Que Sera, Sera

13 Sep. 2011

Today I got a phone call at 8:45 in the morning, it was Jennifer, the medical officer assigned to my case. We have some news from DC she says, call me back. I call her back at 8:55 but she is in with another volunteer so I leave a message, but I am about out of medication so I need to go to the PC office anyway. When I get there, they are still busy so I wait. I am thinking the news is going to be something like, we want you to see a podiatrist in country, we want you to wear these orthotics, we want to see you in DC so you can see a specialist… I waited 2 hours and finally they come to get me. I sit down and I get the news. Well, says Jennifer, your Medical Separation was approved.

You know in the movies when big moments happen it’s like everything is happening in slow motion, suddenly things go out of focus and you can’t seem to grasp what’s happening… It was really like that. I must have been making a weird face because Jennifer stops her nonsensical rambling and says, “I think this is for the best really, here, why don’t you read the response from DC, aren’t you excited?” She asks. I give her a quizzical look… excited? But I read over the DC response… Ortho says that it looks like plantar fasciitis, a condition that normally takes 6-12 months to resolve, due to the difficulty level of the volunteers site and the amount of pain being experienced a medical separation is the best course of action.

I spend today calling my friends in Peace Corps to let them know what happened, I call my family back home, I don’t tell anyone else. It doesn’t feel real.
I am given a timeline and a long list of tasks that need to be accomplished before I can go. I have to go through the close of service procedures, do you want to do this the long way or the short way, asks Jennifer. Long way. I am given a departure date of one week from tomorrow.

14 Sep 2011

I sleep like crap. I never fully reach that state of restful sleep. Instead my mind is whirring, trying to process that what I thought was going to be the next 20 months isn’t. In a week I will be at home… actually I will be at my parents’ house, I haven’t slept in my parents’ house since… highschool? Could it be 6 years ago? Yes. Where will I work? What will I drive? Can I even drive still? I don’t have car insurance. At least I can call up my friends? I don’t have a phone, I don’t have any money. I don’t have a job and I do have broken feet. Broken feet and shitty Peace Corps insurance.

I go to the Clinica Biblica where I have to pee and poop in a cup to make sure I don’t have parasites… they make me use the bathroom in the middle of the waiting area in the middle of the hall. I have to carry my clear cups of pee and poop to the lab desk in front of a hospital full of people. Good thing I no longer feel shame,
I walk down the streets. Is this real? Where I am right now, is it real? I won’t be here in a week. What is it like in America? Are the streets cleaner or is that just my imagination? Suddenly everything in San Jose seems dirtier as I think about the cleanliness of the US. An old man grabs my hip Buenos dias guapa, he breathes in my ear. Are you real? Is this happening? At least I won’t have to put up with that anymore. That’s a point in favor of the US, I giggle.

In the evening I am looking for jobs. I realize there are no jobs, but I apply at Starbucks, because I like how coffee smells. But then, phone number? Address? I don’t really have either. I feel like I am going to throw up. I can’t breathe. And I start crying. In a week, I will be home.

15 Sep 2011

Once again, I didn’t sleep last night. I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t stop thinking. What will it be like going back to the YMCA? I will need time. My dream is really over. This thing I wanted my whole life, it’s really over. I feel so much grief. I have experienced a loss and I am ashamed that this loss is affecting me so strongly.
Today, I am angry. I am angry that that they mishandled my case from the very beginning and have blamed the problems on me every step of the way. I am angry that the Peace Corps can take a girl who has wanted nothing more than to serve her whole life and they can ruin my experience. I am angry that I have mostly bitter memories of my service and I will never get the chance to make positive ones.

Today is Costa Rican Independence Day. I am awake at 4:30 when they shoot off the canons to mark this day. I take the bus on a strange route because of parades to the Clinica Biblica to drop off my second sample of feces. I meet some American girls studying abroad. They want to know, how is the Peace Corps? Do I recommend it. Even though I am hurting and angry, I tell them I do.

I talk to my mom. She is so excited for me to come home. She says that. I am so excited for you to come home. She starts reminding me of the details, I have boxes of things to sort through in the barn. That’s a full time job she says. She expects me to live with them. I know I can’t do it.
A black hole has opened beneath me and is sucking my life into it. I can do nothing but watch. This is for good I realize. I have built my whole life on the foundation of Peace Corps, and now it is over. My life plan has ended and I don’t know where to start in drafting a new one.

16 Sep. 2011

I have my final physical today. The doctor tells me that it’s funny because if it weren’t for my feet, I would be in perfect health. I have excellent blood pressure and I may be one of the healthiest volunteers in Costa Rica.

Last night I finally slept for the first time, so I am able to better control my emotions. I have lunch with a couple of friends, one of whom is the closest volunteer to my site who happens to be in San Jose on her way to a friend’s birthday party. We eat pasta and they talk about all the things they miss from the US and how jealous they are that I get to go back and watch news and drink good beer and eat tacos. I say, well, at least you didn’t have your dream stolen from you. We sit in silence.

