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.