. It never ceases to amaze me that one can eat spaghetti WITH rice and beans. A PC friend was telling me the other day that he could not believe it when lunch came out one day with pasta, rice, potatoes, and yucca (a starchy potatoe-esque that I am actually a really big fan of beause it has a better taste than potatoe). I don’t understand how the plates don’t break under the weight of such ridiculous amounts of starches, really! I definitely maintain that the fact that I haven’t gained a PC “first-year 15” á la the freshman 15 of college is that I run and walk everywhere all the time--- gracias a dios, verdad?!

Another integral aspect of the Tico diet is cafecito. Every morning upon walking up we have coffee. Then, in the afternoon around 1 or 2pm, more coffee (and apparently my family does not drink that much, relatively speaking). But if my host parents don’t have their afternoon coffee it’s as if something is off-kilter for the day and a topic of conversation. “I cannot believe I didn’t have afternoon cafecito!” For me, it’s more a matter of not liking the idea of “having” to have any kind of food or drink every single solitary day and for that reason I usually just have 1/2 cup upon waking up and then only in the afternoon if I’m visiting someone and they offer it to me or at a meeting, as most meetings here end with a friendly cafecito break. The craziest thing is that people are accustomed to drinking coffee basically as soon as they start drinking milk. My little host niece who isn’t even 2 years old drinks coffee and it’s totally the norm! I guess it really is just a matter of what’s normal is normal, but maybe there is some truth to the fact that coffee stunts your growth, seing as there are few members of my town, men or women, who are taller than me… hmmm!

Tiempo:
As you probably know, in tropical areas like Costa Rica there are two seasons, the rainy season and the dry season. As you may not know, the term rainy season, which I currently have the pleasure of considering a part of my everyday life these days, is an understatement. It should be more aptly termed the “torrential downpour season.” It cracks me up because I’ve read in CR guidebooks that as a way to make it sound better, they call the rainy season the “green season” which is certainly good PR work. Luckily in my town it’s green and beautiful all year round, but now it’s just really really rainy! The crazy part is that almost every single day when I wake up, it is gorgeous and sunny outside. I go milk the cows, go for my run, etc etc, then in the afternoon right after lunchtime the clouds fill the blue sky and it begins to downpour and any remnant of the sunny morning seems like a distant memory. I guess being from New England, I should be used to weather changing at the drop of a hat as the saying goes, “if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes” but here in CR I just can’t get over the regularity of beautiful mornings and not-so-beautiful afternoons.

However there always are exceptions, like a few weeks ago when I had a packed day of visiting the town next door for a meeting with a women’s group that is working on a project of producing vanilla and then in the afternoon going to the high school for a meeting with the kids who are working on the rabbit project (see previous post). Well, when I woke up to torrential downpour, the idea of walking an hour in the rain to the neighboring town was less than appealing so I called and rescheduled for the following week (which I did indeed have on a very nice morning, gracias a dios, the week after and it was quite successful—we had a discussion about the goals, resources, opportunities, and challenges facing the group and how to overcome the challenges and use the resources to take advantage of the opportunities) . Then, as soon as I got off the phone, a neighbor from the high school passed by to say that class was cancelled due to the rain. I couldn’t believe it—instead of having a snow day, it was a rain day! In the end, it was nice to hang around the house and get some reading done (by the way, I would highly recommend “The Last Lecture” to anyone who has not read it, as well as “Colors of the Mountain” which I am just finishing up), but it really cracked me up to have school cancelled due to heavy rains—it at least gives you an idea of the severity of the rainy season.

Alright, so in looking over this post, I feel like I am ranting a bit, but it’s really meant to give a peek into life here, so I hope it was successful in doing so. If you have any suggestions for blog subjects or questions about my PC experience, feel free to comment or email me and I will get right on it for the next post!

¡Ciao!
Tes

Shoes!

Quite a random side note

The other day my 12 year old friend was over and we were hanging out in my room talking about shoes and doing each other´s makeup (so this is what may life has come to, haha!) and she asked if I had bought any shoes since I’d arrived in Costa Rica. At first I said no, but then I realized that I had indeed invested in two pairs of shoes since my arrival in my site and then it dawned on me that the 2 pairs of shoes are entirely emblematic of my time here. After being here for less than a week, I realized that life on the farm is not complete without a pair of rubber boots. Sloshing around in the mud in anything but rubber boots is just not wise, unless you truly enjoy cleaning shoes all day long (which then leaves you with no time to actually do all the farm things you want to do!). So on my very first trip to my closest big town, I bought my big black rubber boots which I have probably used at some point during the day just about every day here.