17 Sep. 2011

I ride the bus back to my site and can’t stop thinking about how beautiful this country is. I am really going to miss it here. I am not going to miss the 9 hour bus ride with no shocks and worn out seats.

When I get to my site, it was like I never left. I meet my friend Jessie and feel comforted. I feel good about my site as I show it to a friend. I am calm. I am back at site and of course I will stay here forever. This is home. This is normal.


18 Sep. 2011

Jessie is staying with me, which is nice because it breaks some of the tension. We have a huge typical breakfast, complete with my favorite, fried cheese.
After breakfast we walk to the beach. It is a long walk. 5 km there, 5 km back and I don’t care how long the walk is because I just want to go to the beach one last time. We meet a woman who owns a hotel on the beach and she buys us lunch to thank us for our service in the Peace Corps. I feel a twinge of guilt because I accept her gift even though I am leaving the country for good. But that’s not real. I think. It just can’t be real, because I am here in my site where nothing has changed and I will be here for the next 20 months, of course.

I have a really good day with Jessie, showing her my town and how I lived. I am really going to miss her. Maybe more than losing a dream, being separated from this friendship will be hardest part. Surely we can stay in contact. But our life paths have shifted. She will continue on this one, and I will wander off into the unknown.

19 Sep. 2011

It’s time to leave my site. I am glad that Moises, my program manager, has come to help me move. This way I don’t have to put all my crap on the 5 am bus, and then on a taxi.
At breakfast my host mom asks me about payment for the last two months, during which time I have been in San Jose, not eating at her house, not using her electricity, not washing my clothes. She wants me to pay the full amount. The amount I normally pay every month of which 60 percent is food costs. I tell her that I will pay for rent, but not for food because that isn’t right. She didn’t have to pay for that food, so why should I pay her for food she didn’t buy? She says it isn’t fair because she could have rented out my room to someone who would have paid for food. I want to tell her that life isn’t fair. Instead I tell her that when she agreed to host a Peace Corps volunteer she was given a pamphlet with rules for payment, and I am following these rules in my payment. This argument makes me feel a little glad that I am leaving, because we would have had this argument eventually, only I would have had to go on living in the house afterward.

We drive along the coastal road back to San Jose. In bus, the trip to San Jose is anywhere from 8-10 hours, in car we make it in 6 and stop for lunch. It’s beautiful to drive along the beach.

Later I am telling my friends the whole story, step by step of how I went from normal to a medical separation. I am angry about how the story goes and as I tell it, I realize how unfair the situation is.

I feel weird today. Part of me feels like I am back in the US already driving along the coastal road. Parts of me feel as if I will never leave.

20 Sep. 2011

I go into the Peace Corps office to finish my final paperwork. It should take a couple of hours. All of my friends are waiting for me back at the hostel, everyone is in town for the 50th anniversary celebration. I feel as if these events are happening to someone else. My final paperwork takes all morning and several hours of my afternoon. Even though I had been in the medical office on Friday to get things together, and they had known for a week that I would be leaving today, it still took the medical office two hours to get my paperwork together. I called it the Close of Service scavenger hunt. Basically you have to perform a series of tasks and then get almost every staff member in the Peace Corps office to sign somewhere on this form. At the end you are rewarded with a plane ticket and 32 dollars for the airport on the way home. It seemed like an awful lot of trouble for someone who didn’t want to go home in the first place.

I have dinner with all my friends and tell them the whole story, start to finish, of how things came to be this way. As I tell it I realize how very unfair the whole thing is.
We stay up till 1:30 talking, laughing, making jokes I know that no one back home will understand. I don’t want to go to bed, because then it will all be over. I am in the middle of a giant group hug. Leaving these people is the hardest part of leaving.

21 Sep. 2011

My friends wake up with me at 4:00 to see me off. I cry when I get into the taxi because these are my best friends and they have been with me through a really difficult part of my life.

The San Jose airport makes you go through security twice. In the airport it feels like I must be going on vacation. I can’t be leaving for good, so this must be a vacation. There is an adorable little girl sitting next to me on the plane. Her mom tells me she is going back home after three months of visiting her grandfather, but she doesn’t want to go. I tell her I am also going home after a long time in Costa Rica, and I don’t want to go home either. But because she’s being so brave, I’ll be brave.

I do a pretty good job too, until the pilot announces we will be landing in Atlanta. All of a sudden it hits me. I am really back in the states. My new friend tells me not to cry because we are supposed to be brave together. Touché little girl… touché. We end up spending a lot of time together in the Atlanta airport, because she is in a stroller and I am in a wheelchair. I feel like a real idiot in the wheelchair because everyone else is in their 90’s. People keep asking me what’s wrong with me, because I cry the whole time in the airport, and I’m a 24 year old in a wheelchair. I try to explain about how I am going home 20 months early, and people don’t get it. To them I should be excited to get back to “the real world.”

