Moving in with chatty and crazy eyes

I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus since the last upload, and much has changed.  I’ve moved from San Jose to the mountainous coastal town called Dominical. I’m living with a housekeeping and incredible cook named Lela, her wild-eyed farmer husband Tista, and their notoriously antisocial son Pablo.  Instead of trying to explain who these family members are, here are three short events that took place since I arrived a week and some ago.

3/11/14

“Pull over to the side of the road…Here, here” I heard Isabelle, the director of the Costa Rican program tell our driver in a noticeably hushed tone compared to what she said next.  “Here we are!  Robert, your new home!” Compared to the last home we’d come from, I had some snap judgments about this house on the side of this windy mountain road.  Lauren was just dropped off at the top of the mountain, where her parents greeted her out front of their cafeteria / house.  Across the street, a vibrant block party couldn’t help but infect a sense of excitement, only topped by what I assumed to be a small bullfighting arena.   Five minutes later, I here I was on the side of what seemed like a lonely mountain highway unloading my bags while my family was absent.  As I approached the house, the woman I’d call mother for the next three weeks exited the open door to greet me.  Her husband, then got up from the bench on the side of house to greet me as well – he seemed to blend in with the house.  Maybe I was preoccupied, maybe the two were somewhat reserved compared to the warm welcome Lauren received, but before I stepped into the house, I was already feeling flustered and negative.  Adely, my new mother, ushered me into the compact living room, and told me to enter my room.  Three rooms sat next to each other forming the corner of the house, and I peeked into each one.  “El Verde,” she pointed to the room in the center, glowing a teal green.  I quietly moved my bags into the sparsely furnished space, noting not only the sharp creaking the floor made, but the degree to which the floorboards moved.  As I leaned my bags against the wall, the open window to the left caught my eye.  Outside, I could see a car with the windows down, and beyond the tarpaulin “garage,” was a deep, green valley.  I moved to the other open window facing the valley, and two thoughts crossed my mind.  First, the window itself: More like a cannon porthole on a ship, the window was just a piece of the planked wall carved out and attached with hinges – no glass, no bug screen, and in the night, just another part of my wall.  More importantly was the view.  A descending ridgeline in the background, a thick, lush forest between the mountains and the foreground, and, “Look there,” my host mother had appeared behind me,  “That between those two mountains, that’s the ocean.”  Her lips curled into a smile before she left, and I’d like to think she understood the wave of emotion and realization that she’d seen on the faces of the 18 students before her.  Much like my contentment with simplicity, my fascination and charm derived from the movements and places where I can appreciate life’s comforts without feeling clean and pampered that keeps me returning to Ghana, I understood that this new life was going to be just fine, and maybe more.  I returned to the windowsill, mounted myself straddling one leg outside the edge of the house, and watched the forest. 

“Could you grab the straps,” Tista asked, as he hoisted the cooler up onto the roof of his rugged and beaten 4x4. I looked to the left, to the right, did a 360, and finally understood that he wanted the bike tubes next to the Fresca.  Today, my first full day in Dominical, we were to head down to the beach and have a picnic.  The three generations of women in the family – Lela, my mother, her daughter Anya, and her little daughter Kayla, were cramped into the back seat clearly designed for two people, with Kayla occupying a side seat to make matters more difficult.  I sat in front, and after the bike tires were sufficiently bound to the rusting rooftop bars, we headed down to the beach. 

            After meeting Sarah’s family on the side of the road, (her family was packed into the car in an almost identical fashion), both of our families continued down the windy forest road to the beach.  The conversation in my family is sporadic – someone has a thought, there is a brief bout of conversation between the adults, then absolute silence for a few minutes.  My Spanish still has a far way to go before I could consider myself proficient, but I enjoyed shocking the family by interjecting with my two cents when they spoke quickly without complete enunciation between each other.

            We arrived at what I now understand is the Dominical area’s largest supermarket, and both Tista and my host father headed inside to buy some supplies.  “He’s going to buy some meat,” Lela told me.  Sarah and I exchanged glances, and having been deprived of English speaking for almost 24 hours, burst into hurried conversation about our host families.  A few minutes passed by before I spotted Tista again.  Maybe it was the fact that his boots had the laces tied at their ends to make clear that they’ve never been pulled tight like normal boots, or maybe it was the way he seemed to look anywhere but where his feet were headed and simply let his eyes wander, but there’s never been someone I know that I can so confidently say “has a screw loose.”  He tromped down the inclined pathway, somehow carrying three beers in his right hand, leaving his left hand free to tap a drum beat on the railing.  He approached Sarah’s car, and – mind you, this is there first interaction – politely asked if she would drink a beer.  After a comical moment of hesitation, brought on not by the question, but surely because of the spectacle of a human that is my new host father, Sarah replied with a “Si, gracias” and took the beer.  Tista handed another to Sarah’s host mother, and promptly handed me one as well.  Realizing he hadn’t bought enough for he himself to drink, Tista headed back inside to purchase another, tapping the railing with his free hand. 