My second shoe purchase was a more recent one. As I said in a previous post, I have been working to revitalize the women’s soccer team in my town, which poses the need for tacos (cleats), especially considering that it is currently the rainy season and therefore the field can get pretty slippery. Cleats are pretty much a necessity (literally, lots of people in my town own cleats and not sneakers, to give you an idea of how large a role soccer plays here—and how little a role running does, for that matter!) So last week when I went into San Jose to pick up the books for my English class (which starts on Thursday!) I also picked up, after much deliberation in the CR equivalent of a Foot Locker, a pretty cool looking pair (if I do say so myself!) of cleats which served me extremely well in our first game this past Sunday. Not to get into a whole thing, but although we did lose, we played against a team that has been together for over 8 years and so the fact that we totally and completely held our own (after being together for barely 1 month!), made me incredibly proud of us. I can’t wait to keep practicing and get better and better!

I just came back from playing about 3 hours of soccer at the cancha which luckily is just right up the way from my house (200 meters to be exact, which is the official address of my house and how the postman knows where to deliver my letters, “200 meters northeast of the soccer field.” As I mentioned in a previous post, they don’t use road names or number houses here, so addresses are based on the distance from any given landmark, oy vey, Costa Rica!). Anyway! I had a total, “I am so glad to be doing Peace Corps here, in my town” moment today. A few years ago there was a women’s soccer team in my town but due to some of the women having kids, getting older and probably a bit of pereza (laziness), they disbanded. The last few months I’ve been talking to my neighbor/running partner who really wanted to get it started again, so a few weeks ago I made a nice little poster to hang in all the pulperías to get people together. The first Sunday about 10 people came which isn’t too bad, but today we had our second practice with our coach (a.k.a. neighborhood friend on the guy’s team who I coaxed into training us) and it went really well. I didn’t think a lot of people would come since it’s during the week, but there were 12 of us and we ended up playing against a group of neighborhood kids who showed up and at a certain point during the game, I just had this surge of happiness that this is providing women, younger girls (of which there are many on the team!), and kids a way to get out of the house and exercising. In these rural towns, kids spend entirely too much time in front of the TV watching telenovelas (which, may I add, are complete garbage in my personal opinion) as opposed to reading or being outside (which is almost hard for me to believe because it is so beautiful out here, I want to be outside all the time!). Anyway, it was just a really great afternoon and definitely a reminder of how lucky I am to have the opportunity to be here.

So what else is going on? Well, a few weeks ago we had a Peace Corps “we’ve been here for 3 months so let’s get some more information on what we are doing here” training for a week in San Jose. It was really nice to spend time with my PC buds, not to mention staying in a nice hotel with wireless internet (milagro!). At the end of the week, we received a training by one of the most well-known English programs, Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano, so that we can teach English classes in our town, using their methodology and books-- people can even receive a certificate upon completion of the course. When I got back to my town, I had a meeting the first weekend to see the interest level. I was expecting that everyone would show up and then I would “scare them off” with 6 hours a week of classes (plus homework!) and not missing more than 2 classes, but in the end only about 15 people came to the meeting. I told people I was going to have the matriculation 2 weeks later (this past Thursday) and during those 2 weeks, I don’t think I went anywhere without at least 5 people asking me about the class. Needless to say, I was all nervous that ALL these people were going to come, but in the end it turned out to be “pura paja” as they say here (literal translation: pure hay; actual translation: full of you know what) and I have the official count of 18 matriculated students. I’m actually really happy about it because I think that’ll be a good number, not too big or too small, and hopefully my new students will get really into it! People here are extremely motivated to learn English because in Costa Rica, it really is a gateway to tons of job opportunities, not only in tourism but also in the business world. I have mixed feelings about the fact that you practically “have” to learn English to get ahead in Costa Rica, but that is a whole conversation that is best had in person and not on my blog.

Which brings me to some exciting news. A few weeks ago I bought my plane ticket to come home for my cousin Nora’s Bat Mitzvah in November. I am beyond excited because by then I will have accumulated a fair amount of vacation days and will be stateside for about a week and a half! Although it’s 2 months away, I know the time will fly and I’m not sure how to mentally prepare myself. I’ve been away for 7 months now, the longest period of time I’ve spent outside of the US in my life, but I’ve kind of gotten to the point where this is my life and I’m used to it and I can barely imagine being home and doing things like, hm, speak English on a regular basis! Above all I am just really excited to see my family and friends and especially to be with my family for the bat mitzvah.

On a related note of family events, this past weekend was my cousin Jared's wedding. It really is one of the toughest aspects of doing Peace Corps that I cannot be home for such a momentous occasion, but I know that comes with the territory of making the 2 year committment to do the Peace Corps. Still, I was especially missing my family on Sunday, thinking of everyone being together to celebrate Jared and Lisa and I really wish I could have been there. I truly wish Jared and Lisa all the best and cannot wait to celebrate with them in person in November-- it will be quite a celebratory time! So mark your calendars for mid-November: Tes is making her return to the US of A. If I can’t see you in person, at least it will be substantially easier to talk on the phone!

Pura Vida!
Tesa