I chat with a couple from Costa Rica going to see their daughter in Albuquerque. We have a long conversation in Spanish while we wait for someone to come push our wheel chair through the next part of the airport. They invite me to lunch, but I’m not hungry.
I am overwhelmed by the staff at the airport. Everyone is so short, so businesslike in their interactions. Strangers are speaking to me in English, and I expect them to be speaking in Spanish, so I don’t understand what they are saying. They have to repeat themselves multiple times. Hot water comes out of the sink when I wash my hands.
When I get on my flight to Tulsa, I am sitting next to a whole bunch of people from Oklahoma. The southern drawl, the lacsidasical grammar, the overwhelming politeness, it was the final step to believing that I was really going home.

The streets are cleaner, and everything is so flat and open, and bigger than I remember. Everything is just so much bigger. I feel a little panicky at how open everything is. But I take a deep breath and I swallow the feeling.

22 Sep. 2011

I’m sitting on the couch at my parents’ house, watching satellite TV. Last night I went out with my friends, and I didn’t know what to say to them, or how to talk to them. No one can possibly understand what this feels like. So today I am hiding out. I need to figure out what to do about my thesis, I need to find a job, I need to get a new phone, I need to unpack and wash my clothes (because they all smell really awful, even the clean ones). I need to find my packed away warm-clothes, because even though it’s in the 70’s, its cold. But today, I am just going to sit on the couch and watch satellite TV. Maybe tomorrow I will go out and try to do some things.

So the option has been proposed to me that I could get treatment, get better and then apply to be reinstated. I have a couple of options for how I could continue my PC service, but neither option is particularly promising. I’m not ready to start dealing with these kinds of decisions. I still feel shell shocked by the fact that I am really here and this is really permanent. I have no plan for the future. For the first time in my life, I don’t know what the next step should be, what the future holds. It’s a terrifying prospect, but I can either waste my time worrying, or accept that what will be, will be. Que sera, sera.

Fear.  The world is driven by fear.  The more I think about it, the more I realize that many of my choices and many of the choices of those around me are the result of fear.  What will happen if I don’t do this? I live every day with some amount of fear and indeed somedays it’s more than others.  I think that fear can absolutely be healthy, it keeps us from doing things that are dangerous, it helps us to recognize when we are at risk and sometimes it can force us to do things that are scary, because we afraid of what happens if we don’t.  That’s where I’m at right now.  Here I am in Costa Rica and it’s scary, everything is different and inaccessible but the thought of returning home is far more scary than the thought of staying here.  I bring up fear because I think that my fear is causing me to filter behavior in a certain way and additionally I watched a Costa Rican tradition that is ripe with the confrontation of fear. 

This weekend I visited a family friend who lived in the US and was very close to my family when I was a child.  This trip brought about all kinds of emotions that I was not prepared to receive.  We ate Pancakes for breakfast, I took a hot shower, I watched a movie on a projection screen and I spoke English with a family.  It was amazing to have this semblance of home but at the same time it reminded me of precisely the things about home that I miss.  It was wonderful and horrible at the same time, but rest assured dear family that I have a family and a home in Costa Rica that I can visit whenever I need a break, or wireless internet.  It was on the way home from this visit that something fear provoking happened to me.   I was walking to my bus stop in San Jose when (per usual) some men started whistling, making kissing noises saying the things they say and just being pretty typical.  As this was happening a man approached me from the other side and linked arms with me and began talking to me.  Hey, how are you, where are you from, where are you going, who do you know, and a series of other questions that to me just seemed weird.  Throughout the entire experience I was keeping an eye on my backpack, and looking out for other people that might be working with this guy.  I was flat out scared at this point.  I was having a difficult time focusing on his words and his questions because I was so concerned about what was happing with my stuff, what were this guys intentions and most importantly, how was I going to get away.  As soon as a cross street came up I jerked my arm away and told him that I was meeting my family around the corner, I immediately put people between us but he watched me walk away for five minutes.  I am still reconciling what happened to me.  Was this guy concerned about that stupid gringa walking down the street with her blonde hair and red dress being obviously gringa?  It’s possible that he recognized the amount of attention I was receiving and was attempting to mitigate the situation by associating me with a Costa Rican.  My first thought was negative though, my fear was telling me that this guy was trying to rob me, or was spotting me so that his friends could find me later.  How do I put my fear in a cultural context so that I can still use it to protect me without impeding my ability to form relationships?

On Monday I went to “Torros a la Tica”  and while I will try to explain this occurrence with words,  I highly recommend that everyone get on facebook and look at the 100+ photos I have of the event.  This is sort of like a cross between a rodeo and the running of the bulls in Spain.  Basically all of these people (mostly young men, but sometimes young girls who want to impress the boys) get into this arena and they wait for a bull to come jumping into the ring.  The bull is usually pissed because he has some rope tied around his belly and its annoying, additionally all these people are shouting at him and I’m sure that’s probably pretty scary too.  So the bull is afraid, of course, and the bull Is attempting to mitigate that fear by attacking people around him.  The whole idea of the event for the people is to prove how brave you are by getting close enough to the bull to touch him.  Fear is telling these people to do exactly the opposite but the whole idea is to fight your fear and confront it head on.  Of course it is reasonable to be afraid of running head on to meet an angry, fearful bull but what would be the point of putting the bull in the ring if everyone was going to follow their instincts and run away?  The whole idea behind this tradition is to face your fear, to show the world that you are the master of all that is scary and you control it.  It was certainly an interesting experience and while some people talked about how the bulls should have been treated better, I like that in this scenario the bull has far more chance to injure the human than the human to the bull. 

