El paseo al Sierpe de Osa

This past weekend I went with my host family on a tour to Osa, a small beach town about 6 hours by bus South of Alajuela on the Pacific Coast. Actually, it's on a river, the Sierpe, that leads out to the ocean. We took a small boat out to an island where whales and dolphins often swim nearby, and though I missed seeing a humpback's tail, I did see lots of dolphins and two jumped up out of the water. Here are a few pictures of the river, and one of me with a Tres Leches birthday cake in Casa Luz. The clam-like things is a seed, closed and opened, from one of the trees along the river bank. The "family photo" from left to right is of a friend of my host dad, a neighbor, me, my host dad, mom, and sister, and the son of the neighbor. Her husband took the photo.

Guaro

As I am coming to the end of my eighth week, I've realized my time here has absolutely flown by.

Last weekend, my host dad invited me and one of his old friends, Nena, to go watch a guy he knows "saca guaro", or make moonshine liquor. We had to drive a little while in some hills and then climb down to a little spot of land where he had, and I have always wanted to describe something as this, a lean-to set up along with his supplies for making the guaro. It's made from sugar cane sugar, which is a deep brown, and boils in a large barrel where the vapor then runs through a tube and passes through another barrel. A hose runs fresh mountain water into this second barrel, which cools the hot vapor passing through the tube. The tube then drips the cooled guaro into a little bucket or whatever container you want.

We grilled sausages and ate them with tortillas and pico de gallo, and the man making the guaro invited us back to his house where he gave me two out of print colones bills- one for 5 colones and another for 50. He also gave me 3 tomatoes. The guaro he makes probably runs around 60-70 proof or more, and is crystal clear pure but goes down like fire.

I have gone out a few times with a few friends I've made, including a casino, two karaokes, various bars, one of which is called "Longhorns" and is run by the US restaurant chain "Abuelo's" I think, and a club called Tragaldabas that will suck you dry of all money.

In the past few days, the 5 yr. old girl at Casa Luz has asked me to help her learn to count. She just started kindergarten a month or so ago, but asked me what "numbers" A, B, and C were, so obviously reading hasn't been part of her curriculum yet. She can now count to 10 without faltering, but gets caught up on the "dieciseis, diecisiet, dieciocho, diecinueve...." numbers, though she has just about solidified "once-catorce".

New travel plans are that I will leave here a week early to avoid that 90+ day problem and attend a family wedding, so this weekend I will accompany my host family on a whale tour type of thing near the Panama border. It's run by a friend of theirs who doesn't charge much because he does it for fun, and lost both his arms in an accident a long while ago. The Mexico v. Costa Rica game on Saturday almost tripped us up since it cannot be missed, but we'll find a way.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I still help out the Casa Luz cook, in the kitchen. She is super strong and interesting, talks fast and teaches well but plays this god-awful, excuse the pun, religious music that a lot of the time sounds like an Evangelical talk show with crying woman calling in and talking about God and then the host saying something like, "You are a princess, repeat me you are a princess, God loves you and only does good things for you, ..." and then the woman sobs, "I am a princess of the angels". Last Monday, a Protestant youth group from Alabama came to give a skit about God. I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but how convincing is a whole skit in broken gringo-Spanish where literally every line is "God is powerful and just". This denies every basic critical thinking strategy of providing justification, evidence, a logical argument. If I were a teenage mother coming from a history of abuse or whatever, a 10 yr. old white kid saying "Dios es poderoso y grande" would not do the trick for me. But they were very nice and a woman asked me "Where did you learn to speak English?", which made me hopeful for the slightly improved quality of my Spanish.

I will try to put up pictures next week of this tour. Much love.

Africa Mia, Macho, y Tortillera

I have entered my 6th week here, and the past month and a half has flown by. I've started to notice changes in the little kids, like talking more or even looking bigger. Isaac likes to count, but he only really knows 6 numbers and doesn't pronounce "nueve" fully: uno, dos, tres, cuatro, ocho, mueve, ocho, mueve, ocho, ocho, MUEVE.