            He returned quickly this time, and with a glance side to side, cracked the can open and began to take deep gulps.  He hopped into the driver’s seat, and started the engine. “Tista, you shouldn’t be drinking, what if they see you?” Lela muttered, clearly having gone through the scenario before and conscious that I must have been looking on wide-eyed.  Tranquila, Tista replied, handing her the can.  “I’ll just hand it to you when I’m not taking sips.  They’ll think you’re drinking anyways.”  He looked at me with what Sarah simply dubbed “crazy eyes” and laughed. 

We’d been finished eating fore a good 45 minutes when Lela left to retrieve something from her bedroom.  “And she had her mind with her when she went,” Tista continued, almost sighing. “One hundred and one years old.  Here, look.” Lele had returned with a framed picture and handed it to me.  I was looking at Tista’s mother, who was weferred to as Abuela, “Grandmother,” by everyone including her own children.  “She looks younger than 101,” I contributed.  Tista half-smiled.  “She acted like a younger women too.  Every day, even at over 100 years old, she would cook her own tortillas.  She’d wash her own clothes, and NEVER let me or anyone wash her clothes for her,” Lela continued.  “All the students from Pitzer always went to her house to ask her about her life, everyone adored her and marveled at how someone could be so old, yet have a strong mind.”  I took the framed picture back in my hands after Lela blew the dust off.  “She died because she was sad that her ‘favorite’ son died, but I don’t think she really realized who her favorite son was,” Tista looked up from his old hands and said.  “She lived in the house out back for almost her whole life, but would always call my brother who lived in San Jose for anything.  One time, he made the three hour drive to change a light bulb for her, a light bulb!  And I was right here!”  he exclaimed, holding his hands as if he was screwing in the bulb.  “But I knew that she was my favorite.  She lived with me for almost 60 years, which for most people would be much more than half their lives.  And I lived with her for all of my life.”  He brought his hands down and began to wring them once again.  “We threw her birthdays at 97 because we thought she might not make it to 98, and of course at 100,” interjected Lela.  “But not for her one hundred and first,” replied Tista, with tears lining his bottom eyelid.  We passed the picture to him.  “Of course, this will happen to all of us,” he smiled, almost retracting his tears. “But, that’s life.”  “And what a life, and what a mind she had,” concluded Lela.  And for a moment almost tangible, as she affectionately stroked the picture frame, the three of us sat in silence.

Polish

2/24/14
“Rafa!” my host mother called in a hurried voice. “Come see what the student is
doing!” My host mother Herminia stood behind me in the outdoor patio, swaying from side to side putting her weight on each foot, watching me as if I was her child taking his first steps. “What’s he doing?” Rafael asked before he made it out of the doorway. “I’ve never seen a student do it before. Look, he’s polishing his shoes!” I replied to the two parents in Spanish, “It’s good for the leather, and don’t they look nice?” I held up one shoe, halfway polished. Rafael smiled and disappeared to his workshop. “No, I know,” Herminia assured me, “...but no students take care of their shoes. Not even the young Ticos.” I returned the smiles, and continued to polish my boot. Rafael reappeared and tapped me on the shoulder. “Here, use this,” he said, showing me a worn brush. He grabbed
my other boot, tapped the brush in the polish, and began to scrub away at the worn leather. “See? Now you give it a try,” he smiled, handing me the brush. Herminia continued to sway with subdued excitement in the background.