Perhaps the metaphor here is that we should be facing our fears head on rather than allowing them to affect our lives so profoundly.  What do you think about all this?  How does fear affect our cultural lense?

Welcome to Hell.

Welcome to Hell.  We had our interviews with our project managers last week and more or less this is what we were told about our future sites.   How do you feel about hot and cold weather?  Well, I don’t really like hot weather.  Okay, well that’s bad news because all the sites are Hot and buggy and humid so, we don’t really have a lot of room to accommodate preferences…   Okay, I respond, well sure, I guess I can do hot… Well Tina, you seem strong like maybe you could walk a long ways?  Umm sure I guess I can walk some distance…  Basically the picture that was painted was that I am going to live in a hot, insect infested hell through which I get to walk far and often.  Que Suerte…  The good news is that my mama Tica has been regularly campaigning on my behalf with regard to my DEET allergy.  Apparently she has just been beside herself about the amount of bug bites I have received.  On Thursday the Medical Officers gave me a sack full of bug crap, DEET free repellent, Claritin, Calamine Lotion and some cream that apparently can burn my skin off and cause blindness if I use it too frequently, noted… and I’ll probably be putting that in the bottom of my med kit.

Flash forward to my volunteer visit where I visited the “best site in Peace Corps.”  I have to admit it was pretty incredible.  Nick lives on a Cafetal that produces organic coffee.  There are horses, cows, pigs, oxen, and a really adorable puppy.  I will be posting pictures when I get the chance.  On Friday I toured the farm, a real privilege because there are guided tours through the farm for tourists visiting Monte Verde.   The farm features an old fashioned (Oxen powered) sugar press, all the necessities for producing coffee, a machine to de-shell it, a greenhouse to dry it, a sorter, a roaster and a grinder.  The shells of the coffee are saved to make fertilizer and a lot of the machinery, in addition to the stove in the house, are powered by methane gas produced in a biodigestor.  (Dad, you seriously need to quite paying for propane and make a biodigestor.  Don’t worry; I’ll help you when I get back.)  Let’s just say I was really impressed.  The animals and I got on quite well if I do say so myself, and the horse and I even shared a snotty kiss.  The view from the coffee fields was incredible, it’s a site located in the middle of former rain forest.  There is a tremendous valley and a river and views of Monte Verde on of Costa Rica’s largest nature preserves.    Unfortunately I did not see any monkeys but I did hear the village dogs bark every night at the local puma.  Saturday morning I made sugar.  Rather, I watched while other people made sugar and tried the sugar during every step of the process.  I was told on multiple occasions that sugar made in this way is natural and therefor healthy; additionally it does not cause diabetes.  I will have to check the facts on that. Saturday night I went to Monte Verde the town, and was blown away at how different were these worlds.  Nick’s site is 10 km or so away from Monte Verde and his town is very typical of rural Costa Rica, Monte Verde could very easily be any town in the US.  Every store/hotel and restaurant had free wifi (with prices to match the privilege.)  The Americans were out in full force and I couldn’t help but feel as if I were back in the States.  Weird.

One problem I have begun to run into here is that I stick out.  I have never felt so different, so out of place in my life.  The host families of the other volunteers talk about me, people turn and stare when I walk down the street, It’s almost like being a celebrity.  I have been told on multiple occasions that I am the epitomy of a Costa Rican beauty.  My blonde hair and blue eyes are the most desired physical traits of many people here and I am the only volunteer to arrive with white blonde hair and blue eyes.  Having grown up in a world where my brothers made up funny rhymes about their fat ugly sister, where I was never the “pretty” girl and where I generally spent a lot of my life feeling awkward and never quite up to par, it is strange to be seen in this way.  In fact, I can count on one hand the number of people who have told me that I am beautiful before arriving to Costa Rica.  In country I have lost track.  Last week we went to the town fiestas (they are much smaller than anticipated because the correct permits were not obtained from the municipality.)  At the fiestas there was a demonstration of traditional dance (sort of, I can’t really explain is any other way.) On occasion they were pulling people from the crowd and as soon as I saw that this was happening I moved myself to the back, surely I would be disguised in the back of the crowd?  How wrong was I?  The dance leader made eye contact with me and as I started to turn away to safety, the crowd parted and he grabbed me forcing me to dance in front of the whole town.  I want my brown hair back.   

