Getting Into the Swing of Things

Ok, so now I really and truly don’t know where to begin… I have been here for a little under a month and it’s hard to say whether it has gone by really fast or really slow because my answer would vary depending on the hour of the day that you asked me. Things are going well overall and I’m happy with the progress that I’ve been making in the last few weeks. I’ve gotten to meet and spend time with different people and every day I meet someone new, whether it’s a child in the elementary school, a community leader at a meeting, or just by striking up a conversation with someone while walking up the crazy hill. As there aren’t that many people in my town (hard to know how many exactly, but I think somewhere around 400), I imagine that before long I will know the vast majority of people. I’m really excited because this weekend there is a big fiesta for the patron saint of the church. As pretty much everyone here is Catholic and any kind of big activity is a big deal for a little rural town, tons of people should be there, so I’m looking forward to meeting lots more people this Saturday!

Funny sidenote: I am without a doubt the first Jewish person my host family has ever met and when I first told them, they were pretty baffled by it, but also very accepting and interested to learn more about Judaism. When I first told them, I stressed the fact that we believe in all the same things in the Old Testament, we just don’t believe in the New Testament, to which my host mother quite bluntly asked, “So you don’t believe in Jesus?” and to which I had to awkwardly reply, “Um, no.” So now when it comes up in conversation with a community member, my host mom gracefully explains that I don’t believe in Jesus. Hopefully this will not present any difficulties on Saturday. Although I really want to expand people’s horizons and teach them about Judaism, I don’t think Saturday is the day to make a big deal about the fact that I am not Catholic or Christian, so I plan to keep quiet and we’ll see what happens.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. About a week ago, I was at the high school for the day and met a girl named Adriana, 12, who lives a few houses down from me (mind you, the houses are all pretty spread apart, but we’re in the same general vicinity). On our walk down the hill after school got out, Adriana bombarded me with questions of all kinds pertaining to what things are like in the states: what we eat, what we wear (I think she was surprised that the clothes I was wearing at the time, jeans and a tank top, the same as she, were from the states), what the weather’s like, etc. She´s really sweet though and has become my impromptu dance teacher. I stop by her house and we blast cumbiya, merengue, salsa, etc. and dance outside in the corridor of her house (most tico houses here have this, which I love because a lot of time people just hang out right outside there hosue and you can go up and say hi, as opposed to in the states where we have our porches behind the house and thus is much less inviting). Anyway, the point being that through Adriana I´m getting to meet a lot of the kids who live in my ¨neck of the woods¨ which is really great!

As for other people that I meet, I can pretty much predict what they’re going to ask (and in the following order): Where are you from? What are you doing here? Don’t you miss your family? Quickly followed by, Don’t they miss you? Do you have a boyfriend? To which I answer that it would be fairly difficult to maintain a long-distance relationship for 2 years. To which they respond that they need to find me a tico boyfriend so that I’ll stay here when my 2 years are done. We’ll see about that, haha… Although it’s repetitive having the same conversation over and over, it’s all part of the initial process of integrating myself into the town and I enjoy meeting new people and trying to place them in the web of families that is my town (there are a lot of big families with 10 or so kids that all have families of their own, etc etc.—basically I really need to get some kids together and map out some family trees to put the pieces together!).
This past week I have been going to the elementary school to get to know the kids and the basic routine there. The way the schedule works is the kids come on a rotating schedule where one week 1st.2nd.and 3rd graders come from 7-10:30 and 4th,5th, and 6th come from 11:30-3 and the next week they switch. Each day is a different subject (Spanish, English, Math, and Science) with English interspersed throughout the week. A funny thing that they do at the elementary schools is call the female teachers, “nina” which means “little girl” in Spanish. I’ve asked numerous people where this comes from, but it’s totally ingrained in the culture, so to the Ticos this doesn’t seem as weird as it does to an outside. So when I’m helping in the class the teacher will say, “nina, can you do such and such a thing.” I think it’ll take a little while for me to get used to a teacher and a class full of students 10+ years younger than me referring to me as “little girl.” But it´s been great getting to know the kids so that now when they see me around, I´m not ¨that random gringa.¨ Next week, I´m planning on spending time at the high school in order to do the same with the high-schoolers.

Ok, my time on internet is running out, so I´ll leave it at that. One month in, so far so good!

Pura Vida (the famous tico phrase that they do indeed say ALL THE TIME in response to ¨how are you¨or how something´s going, it´s definitely ingrained in the Tico lexicon).
-Tesandra