           With a solid month here in Latin America under my belt, I’ve yet to settle on a final opinion of how I believe I’ve settled into this new culture. I feel almost no friction between my host family and I, but lack a real connection. I’ve done some incredible touristy things, but haven’t felt the high of true cross-cultural connection. Currently, my state of mind leads me to believe that I might not have been letting myself feel the small victories here in Costa Rica, like the morning of bonding that rose from shoe polishing.
         Sandwiched between a long week of ICADS and the “finals week” that I’m one day into, Sarah, Lauren, Sam, and I headed to a beautiful valley town called Orisi. After classes on Friday, we stood outside “Popeye’s Chicken” (the Ticos love the American fast food chains here and sometimes use the restaurants as refrence points), caught a bus, and headed to the nearby city Cartago. From there, we took an Orosi bus and caught a picturesque vista as we slowly decended the windy valley road. Orosi is a town no more than 2000 located just west of Cartago, and is covered in small coffee plantations. On arrival, we enjoyed the lack of scheduling pressure and began to wonder the city wide eyed and laughing. We bought 8 Maraguyas (sweet passion fruits) and took turns pointing out our favorite aspects of the landscape.
       After more than an hour of aimless wondering, a friendly school bus driver picked us up and dropped us off at the dirt road that led to our hostel. Hostel Case Del Café, a brightly lit, couldn’t-miss-it building was run by a tiny Dutch man. Walter spoke little English, and even less Spanish, had a trendy ear piercing, blue eyes, and two adorable boys, Jericho, 5, and Orobi, 2. I spent the remaining afternoon and better part of the evening sharing life stories with the man, who seemed desperate for conversation.
      The next day featured a ride in the in the back of an unmarked 4x4 to Tapantí, Costa Rica’s wettest national park. Hidden by dense forest, too dark to wear sunglasses in, was a pristine and secluded river where we spend the better part of the morning swimming and sunbathing, and downstream we found some natural hot springs. By late afternoon, Sam and I were headed to Cargtago, not even a full day after we’d arrived in Orosi.
I felt bad chatting on the phone with friends in various countries, unable to properly capture the feelings of contentment springing from Orosi and recount the warmth generated from the little shoe polish episode connection. I read the blogs of other students studying abroad in Italy, the Netherlands, and Botswana, and can’t help feel like I’m wasting time studying in a program where I’m not learning much. But then I have moments like today’s breakfast.


“And where are your boots? I can smell the polish, ¡Ay, que rico huele!” Herminia asked me. I put down my papaya, turned, and lifted my leg. “And don’t they look great with these socks?!” She laughed, she cackled, she smiled. Rafael poked his head out of his room, “But in all seriousness, they look good,” he beamed.

Ash, Sweat, and Cheers

2/17/14

I was the first of the five boarders to fully strap both feet in and hop over the edge of the volcano.  Several friends had hopped on sleds, or simply ran/cascaded down the black ash that covered the magma-filled hillside.  I skate a lot back home, and have surfed and show boarded, but hadn’t the slightest idea that I could add volcano-boarding to the list of board sports in which I’m proficient. As I pointed the nose of the slope, I both was fascinated to see the small pumice-ash bits swarm the front of my board, and questioned whether I’d strapped in correctly and had the proper form for the sport.  The black rocks gave way, and I slowly gained momentum before slipping and landing on my wrist a good 40 feet down the hill.  The whole descent couldn’t have lasted for more than six minutes, made longer by a few photo-ops, howls of joy, and panoramic moments to look around and actively attempt to realize how incredible my experience was.  After taking a quick break, hundreds of yards from any other student, I widened my grin just slightly, thinking on how I could recount this experience among others after complaining in the last post that I hadn’t felt culture shock.  I continued down the mountain, trying out “S turns” and other applicable snowboard techniques until I reached the bottom of the volcano.  When I met the other students, I was told I had something in my teeth.  It was ash, stuck on my teeth from the huge grin that I couldn’t shake.   

The past 10 days or so since my last post have included several items on the study abroad checklist – Seeing a toucan in the wild, hiking to a waterfall and swimming in the mist, sucking the honey off a warm, freshly-harvested honeycomb, and of course, the volcano boarding (casual). 

Lets start with last weekend.

           

            After an unnecessarily long Nicaragua trip orientation, Lauren, Sam, Sarah, and I took the bus to San Jose.  Our plan was to take a series of busses to La Frontera, the town just below the Arenal volcano.  Between poor directions and the collective crippling timid nature of the four of us to ask strangers, we wondered about until we made it to the Quesada bus station.  After purchasing tickets and sitting on the bus for what must have been an hour, we began moving at a snails pace, fighting the Friday afternoon traffic out of San Jose.  I passed the time and tried not to worry about our connecting bus by reading a bit of my American Exorcism book and getting to know Sam a little better.  After the third hour, however, the four of us were planning for the worst, and making a plan to stay in Quesada for the evening.  Luckily, when we finally arrived 2.5 hours after we were scheduled, we found a late bus headed to La Frontera, hopped on, and made it to the touristy town by 10:30.  After the initial excitement passed from actually making it all the way to our destination, we made our way to the Arenal Backbackers “5 star hostel” and slept. 