I am also really struggling with my purpose here.  What am I doing in Costa Rica?  What I have seen so far is that many of these people do not seem to need help at all.  I feel like all of this is a massive publicity stunt put on by the US government.  There are parts of the country that seem to really need help but it seems like Peace Corps is not going to send us there because it is “too dangerous.”  I’m not really sure what that means, too dangerous.  Peace Corps sends volunteers to countries all over the world where the sites are far more dangerous than any site could be here.  (While I was typing this, a cat jumped on my roof and ran across it and scared the shit out of me.  It sounded like we were being bombed.)   I guess I’ll see what my site is like, but so far the information leads me to the conclusion that I am not here to help anybody except the US government (that’s nice seeing as how the government won’t even help me get my phone cancelled.) 

Finally, When I was in Monte Verde I encountered some illegal immigrants.  When we think of illegal immigrants we certainly have a perception that comes along with this word.  These illegal immigrants were American’s living and working illegally in Costa Rica.  Just some food for thought.

Get Real!

I figured out how to get hot water in my shower.  Yes, this is a major victory in my life.  It happened by accident.  We have an electric shower head that is supposed to heat the water that comes through the faucet; it’s really an ingenious invention to conserve electricity.  I had assumed that our shower head was not functional because up until yesterday I was incapable of making it heat the water to a degree that made a difference.  I had gotten advice from other trainees, “turn your water on just a trickle,” or “switch it from hot to cold to warm back to hot then turn on the water.”  Believe me, I tried everything and then yesterday morning I was in the process of my morning hot water experiments when I slipped.  I reached out to steady myself and turned the faucet from a stream to a trickle and for the first time felt warm water, Huzzah!  I switched the shower head from warm to cold to hot and the shower head clicked, sparked and then began to make the sweet, sweet sound of whirring electricity.  Hot water trickled out of my shower, boiling, lava hot water.  Granted, you can only turn the water pressure up to just higher than a trickle, but at last I am capable of standing completely under the hot running water.  I have been showering in a gymnastic form washing my body part by part and bending over backwards to wash my hair.  Que Milagro!  Every time you get in your boiling hot water please think of those of us who are not so lucky.  Consider that every day you turn on the faucet it’s little short of a miracle that there is on demand hot water.

Internet is still a little more difficult.  We have made a deal with the principle of the elementary school in town that we can use the internet at the school after six o’clock, but there was no finalization of plans, like how do we get into the school after six, and is there wifi or do we need to use the school computers, do they have a log in, are there rules for using the internet?  So this situation is still in development, but there is now hope… at least for training.  Also, every Thursday we go to our partner organization PANI (something about help for children…) and PANI has wifi that we are allowed to use, but in limited quantities.  We have a 30 minute break in the morning, an hour for lunch, and then 15 minutes in the afternoon.  I have further learned that once I get to my site internet is going to become far scarcer.  Before 2007 volunteers pretty much didn’t have internet in rural areas and needed to travel to big cities to obtain it but in 2007 there was an initiative of the Costa Rican government to give every Costa Rican access.  As a result, the Government gave away computers and initial networks to any town that asked for it.  But the government did not provide for maintenance, electricity or the continued use of the internet and as a result many of these internet cafes in rural areas that opened in 2007 and 2008 were closing by 2009 and 2010.  The internet café in my town was open three weeks before we arrived but had to close down because it could no longer afford to operate.  With the passage of CAFTA earlier this year, non-citizens of Costa Rica were able to obtain cell phones for the first time and at this time, many of the volunteers in country were able to purchase their own internet via their phones (this was very cheap, like six dollars a month cheap).  Alas, on March 7^th the cell phone company (there is still only one) decided that there was too much demand on the network due to data usage and as a result limited data to Costa Rican residents.  Goodbye internet.  It is possible that there will be foreign investment in cell phone infrastructure and that this will change during my service, but for now, I am incapable of purchasing internet for myself.  But my Mama Tica seems to think that I need only to travel to a tourist area on occasion to receive internet.  However, this internet situation has certainly opened my eyes to the first issues that affect Costa Rica.

CAFTA is certainly a subject that needs careful consideration before beginning a conversation.  I do not feel that my language abilities are strong enough to approach this with tact and so for the most part I try not to engage people on this subject.  On the one hand I think many people are hopeful that the high import taxes imposed on things like electronics are finally going to disappear and they will have more access to technology, but on the other hand I think Costa Ricans are afraid of what this means for their ability to compete in agricultural markets. 

A funny side note is that anytime I see anyone when I am walking down the street we say goodbye as we pass.  (Adios).  What a strange thing this is for me!  In Peru I was taught that Adios is a long term goodbye to be used when you won’t see someone for a while or you don’t know when is the next time you will see them and Chao is a goodbye for all occasions.  Here Adios is more like, “Later!”  Of course it’s still acceptable to pass bye with “Buenas!” but the most certain way to seem like one of the locals is to greet with Adios…  If we are walking down the street and don’t greet someone that is family (nearly everyone is somehow family) you can bet that my mama Tica is going to hear about it by the afternoon, especially on my street.   I don’t think I will ever be able to pass for a Tica.  While there are blondes here, blonde is a relative term that does not tend to encompass my white hair.  Additionally, I am not sure I can ditch the convenience of a backpack in order to appear more Tica.