Last week, everyone at Casa Luz went on a field trip sponsored by the owner to a zoo called Africa Mia. It was four hours away by bus, and was really just a long stretch of dirt path with giraffes, warthogs, Indian bulls, and zebras amongst some other animals on either side. At the end of the path was a petting zoo where you could feed a deer carrots, pet a camel, and look at strange looking roosters that had large tufts of feathers on their heads. We stayed for about 90 minutes, which included us eating a lunch of arroz con pollo that we had toted on the bus, and I saw a sign saying that our tour had cost 65 dollars per adult and 25 per child. A ridiculous price to see My Africa, but hopefully it's funds to continue construction.

The real excitement was last Thursday on my way to a cooking class at Rancho Espanol when I felt someone tugging strongly at the back strap of my purse. I quickly turned around and saw that some teenage guy with sunglasses and waist-length blonde hair was laughing hysterically while succeeding in robbing me. Luckily, I was close enough to the school that I was able to run and tell them, and one of the workers chased after where I said the guy and his friend had gone and found them. "Macho" or "macha" means blondie more or less. Anyway, the people at the school called over about 20 men, who nearly all waited for the police to come while Macho kept trying to tell me that he didn't do it. Even if he had gotten away with my bag, I was carrying under 4 dollars in cash and a debit card. In any case, it was the first time I've been jumped, and I got lucky that everything turned out alright.

My vocabulary is improving, but probably more colloquially than anything else. My host brother and sister explained to me that "tortillera" means lesbian in slang here. My host sister, Johana, clapped her hands together as if making tortillas, and asked, "What else could two women make?", and I almost died laughing when it clicked. It always feels good when you laugh so hard you cry for the first time in a long time, but then I had to try and explain it in English to the other gentleman living with my host family. I'm not sure he got it.

I have also come to realize that there are some universals with little kids. They are all obsessed with cows, or vacas, above and beyond any other animal. I know this is often the case in the US, and definitely is here too. Everything at Africa Mia was "vaca". Also, they all try to say goodbye to their poop. The older little kids, about 2 or 3 years old, still sometimes need someone to accompany them to the bathroom to "echar caca". I took two in one day, and both looked for their poop when they finished, and calling "Adios caca". One girl didn't end up leaving anything behind, and let out a little gasp of surprise when she couldn't find any caca in the toilet.

My current project is organizing my trip out of the country for 72 hours in order to renew my legal stay. I can't be in Costa Rica for more than 90 consecutive days, and my trip here is about 8 days too long. The most recent ideas have been either to go to the beach of Boca del Torro in Panama, or take a 200 dollar, all inclusive tour for 3 days of Nicaragua. If anyone feels like coming down to Costa Rica at least for a long weekend to accompany me, let me know.

Hope all is well and good for all of you.

Algunas fotitas

Here are a few of the photos I have taken over the past month:

Casa Luz, where I work. To the right is the daycare, and through the main closed door behind brown bars is the main building with offices, living areas and bathrooms, the kitchen and eating area, and a little playground.

My house. The bars open like a garage door to the side. My room is the front on the right.

My host brother- farthest back- and two other men helping put up the roof of the rent house my family is building next door. All the progress was since Monday, as my host dad is in construction.

This is a bushel of fresh chamomile flowers at the farmer's market that happens every weekend in Alajuela.

My host mom at the farmer's market, buying produce.

Me, after the beach last weekend, and though you can't really tell there, my hair is starting to look a lot blonder.

 Me with one of the little girls, Rachel, when we were celebrating the birthday of Don Eldon, the owner of Casa Luz. He and his wife are from Canada, but have a hotel in San Jose and founded Casa Luz when they realized the need for such a place for young women in need. 

Mae muy tuanis

This past weekend I went to the Carnavales en Puntarenas at the beach with my host dad Juan, host siblings Johana and Diego, Diego's girlfriend Chrissia, and a neighbor, Silvia. It was full of music, dancing, and a ton of Imperial- the national beer. When we dragged ourselves back, me a little burned and everyone worse from the wear, Juan told my host mom Sandra that I am a "mae muy tuanis", which in Costa Rican slang is basically a "super cool dude". Diego, Chrissia, and I stayed up late Saturday night as we camped on the beach since some guy got randomly stabbed in the back with a knife and drunken Diego was very adamant about not sleeping. Instead, he bought some very cheap, very questionable sticks of meat that tasted great but made Chrissia throw up. We decided after a long conversation that it was probably dog or rat, but for 2 for 100 colones- about 10 cents a piece- it was terrific.