            The next day was unforgettable – After a hearty breakfast, we took a cab to the Volcano for a secluded hike through several distinct microclimates.  The hike started in a normal forest, decended into thick, humid, tropical rainforest, and ended with higher green hillsides.  Towards the end of the hike, we began to hone our birding skills, and saw a variety of jays, hawks, vultures, and even a brilliantly colored toucan.  As we made it back to the beginning of the hike, a group of three or four blue Magpie Jays swarmed and posed for pictures, occasionally dashing at Sam and her chips.  From Arenal, we hit Cataracas, a 170-meter waterfall for a swim.  I’d swam in waterfall pools before in Ghana and Ecuador, but never experienced one so powerful and choppy as th Arenal Cataracas. 

            Arenal was Friday and Saturday, and at 5 am on Sunday I got up and left my house for a 12 hour bus ride to Nicaragua as part of my ICADS program.  I’d been dreading the trip – Nicaragua has a GDP half that of Costa Rica, almost 50% of the population living below the poverty line, and has no potable water infrastructure.  Last semester, all of the students got food-poisoning, and I’d had a history of being that kid who gets sick first.  However, having returned healthy and happy almost 24 hours ago, My whole perspective on the country has changed, and Nicaragua is one of the places I’d be happy to visit again. 

            For the first half of the trip, I lived with a host family in a small town outside the city of Matagalpa called San Ramon.  Upon arrival, a group of host moms were handed their $45 in white envelopes and paired with students.  My mother was named Sonia – a second grade school teacher who worked at a tourist firm and studied English on the side.  She lived in a small house on the outskirts of town, and has been steadily investing in home improvement projects over the last fifteen years.  The house itself was an odd assortment of rooms added on over the years, only connected by an interconnected suspended zinc roof.  Upon entering, the immediate oddity is the trophy stand – Sonia LOVED coaching, having her kids compete in sporting and dance tournaments, and seemed to meet a lot of success given the 75+ trophies adorning a set of shelves.  My room was connected to the kitchen area, distinct because of I had my own bathroom, but none of the bathrooms in the house had doors. 

            Perhaps most shocking to me was my host brother, Ramon.  Younger than my barely-17 year old sister, he had a girlfriend named Jessica who lived in the house with him, who was 9 months pregnant.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the two had a new daughter today, she was just about ready to give birth when I first met her.   At the risk of sounding too ethnocentric, the family and gender roles in Latin America are far different from what I’m used to as well; Jessica was responsible for mopping in the morning, cooking breakfast lunch and dinner, and slept on the world’s most uncomfortable couch (I’m hoping she was sleeping there out of choice and comfort given her baby, not because she was forced to).  I spent each evening with Ramon and his girlfriend – He was thrilled (and was I, not gunna lie) to talk about some good American baseball, the sport of choice in Nicaragua.  Jessica sat silently in almost every conversation, and politely answered the questions I asked to try to get her involved in the conversation before returning to silence.  

            After a few days in San Ramon – visiting a coffee co-op, interviewing some Nicaraguan immigrants, and visiting a local citizens-rights empowerment group, we headed to the former colonial capital, Léon.  After visiting Cerro Negro (hiking, volcano boarding, a few mandatory ‘lets all jump at the same time” photos), we visited a microfinance agency and sponsored project on the outskirts of town.  The co-op was a honey production business, and after a short lecture and honey tasting, I was lucky enough to grab a suit and head to the hives.  What initially was supposed to be a quick visit quickly turned into a long hike and adventure; us five students and a co-op senior headed to a series of hives with various Africanized honey bees, engaging our leader in intermittent questions between checking our unprotected hands and snapping photo after photo.  At one point, our leader opened up a hive and broke off a honeycomb, which we broke up and ate on the spot – rich, warm, delicate and sweet honey.  Certainly a highlight. 

            I’m now back in my room in San Jose, actively trying to reflect on and commit to enjoying the feelings generated from the otherworldly experiences from the last week  before I head into the monotony that ICADS has become.  Although I love to brag about the study abroad program to the folks on my college tours, I’d never pictured the schooling as nothing more that studying in some classroom abroad; instead, I pictured what happened this past week – a few readings and lectures to give me cultural and historical context, and actually learning from the experiences I had that couldn’t have happened within the program.  I mean, I don't have to have a lecture on the geological makeup of Latin America and try out a new extreme board sport every day, but after a series of choice meaningful, outside-the-classroom experiences, I’m already dreading getting up and heading to the ICADS garage classroom tomorrow.  Although I only have two weeks left of this first program, I suppose I’ve just reinforced a lesson that I’ve had to actively remind myself of through my travels in Ghana – that getting lost, off the schedule and forcing the unexpected to happen is both when I’m best on my toes, and when I’m most interested; for this study abroad experience, I’m going to make my own volcano sports, try to get out of the structure, and be thrilled to have the ash on my teeth from smiling.