The good news is that I can feel my language skills progressing. When I arrived I tested at Intermediate low (some of us still consider this test to be faulty) and our Spanish teacher told us yesterday that we are conversing at Intermediate Mid (Woot! Good to swear in!).  I had a long conversation Monday night with my family about the situation in Japan which progressed to a conversation about energy and electricity generation in general and then a wider conversation about the environment.   Just talking with my family I am beginning to get the feeling that those who live in the central valley (San Jose and surrounding area) have more modern views than those who live in the country.  My neighbors that never leave their homes are a good example.  Consider your own life, how many of your neighbors do you know?  Do you wave to them when you drive by?  Do you stop to say hello? Probably not.  Neighbor relationships in the USA have changed tremendously in the last 20 years and I think that change is beginning to occur here as well.  In my small town we say goodbye to everyone that we see on the street. But in San Jose I tried a similar approach and received only strange looks in return.   The fact that I have two neighbors that no one on my street seems to know or talk to is indicative of a wider trend as far as I am concerned. 

While rice and beans were fun for two weeks, the third week is begging for a little variety in my diet.  Once we had soup because my family was suffering from La gripe.  Another time we had pasta with mushrooms, and that was pretty delicious.  I also put chilies in everything and I think my family is impressed with my ability to eat spicy foods.  Obviously they’ve never been to Peru, or Sierra Leone, both places where I was regarded as a spicy food baby.  I’m interested to see how cooking changes once I get out of the central valley.  I’m sure I’ll get that chance next week when I travel to visit a volunteer at her site (how exciting!)

I think everyone will be pleased to know that we have now been in country for three weeks (mas o menos) and I have not yet been ill.  I did, however; discover an allergy to DEET, get eaten alive by mosquitos and get stung by a flying ant that lives in a giant hive above the door of another trainees house (apparently when a giant hive of flying ants decides to make their home above your front door that is a sign of good luck for everyone in your house.  What an interesting way to look at things.)  There are two RCD trainees that are currently racing to a MEDEVAC and I am not among them, Zing!  One of them is experiencing some intense asthma as a result of the altitude and the other was running one morning when she had a misstep.  A few days later she was feeling numbness in one of her legs and then noticed she had drop foot.  I told her she probably has MS but the PCMO’s (that’s Peace Corps Medical Officers for those of you non savvy readers) gave her steroids in the hope that it would go away.  Rather than go away it got worse and they steroids made her so dizzy she had to leave class early (Don’t worry, she has permission to stop taking them.)  The hospital that I will inevitably get to see up close and personally, is swank-i-fied.  We went on a city tour on Wednesday and the hospital was really impressive.  Also the health care must be good because coffee was three dollars.

At any rate, welcome to my life.  I’m still struggling with the idea that this is my permanent situation.  It’s difficult for me to imagine what my life is going to be like for the next two years here, but I think our upcoming PCV visit is going to be helpful in cementing my expectations

It's Like This...

It’s like this… I find myself saying this phrase more and more since I have arrived in Costa Rica.  I have been translating everything that I say into my Spanish, and when I am explaining something, I tend to start with,  Esta como asi…

               

It’s like this; I am addicted to the internet.  I have not had access since I left the retreat center on Saturday the 5^th of March.  Every day, I spend a large part of my time thinking about how I am going to get access to the internet, or when will be the next time I can realistically expect to have the internet.  I have dreams at night, that it’s no big deal that I don’t have the internet because in the morning I can just go to Starbucks, where there is free internet.  This is not the case.  There is not a Starbucks here, and if there was I am pretty sure that it would not have free internet, because in Costa Rica there is no such thing as free internet.  Further complicating the problem is that two of my neighbors have Wi-Fi, and both of them are password protected networks.  All I want is to find out what these passwords are and if I ever saw the people that lived in this houses, I would for sure ask them to supply me with the password, but it seems that they are never home, or when they are home they immediately lock their gates and enter the house without talking to any of their neighbors.  Let me just tell you, that this is strange behavior for Costa Rica.  Everyone on my street seems to know the business of everyone else, so I am not quite sure how the two houses bordering me have escaped this happening. 

It’s like this, we eat rice and beans.  Every day, for every meal we eat rice and beans.  Lucky for me, I happen to really like the rice and beans here, and the beans are not always the same kind of beans.  The protein that we eat with it also changes on occasion, sometimes being fish, usually avocado, and in the morning’s eggs.  We also tend to cut these types of foods with snacks of fruit and bread.  But you definitely can predict with certainty what is going to be for dinner, lunch and breakfast. 