The little kids at Casa Luz are all about at the age where their angry faces are so concentrated and determined and cute that you laugh while telling them to stop fighting and share. One of the little girls, probably not even 2 yrs yet- likes to growl a lot but out of delight, not anger.

I have also taken on a new role at Casa Luz. Now that the girls are in school, it's too much to have an extra English class on top of homework, the kids, and regular chores. Instead, English class will happen "once a week"- I suspect never again or very occasionally upon request- and on Tuesday and Thursday mornings I help out in the kitchen preparing the morning snack-merienda- and lunch. The other day, the cook, Fanny, taught me to make fried fish, with a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, and fresh squeezed orange juice, black beans, and rice with chile and celery.

My host dad is a construction overseer, and has been in construction for over 35 years. Over the past three days, he has taken a break from other projects to build a little house right next to the main house that they plan to rent out. They started Monday, but have already completed the foundation, inner and outer walls, and are putting up the roof beams and covering right now.

On Friday, we will go to the ferretaria of fruits and vegetables again. The best food in Costa Rica so far has just been the amount of fresh fruits. However, last week on of the girls at Casa Luz called me over and asked me if I was pregnant because she thought I was about a month along, so I have definitely been laying off the rice and bread intake.

''Puta'' y Natilla

School has started after the summer break here, and the girls at Casa Luz are in an accelerated program so that they will complete 7th grade in four months and 8th grade in another four. Given their ages 16-18, they are a bit behind in the colegio, but it works out.

Yesterday the oldest little girl turned 5 years old, and Isaac called her ''puta'' because she tried to help him put his socks back on. She would have been more offended and I would have reprimanded him more if it hadn't been so funny and misplaced.

At the Rancho Espanol, the spanish school, they held a cooking class. A large group of teenage girls came in to town, and they made tortillas while the older people and I made picadillo de papas y vegetales. I've enjoyed participating in the different classes and activities with the older people, who are usually retirees vacationing and learning basic Spanish. The other day one of the women said very sweetly, ''We learned about pregnancy today'', and I couldn't help laughing.

The past two days I have gotten up at 4:40am to go walking with Johana, the eldest daughter in the house, and Lady, her cousin who lives with her husband in the aparment above the car park out back. We walk for about a full hour while it's still dark and there are less cars, but buses picking up morning commuters still whistle by and there are no sidewalks, so you have to jump to the side of the road.

Something I have noticed as strange here is the great consumption of Natilla, which is a condiment like thing that comes in a little bag and looks like mayonaisse but isn't. My host family puts it on EVERYthing. Rice, beans, meat, bread, plantains, eggs, hot dogs, tortillas...the youngest daughter offered me ice cream the other day and the two flavors were either Coconut, or Natilla. I can best equate it to sour cream though it's a little different, and am not a huge fan.

Tonight is another meeting of the all-women religious group, Tierra Fertil. I better think of something to thank Senor Jesus for...

First Really Successful Class

Today I taught my fourth English class. Only 4 of the girls were there, as school starts on Monday- it is summer here and summer break is ending- and the other girls were buying their uniforms and supplies. We reviewed the verb To Be, explaining along the way how ''estar'' and ''ser'' are one verb in English. I tried to move on to physical and emotional characteristics to make sentences describing each person in class, but we went off on the tangent of body parts- some relevant to everyday use and some not. It is hard to keep the attention of teenage girls who have babies crying two rooms over on a tropical afternoon, but we played hangman with body parts vocabulary and it was a really good class.

We celebrated Valentine's Day at Casa Luz today instead of tomorrow, and the mom of my favorite little boy wrote me a little card saying Thank you for being nice to her and her son. He is kind of the bully of the bunch, but only because he's a little bigger than the others, most of which are little girls so aren't as rambunctious as he is. Yesterday we had to have a conversation about no biting, but he's very smart for his age and very sweet.