Cliché Shower Thinking

2/6/14

I’ve found myself reflecting in the shower this past week.  Cliché, I know, but hear me out.  Whereas introspection in the shower makes sense for someone at home, finding a few moments of peace, free from social connection, work related problems, and left to simply clean themselves (physically, of course, although maybe a mental cleanse is part of the ritual too)…I found myself reflecting on my life for another reason.  When I look up in the shower at the Rodríguez household, my principle focus is on the mammoth showerhead.  The size of a large grapefruit, this showerhead makes mechanical flushing sounds loud enough to hear from any part of the house.  The origin of the noise is an encased heating coil, connected by two flimsy black wires that float up to the raised heating.  Water is pumped in from a skinny pipe, and quickly heated in the grapefruit-showerhead before it trickles out.  I use the words “quickly” and “trickle” because the process isn’t instantaneous; I’ve got to open the shower valve enough to activate the heating coil, but not so much so as to overflow the unit and induce a tepid downpour; the result is a very loud, somewhat unsatisfying trickle of warm water. 

I’ve been here for almost two weeks now, and keep waiting for the day where I look at my calculated shower routine and get that wave of “culture shock;” I’m anticipating a wave of sadness, anxiety, or even just alarm with the fact that the life I’m living now is exceptionally different from the one I had 14 days ago.  But then, that “It’s considered rude to spend more than 10 minutes in your host family’s bathroom” reminder kicks in, and I quickly dry off and fully dress myself before exiting the bathroom (shoes and all). Maybe culture shock will hit me in a non-cliché setting.

(Note: This is the graphic that I caught my mother looking at a few days before I left home.  I’ve been wondering where I am along this “too detailed to be completely off base” line.)

Tomorrow marks the first full two weeks of the ICADS program that all Pitzer students studying in Costa Rica partake in before heading to the Firestone Research Center.  When I last updated this blog, I had anticipated that this program would be too difficult, too time consuming and intellectually taxing to return home and whip together a few witty pages for you to see.  I can’t tell if I’m lucky or not, but I’ve seemed to avoid this problem almost all together; the lectures are introductory, sometimes at the 9^th grade humanities caliber, and in discussions I’m given the liberty to speak my mind freely with no challenges from students or professors.  Indeed, I feel like I could teach the class half the time, or if nothing else review lesson plans before their débuts.  There are little things that should be restructured, like an interview assignment where, us rich, mostly white, entry-level Spanish students were tasked with interviewing mostly illegal immigrant vendors working in the informal economy.  We did NOT have a discussion about how to approach these workers from a point where we acknowledge the multi-tiered levels of privilege we had (let alone question WHY exactly we had to impose ourselves on one of Costa Rica’s most economically and socially disadvantaged populations), but WERE provided with a rather informal questionnaire sheet that asked questions like “Do you make enough money to cover your living costs” and “Would you prefer a more stable job that would guarantee social security for you?”  I’ve started to take a back seat and just add commentary that challenges the learning material. 

Although the class isn’t all that intellectually demanding, the daily routine here is.  I wake up at 5:30 every day when the host sister leaves for school, and try to get a few more minutes of sleep before my 6:10 wake up and shower.  After breakfast, I head out on my 45-minute walk to school, meeting students along the way (as my house is the farthest from school).  Once at ICADS, I have 4 hours of Spanish class (one of the most difficult adjustments given the fact that my last Spanish class didn’t reach 4 hours in a week).  Following lunch is another 3-5 hours of class before the long walk back to the house, dinner, and homework before my 10 pm bedtime (I’m hitting around 7 hours of sleep a night).  Because of such a packed day, I’m leaving my updates to once or twice a week, at least until I head down to Dominical.

I’ve grown up with a native Spanish speaker only conversing with me in her first language for the first 19 years of my life, so adjusting to a household and society where Spanish is the primary means of communication hasn’t been difficult.  I suppose I could still be in this honeymoon period, but honestly I just think I’m used to the adjustment process after the last few years moving about on my own and living in different cultures. 

I’ve been trying to take walks every day by myself and really cherish my awkward shuffle to get warm in the shower, but the only travel-related and poignant realization that I’ve come to is that maybe I’m really just a transient being.  Friends have probably heard me say this as a joke when I tell them I’ve traveled a lot, but I’m sure those friends have heard me say, “Every joke has an element of truth.”  I could be confusing this sort of acceptance of my self-proclaimed title for what it means to grow up, and that the rush of culture shock just dissipates with every new place.  It’s impossible to tell, but living in this new “home” just makes it more difficult to really conceptualize where my true “home” really is.