It’s like this; I literally live on a mountain.  I realize that I am famous for my tendency to exaggerate, but this is not an exaggeration.  I really live on a mountain.  I walk down into a valley and then back up the mountain every day when I go to school.  Every day I find a new part of my body that hurts and then I try to compensate for this pain by walking in a different way, creating more soreness the next day.  Today, I walked to a nearby community and I almost passed out from the effort, it was way down in the valley and then we explored the whole town, which consists of about 5 buildings, but all the houses of the other volunteers are spread out all over this mountain so we climbed up and down for several hours and then walked all the way back up to the top of the mountain where I live.  I am tired all the time.  I go to sleep around nine every night and then I am up by 5:30 or 6:30 in the morning.  My family wakes up very early because there is one bathroom and pretty much everyone needs to leave the house by 7:00

It’s like this; I take a cold shower every morning because there is no such thing as hot water in our house unless you boil it in a pot for cafecito.  My options in the morning are cold, or freezing cold.  I tend to choose cold because it’s a little less of a shock to get out of my warm bed get naked in the cold air and then jump into a cold shower.  But you can imagine how disheartening it can be to realize that getting up means shaking with cold for the first hour you are awake.  The best part of waking up…

It’s like this, my family Tica is amazing.  I have three sisters (13, 14, and 15) and my mama and papa Tica.  They could not be more loving with each other.  Let me just say that I have never seen three teenage girls who are so respectful of their parents and still obviously love them.  The family is very physically affectionate which is something I am not used to, but they also show affection by making fun of each other.  They are constantly joking and laughing with one another and teasing is a big part of their family dynamic, lucky for me, I am an expert when it comes to teasing.  My mama Tica is pretty hilarious, she sews for a living and has a workshop in the house so people are always stopping by to drop things off or pick things up from her.  They also tend to call the house to tell her that they are coming by or need something done etc.  She always answers saying to me, ah the cost of fame! Then she answers the phone saying, Hallo, It is I.  I think this is a pretty awesome way to answer the phone.   

               

It’s like this; I cannot speak Spanish.  I am pathetic.  I understand about 80 percent of what is said to me, but I can barely say anything in response.  I know I seem like a total idiot, I mean, I speak like a baby, no, more like someone who had a stroke.  For example, yesterday I was trying to tell my family about the time I backpacked through the Grand Canyon.  First problem, I don’t know how to say Backpack as a verb, so I said… I think 4 years ago I walked with a very big backpack through the Grand... Canyon? That’s the right word right? There were stairs? And we walked the stairs.  That was one day.  My whole body hurt from walking.  Then I am pretty proud of myself for getting all that information out but then the questions start… Who did you go backpacking with, did you go down into the canyon and walk through it or did you walk around it?  Did you cross the canyon?   Once the questions start that’s when things get really bad, because I don’t know how to answer the questions.  So  the responses you go something like this, oh well, you know that thing where you do this… I don’t know… How do you say this…. You know where you do that thing? (Action).  Then my family laughs at me.  Yes family, I am incapable of forming sentences.  At least I am not a beginner…  Yesterday we met with the group to watch a movie and just get some good old buddy time in, and one of the beginners was trying to describe (in English) a person from another group that something couldn’t remember and so she says, Asian, One Bag (The person in question happens to be of Asian descent and was the only person to check only one bag..  She has been speaking in single words since she arrived with her host family a week ago.  Hungry.  Bathroom? The other day she came back late from class and all she could manage by way of explanation was, Juice, Beer, Friends, Sorry.  I think this person was able to say all that needed to be said about how we are all feeling right now.  In English the only way she could think to describe someone was with three words, Asian, One Bag.    We are currently at that stage where everything must be translated before we can say it and our minds are constantly working to decipher what is being said while trying to formulate a response at the same time.   Many of us have been complaining of headaches, and I think its probably because our brains are on overdrive. 

As soon as I am able to borrow the internet of one of my fellow trainees, I will post this blog, until then…

Thank God I'm here for two years!

After throwing large piles of crap in 4 bags weighing a little over 80 pounds, I slept for about an hour Sunday night and then began the trip to Costa Rica.  My parents dropped me off at the airport at 5 am on Monday morning and I slept for a good portion of the car ride.  I awoke at the airport seriously disoriented and it wasn't until my dad was hugging me goodbye that I realized this was GOODBYE, for two years goodbye.  So after an hour or so of sleep, I went through security fighting back tears and losing the battle.  I flew to Chicago and upon landing we sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes... yay.... By the time we got off the plane I was 15 minutes past my boarding time only to realize that I was on the other side of the airport from my gate, so with my bags flying behind me, I ran to my gate thinking I was barely going to make my flight.  No worries, when I got there we didn't even have a plane.  Unfortunately there was no food around me, a real bummer considering I hadn't eaten breakfast, oh well, I could eat in DC right?  Wrong.  I landed in DC at 12:30, the time I was supposed to be registering as a Peace Corps Trainee (PCT).  By the time I got my bags and a taxi and arrived at the hotel it was 1:15... No lunch, no breakfast... but I had a tootsie roll and some water, so that was very positive.  We began staging which was really just sevenish hours of reviewing expectations for Peace Corps.  It was nice to see that everyone in my training class had basically the same worries and hopes for service.  But by seven PM I was ready for some dinner!  On the advice of a DC resident we walked 13 or so blocks (in the rain) to get some Chinese food and the restaurant was closed... We settled for an Asian fusion restaurant that was pretty expensive, but heck, Peace Corps gave us tons of Money for dinner and we were out to spend it.  Unfortunately my order consisted of 5 scallops which I gobbled up in 10 seconds flat, then I waited around till almost 9 until everyone else finished.  I went to sleep around 11 and slept fitfully knowing that in only 2 hours it would be time to wake up again!  27 volunteers and all their luggage checked out of the hotel at 2 am and boarded a bus to National airport.

