Holiday Season in CR

Happy New Year to everyone! I cannot get over the fact that it is 2009 and that I will be spending the entirety of the coming year in Costa Rica—a simultaneously scary and exciting prospect. Although I certainly know where I will be spending 2009, I don’t necessarily know what I will be doing (of course there are many ideas and projects under way, but this coming year will hopefully bring to fruition many of these projects, if not at least a solid design and plan of implementation). So how did I spend my New Year’s? My host family had a big party in the rancho, complete with karaoke. Have I mentioned that people in CR love karaoke? Not to make generalizations, specifically in light of my previous post, but I think it’s safe to say that a favorite Tico past-time is singing karaoke. In the cities, there are lots of karaoke bars and most people have a microphone that attaches to their stereo at home to do karaoke during parties or when le da la gana a uno (whenever!). I have been asked countless times (and when I say countless, I mean it) to sing “The Titanic Song” which thus far I have only sung once in the privacy of a friend’s house, after feeling badly that she was singing and singing for about an hour with me refusing to sing at all. There was absolutely no way I was going to sing in front of a group of 30 people on New Year’s, but it cracks me up every time someone attempts to convince me to do so.

Back to the party: my 2 older host brothers (my age) are on vacation for the week so they were here, along with other visiting relatives and a bunch of neighbors, too. We all had lots of fun chatting, singing, and of course, eating. The specialty of this time of year are tamales, cornmeal dough with pieces of meat and vegetables wrapped in banana leaves. We also made chicharrones (fried pig, another specialty, specific to the county I live in) and I made a pumpkin roll. Since the Thanksgiving pumpkin pie was such a hit, I bought more canned pumpkin the last time I was in San Jose and to switch things up made the pumpkin roll—also a big hit. All in all, a wonderful way to ring in the new year.

And now let’s back track to Christmas. Being a predominantly Catholic country, Christmas is a big deal here. However, I was surprised to learn that the days leading up to Christmas are more celebratory than the actual December 25th. During the 10 days leading up to Christmas, various families in the town host what are called posadas. Literally meaning “inn,” it is a kind of open house where everyone in the community is invited to someone’s house to sing Christmas carols and prayers and also have a meal together. I really enjoyed the tradition of posadas, as it was a great opportunity to allow community members to spend time together, outside of the “hustle and bustle” of daily life. While I have commented on the fact that what I love about life here is the more laid back atmosphere, there are’t too many opportunity for people, particularly outside of one’s immediate family, to get together, besides community events like dances and BINGO’s (another very popular Tico past-time). The fact that a posada is a religious event, meant that it was more reflective and meaningful in nature, which I also appreciated.

Christmas eve is the culmination of the celebration. There is the final posada which is “hosted” by the church. The posada was combined with the tradition Christmas eve mass, followed by a big dinner. Then a bunch of host family relatives came to the house and we had a get-together pretty similar to our new year’s eve party, the only difference is that we didn’t have to stay up until midnight (while supposedly it is the tradition here in Costa Rica on Dec. 24, it isn’t very compatible with the campo lifestyle which involves one getting up really early to milk the cows and feed the animals).

Christmas day we embarked on an adventure to a river about 1.5 hours away. Surprisingly, there were a bunch of families from my town there and I had a blast swimming and playing around with all the kids. From the river, I made my way down to the coast to see some very special visitors: the Fisher/Cohen family! While it has been lovely experiencing the holiday season with my host family, it was truly special to spend time with members of my actual family during this time. Little did I know how difficult it would be to reach them: I had heard that the road to the little beach town was not in great shape, but little did I know that to travel the 40 km (25 miles) from Quepos, the beach town closest to me, to Dominical, where the Fisher’s were, apparently takes 3 hours. I kept thinking, 25 miles in 3 hours? A marathon runner could do better than this bus! Luckily, due to very few people traveling on Christmas evening, we made it in 2.5 and as soon as I saw Janice, Byron, Nathan, Eli, and Nora, I forgot all about the bus ride and enjoyed talking about everything under the sun with them and relaxing at the beach for the next 4 days. I also did my first “touristy” thing besides just going to the beach in CR-- snorkeling on an island off the coast of the Osa Peninsula. It was really cool—we saw sharks and all sorts of tropical fish, as well as a huge mangrove forest.

On the way back to San Jose to catch their flight home, the Fisher’s stopped in my town, where we packed in a delicious lunch, hiking to some nearby waterfalls, making caldo with the trapiche (see previous post with pictures), and playing a pick-up soccer game with a bunch of neighborhood kids— all in 4 hours! It was a total blast and wonderful for them to get an idea of what life is like here (hint, hint to anyone else thinking about coming…). It meant a lot for me that they were able to come and I believe they enjoyed the experience as much as I did (as well as the kids in my town who got a big kick out of the gringo vs tico soccer game). As I knew would happen, the time went by way too quickly, but we took advantage of every minute which made for a fantastic visit.

On that note, best wishes to everyone for a happy and healthy 2009!
¡Próspero Año!
Besos, Tesa