A Kid Again

1/27/14
 

It’s 7:10 in the morning.  The sun has shot through my barred windows and the tiny window shade slits.  I’ve showered, eaten, and buttoned my collared shirt all the way to the top.  My satchel over my shoulder, I checked my carabineer for the third time to make sure I have my three house keys for the various outside gates.  Herminia stops me and looks me in the eye with the most sincere smile I’ve seen her have since we met, and says in Spanish, “Have a wonderful first day of classes, Robert, good luck!”  I wished her a good day too, and buzzed the outside gate.  While walking up the street, I was overcome by a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time, some sense of pride and readiness that I just don’t have when I’m at Pitzer.  It took me a while to realize just what the feeling was, but then it became clear: My “mother” wished me a good first day of classes.  Simple, concise, but a luxury I haven’t had since I was a teenager.  Living with a family again, has really rekindled a lot of emotion and comfort that I haven’t felt while living alone or with a roommate; it’s one of the most wonderful hidden treats that I never knew how to truly explain while casting my left hand out on my Office of Admission tours.

            The day before, Sunday, I woke up late.  Considering the fact that I had gone to bed at around 9pm the previous evening, waking up at 9am was an incredible amount of sleep for me, and quite late to wake up.  I immediately felt guilty; I had told Sam that I would walk over to her house and show her around town before the ICADS lunch at noon, but realized that there was little time to do so.  After showering and a cup of tea, my host father Rafael and I found Samantha’s house, and talked to her mom for a little while; Sam wasn’t home, she was told to wait in the park for us.  By 11ish, we’d found each other, and still quite guilty, I was determined to make it up to her, so I suggested that she go to lunch at ICADS with us Pitzer folk; in addition, she’d get to see the town a bit and learn the way to walk to school.  Thankfully she was happy to do so, and we all took the ~30ish minute walk to the school.  One of the interesting differences between here and the US, and indeed in Ghana, is the lack of pedestrian rights and infrastructure. Sidewalks are plagued with “gringo traps” AKA pitfalls or general disheveled concrete.  One has to look farrrrrr down the streets in all directions, even at stop signs, for cars, for at best the sign means “Yield to other cars, if you feel like it.”

 

            Unfortunately for Sam and my conscience, once we arrived at ICADS, our director promptly brushed Sam aside and told her that the lunch was a special Pitzer only meal, and that she couldn’t eat with us.  So, she walked back with Cora’s host mother.  I quickly changed moods, however, with a delicious lunch at an Italian restaurant and conversation with the Pitzer folks.  After walking back to Curribadt, Sam rejoined Lauren, Sarah, and I, and we walked all around town, exploring streets and shops.  While checking out at the super market (I got some prime new shampoo and ginger), a small, older woman noticed Sarah absentmindedly swaying to the beat of the nearly inaudible dance music playing overhead in the market.  In Spanish, she said, “You gringos have no idea how to dance, here, check me out!” She swayed and “danced,” although her age certainly had an effect on her movement. “Hey, come to my house, I’ll give you lessons, we can dance to whatever music you’d like!” she exclaimed.  We politely said maybe, and headed outside to meet the rest of the group, but the woman followed and really persisted asking us to dance with her.  After a quick check-in in English, we all agreed, and walked a few blocks to her house.  She exclaimed with pride, “Here, this is the auto shop…and this door, this is my house!” pointing to a grey sheet metal door.  Needless to say, all of us were waiting for the other to exclaim that we had to go.  No one peeped, and we all entered the doorway, the woman locking the door behind us.  All of us uneasy, she turned on the stereo, and handed us each a heavy CD case, a good 300 CDs in total.  For the next hour, the tension dissolved, and Rosario (the older woman) showed everyone how to dance to the different styles of music.  It was awkward and silly, especially given the fact that a young man in his mid 30s passed by a few times with small comments and no official introduction. 

            The following day, Monday the 27^th, was the first official day of school.  The logistics are unremarkable – introductions of around 15 students from across the country (and one from Kathmandu, Nepal!), a Spanish placement oral exam, and an afternoon of program overviews, safety information, and interactions with the other students.  We have three girls named Katie and two-named Sarah, and the schools represented vary from Chapman, University of Michigan, University of Massachusetts, Grinnell, and one student on a gap year, attending Middlebury in the fall. 

            As the group of Pitzer students and Sam walked back from ICADS together after a somewhat exhausting 8 hours of class, I felt the same eerie feeling that I was just a young schoolboy again.  When I was younger, I really did envy the children I’d see in cartoons who exercised a degree of autonomy, walking to and from school with their school books in their backpacks and their mothers cooking dinner when they arrived at home.  True, there is a healthy degree of idealization, and the “grass is always greener,” but just like my time in Ghana, I feel like this life outside the US is more simple, a bit more calm, and to me, romantic.  We’ll see how, as the workload increases, my idea of walking for almost two hours a day to and from school fights against my naïveté, but for now I’m quite content.