Last night one of the workers from the local Spanish school drove me around to show me neighboring areas of La Guacima. I know that Costa Rica has many North American companies and businesses, but didn't expect to pass a Wendy's, and Office Depot, and Outback Steakhouse. dear god...In any case, I learned that hookah is apparently pretty popular here, as is ''technik'' music.

Religious Tolerance

Just as most all of Latin America, the people here in La Guacima, Costa Rica are pretty Catholic. Last Monday I went to some sort of service with my host mother and her daughter where there was lots of singing and clapping about Senor Jesus, and then the man leading everything came by and put a red cape on me and he and this women spoke over me for a while while a lot of people were praying to music.

On Tuesday, my host mother invited me to attend a meeting of Tierra Fertil, a group that she and many women she knows including her eldest daughter attend. There was a lot of praying and singing about Senor Jesus again, and my host sister had us sing a song called Paz en la Tormenta. It's a group only for women, and they were all very hospitable and hugged me as a new comer. At the end, we all stood in small circles and everyone in each circle took a turn praying. I was a little anxious about what to thank Senor Jesus for, so just said ''Senor Jesus, thank you for this night, and the hospitality these women have shown me. Thank you for my health, that of my family back home, and...all the miracles in the world''. I hope it wasn't too Unitarian for them.

Work at Casa Luz is great. Every morning I play with the little kids, and in the afternoon either teach English to the women or continue playing. So far we've had 2 English classes, but the most recent desintigrated into just a conversation- in Spanish of course- but was still fun because I think they like me well enough. I don't know the exact stories of any of them, but know that they have had it pretty bad so some days they are open and amiable while others they are pretty solemn. In any case, they invited me to go to church with them tomorrow and then eat lunch, so that's a good sign.

One of my favorite little kids is a 3 year old boy named Isaac. He has a husky little voice and is so cute. He's bigger than most of the other kids, though, so often gets reprimanded for playing too hard or hitting or not listening or climbing on the cabinets or painting on his face or whatever.

Last night, the family and I went to this huge farmer's market that comes every Friday and Saturday. Families come to shop for the week more or less, and it was packed with people. Rows and rows of vendors have papayas, potatoes, bananas, tomatoes, cucumbers, pineapples, watermelon, beans, and many fruits and vegetables I hadn't had before. One, zapote, has a very strong flavor. It's a deep orange and creamy texture. Another that I'm not sure how to spell- peripayo- is crumbly and kind of tasted like cat food or something, but it wasn't too bad.

One thing I really like here is the community. Lots of the women just yell over to each other and come over to one another's houses. My host family's house seems to be a center for this. Yesterday the neighbor came over to give me a pedicure, dye my host mom's hair, and wax the armpits of her, her niece, and another friend that was there.

First few days

Hello!

I am here in La Guacima, Costa Rica. My host family gave me my own room in the house where the younger daughter and the parents sleep. Out back above the garage area are a few apartment rooms I think (I haven"t seen them) where the older daughter and son live, as well as the family of the niece of my host mother.

My plan in coming was to volunteer at a young women"s home, Casa Luz. It is literally right down the street from my house. Eight young women, all 16 to 18 years old, live and study there, along with 9 children (one has 2 little girls, all the rest have one child each). The eldest child is only 4, so they are very little kids. The schedule they"ve decided on for me is to play with the children from 9 until lunch, when i eat there along with everyone else, including the faculty of la directora and the psychologists who hold sessions with the women during the day. Then in the afternoon until 3pm, I teach English to the muchachas. This will vary, for example today they had a meeting so I just played with the kids all day. But yesterday we had our first class, and we went over the alphabet, the verb "to be", the numbers up to one hundred, and colors. I plan on starting on small phrases, like "My name is..." and greetings in our next class, which should be tomorrow.

The program I coordinated with in the US set me up with a local program called Rancho Espanol. It is like a spanish school for English speaking tourists who want to take classes but also just visit Costa Rica. Even though I am not a student with them, I guess I am working for them as a volunteer and so can use their pool and internet.

The best news I have heard while being here is that the water is potable! Brushing your teeth with bottled water isnt all that bad, but I wasnt too excited to do it for another 3 months after Bolivia.

We"ll see how well I keep up with this, but for now, hasta luego!
chloe