A note on blogging for the next five weeks – the program I’m enrolled in is quite time consuming, and although I’d like to write every night, I’ll most likely only blog on the weekends.  In addition, I’ll be heading to Nicaragua for a week the Saturday after next, and will be inaccessible for a little while.  Until next time!

That kiss thing

1/25/14

“Hola, mucho gusto,” Hermimina sighed, averting eye contact while moving her push cart full of vegetables.  She leaned into me and tilted her head.  “Hola, me llamo Robert,” I stammered.  She didn’t move.  Aha! Here’s where I do the kiss the cheek thing! I thought.  I leaned in, and being a good foot taller than her, managed to plant my lips above her hear on her hair and made a slight kissy noise.  The gesture brought her back into motion, and with a quick “Permiso…” she wheeled the cart over the front step into the doorway.  My new Mom…I wonder if I nailed the kiss thing right, or maybe I wasn’t supposed to do that?  Rafael, her husband of 48 years, smiled, and followed her inside.  This quiet couple and their tiny home will be my new family.  I grinned and shut the three gates behind me.

           

            Today marks the first day of my four-month long trip to Costa Rica.  I’ll go over the logistics, which seemed interesting given my previous travel experience.  After a short flight from SFOà LAX, and a sleepless (literally no sleep) red-eye to San Jose, Lauren Phipps, Cora Regas, Samantha Abelove, and I made our way to Migracion in the airport.  We were told to lie and say that we were tourists heading to Nicaragua in two weeks to avoid the student visa bureaucracy; a move not altogether well though out, but if it worked would seem perfect in retrospect.  No problems, thank goodness.  Lauren and I exchanged some money (no doubt at a bad rate) while waiting for bags, and shortly thereafter were picked up by a sweet elderly man named Fernando.  Fernando dove us to our host family houses one by one, I secretly wishing I were last so I could see where everyone else lived.  The drive brought back memories of the dozens of bus rides in Quito; graffiti on the roadside walls, a near equal numbers of motorcycles and compact cars, and unofficial competitions of who’s merengue beat was louder and THUMP-y-er.  Sam was dropped off first on the corner of El Calle Principal – I don’t know her too well, but I believe she looked a little shell shocked as Fernando stopped the car; we all did.  All of the houses were covered head to toe with thick iron bars; where wasn’t an open window, door, or even wall on any neighboring house either.  Luckily, her host mother immediately disarmed the tension with a big hello, letting her little white dog (with a pink bow tie) out to greet Sam followed by a bear hug. We drove for another two minutes past an ornate church, and Lauren was next, her family greeting her with equal warmth.  I was getting excited.  We drove for a few more minutes down two blocks and the car stopped, and Fernando signaled that this was Cora’s house.  As she disembarked and embraced her family, my high began to sink, and I realized I was next, waiting to meet a family who I hoped loved and accepted me, and that provided me with a safe, centrally located place to live; if the criteria didn’t fit, I had no choice but to accept it. 

Fernando, who had remained silent except for the name calling thus far, flipped a switch with the ladies out of the car and chatted me up, complimenting me on my Spanish, giving me recommendations for which volcanoes to visit, and telling me that I’d be happy with my family.  We took a meandering route, seeming to pass down a series of narrow one-way streets and heading out of town.  When we finally arrived, I eagerly jumped out of the car, all three bags in hand, and waited to see who would open the door.  Rafael, a gray haired, well-built 70-year-old man came out of the double-gated enclosure.  He said nothing, only smiled shyly, and welcomed me into his house.  I was shown my room next to the kitchen, an 8’x10’ tiled bedroom with barred windows, a desk, and a small, neatly made bed.  I tried to talk him up, and half-expected the rest of the family to burst out and greet me enthusiastically.  No, Rafael simply looked at me calmly as he’d done several dozen times before, and told me to put my clothes away.  Five minutes later, Hermimia arrived from the marked, and I greeted her hoping to arouse some sort of excitement that I saw on the faces of the previous three families when my friends arrived.  Not unfriendly, just used to the routine, I surmised.  After putting away my things, I collapsed for a few hours, reclaiming two hours of sleep that the airplane had stolen, then talked to the couple for a while before lunch.  Rafael and Hermimia are peaceful, good-natured host parents.  They lack the excitement that I possess, understanding that the change in their family is one that appears like clockwork, not as something that they’ll tell dozens of friends back at Pizer.

In the afternoon, Rafael accompanied me to find a sim card for my phone, and we tried to retrace the route to the other students’ houses.  I tout that I have a decent sense of direction, and managed to find the two houses that were close to mine where Lauren and Cora lived, just a 15-minute walk away.  I’m told that I’ll be walking to school, and finding their houses means that if I get up a good 20 minutes earlier, I can walk with company.  On our return journey, we paused for a few minutes to watch a funeral at the church.  I’ve been asked what religion I was, and told them I don’t have one, but would be willing to accompany them on their trip to the Sunday mass tomorrow.  Rafael didn’t ask me to stop, he just halted and stared, making a cross motion with his worn fingers.  We returned to the house, and I took another nap and had dinner in front of the Futbol game on TV.

Traveling in Costa Rica is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.  I’ve been telling myself that, if I can handle heading to Ghana by myself, moving as I please, adjusting to Costa Rica would be a breeze.  Yet, there are several unanticipated adjustments that I’ve had to make very quickly.  Understandably, the language transition was abrupt and fast paced – aside from a quick visit to Lauren’s house, I haven’t spoken English since 8 in the morning.  My family understands that I can comprehend what they’re saying, and just have trouble remembering specific words here and there, so they abandoned the prospect of speaking slowly and using hand motions after the initial welcome.  After just a few hours here, I feel like I’ve spent an eternity here, and that aside from giving me directions, my family treats me like the student they’ve had here for decades with a new outfit on. 

I’ve had moments of panic, of forgetting words, and of course missing folks back home, but am still unable to properly digest how I should be reacting to the world that surrounds me.  So far, I haven’t; I’ve been polite, easygoing, and if anything just a little curious.  I think I’ll try to adopt Hermimia’s demeanor, and just play my stay in this house as nothing out of the ordinary.  I’m part of this family now, will soon be busy to the gills with work, and will just continue to live life with a peaceful, charming demeanor.

*** Edit, pictures to come, the internet is really spotty here so I just wanted to post this before it cut out again!***

Ya me voy!

January 24, 14

“Are you ready?”

“Getting excited?”

“Nervous, I bet?”

            It’s difficult to tell when polite conversation inquiries spill over to genuine interest.  I’ve been giving the normal responses – “Well, I haven’t packed yet…Sure I’m excited…Nah, it’ll be fine.” Fine? Fine is the sort of dismissive language we absent-mindedly toss around to get someone to stop nagging with the equally brain-dead polite questioning, but as I strap on my hiking boots that can’t fit in my packed bags, I’ve got to wonder, “Is ‘fine’ all I’m really expecting?

"Travel Light, Travel Quick!

            I’ve had several days like today in my recent past – the last day at home, or in America for that matter.  Seven months ago or so, I repeated the same exercise of last minute cancelling monthly online subscriptions, and stuffing little knick-knacks into visibly overstuffed luggage.  Today, I head out on a four-month trip to Costa Rica to study, among other things, Spanish, Costa Rican History, and Tropical Rainforest Ecology.  It’s a trip I’ve planned to take since the fall of 2011, something I highlight when giving college admission tours, and an all-too-recurrent topic of conversation at family gatherings.  Yet, I’ve honestly never toyed with my “pre-departure reflections and thoughts to how-serious-is-this-trip” ratio so much, tipping the scales to devoting almost no critical analysis to the imminent journey. 

            Although I’ve had ample time to “psych myself out” this winter break, I’ve filled the free space with a myriad of odd and unpleasant activities, such as an unexpectedly difficult tonsillectomy and days of scholarship applications.  In addition, I’ve decompressed from a difficult semester with a trip to Los Angeles and Santa Cruz just to see the people I love.  Of course, all along the way I’ve been asked the same half-dozen study abroad inquiries about my preparedness, excitement, anxiety, ect.

            As I lace up my hiking boots over my orange-tiger-stripped socks (can’t leave the country without some orange clothing, right?  I also have a bow tie!), I believe it’s finally hit me that in 24 hours I’ll be in somewhat of a different world.  I’ll be speaking, reading, and thinking in Spanish, adjusting to living with a family of 5 (ages, 12, 40s, and 70s), and coming to terms with the fact that I’ll actually have to go back to doing academic work.  Looking back on my date of departure for Ghana, however, I can say I’m in a similar place, although a bit harrier (no shaved head this go around!)

           

“Who knows if I’m ready, I’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Excited?  That’s an unfair question; I have no honest idea of what lies ahead.”

“No, not nervous; an adventure awaits, and the unknown will be what I make of it.”

I’ll update you with a decently interesting chronicle of my travels in the coming week, but for now, all I can say for sure is that, like I left for Ghana in May, I’m thrilled to put a foot forward and step into the unknown.

There seems to be a pattern...