Let me just say that sleep deprivation does some very strange things to a person.  All of Monday I alternated between a giddy silliness and being an over-emotional wreck.  The check in process at National was the strangest airport experience of my life.  27 adults in professional dress with hundreds of pounds of luggage having slept little to none the previous night...need I say more?  I had my first real meal in a couple days after getting through security and my mood instantly improved.

I don't normally sleep on planes but as soon as I sat down I passed out.  I woke up 40 minutes later, but those 40 minutes were key in getting through the rest of the day.    We arrived in Miami and I think everyone realized that this was our last hour in the US for the next 27 months.  Everyone was calling home and saying goodbyes and things got fairly intense there for a while.  Upon arrival in Costa Rica everyone was in good spirits, and then we remembered about customs...  My customs officer thought he was pretty funny telling me I couldn't come in the country and I would have to go back home.  He said it in Spanish so I am sure that this would have been a very funny private joke had I not realized what he was saying.  Unfortunately, I did understand but could not think of the words to explain myself.  When I started to cry he obviously felt bad and told me please not to cry and let me through.

The Peace Corps staff picked us up at the airport and we got on yet another bus to travel to Escuela Juan XXIII a retreat center north east of San Jose.  Upon arrival we immediately headed to a classroom to get oriented with the PC Costa Rica staff.  By 7 pm when we were released everyone was pretty much exhausted and went straight to sleep.

After 8 hours of sleep and a hot shower, I was ready to greet the day with a positive attitude and I actually had an amazing day.  We had our language placement interview today and though I was really nervous about it, I did better than I expected.  But my grammar was atrocious and there were so many words I couldn't remember. Quite allright, at least I could understand and sort of carry on a conversation.  We also got medical kits today which was really exciting!  I love getting medications, something about knowing that I can take care of my health just makes me feel good.  Today we also separated into groups and learned more about our specific assignments.  Apparently the Rural Community Development project is in transition so the goals of the program are changing.  We are now focusing on community organizing, and environmental education.  Definitely my favorite part of the day was our diversity exercise.  Everyone in our program was instructed to prepare a 7 minute presentation to help explain ourselves to the rest of the group.  Everyone got really into these presentations and it was fun to learn so much about our fellow volunteers.

All in all I am getting really excited to meet my host family and move to my training site!  I can hardly wait to get started.

Denial- It's not just a river in Africa

Here I am three days away from departure to Costa Rica and I am so unprepared.  This whole journey started over two years ago and now in just a few days I will be starting a brand new life.  Just so you can get an idea of how I'm feeling...

January 2009- Began paper application.  (This included an essay, work information, basic health and legal questionnaire, letters of recommendation and basic demographic information.)

April 2009- Acceptance to Masters International Program (MIP) pending Peace Corps acceptance.

May 2009-Undergraduate Graduation and turned in paper application

August 2009- Peace Corps Interview and Nomination (looking at leaving June 2010) Begin Masters program

September 2009- Received legal and medical kit, schedule Doctor appointment, I cannot get in until late...

October 2009- First Medical Appointment

December 2009- Medical paperwork finally prepared, Mail in Dental/Medical/Legal kit.

February 2010- Blood tests missing from Medical Kit, Dental Clearance, First Hospitalization for my abscessed tonsil, notification that a tonsillectomy would be necessary.  At this stage I called Peace Corps to update them on my medical history, my medical file was put on hold until I could be cleared 6 weeks following my tonsillectomy.

March 2010- Second hospitalization for abscessed tonsil.

April 2010-Finished with Courses for MIP, Tonsillectomy

July 2010- Doctor declares me fully healed from tonsillectomy, additional blood tests obtained

August 2010- Medical Clearance, Legal Clearance

September 2010- Placement phone call, notification that no placements are available till spring... Say WHAT?!?!

October 2010- Placement in Costa Rica Rural Community Development program departing Feb. 28th
Four Months go by....

February 24th 2011- I leave in three days? Well that sure came out of nowhere!

Lets just say, I'm not packed, I haven't spoken with my thesis committee in weeks, I have crap scattered all over Stillwater in various friends' homes and I have made no legal arrangements for my departure...  I am on the verge of full blown panic mode.

I have, however; begun to say my goodbyes.  Today I said goodbye to a girl who has been on my swim team for four of the last five years I have coached.  I taught her to swim when she was seven and she is now a State Champion, AAA swimmer (she's fast).  I have seen her nearly five days a week, two hours a day for the past four years.  Whoa.  It hit me today that there are kids like this that I have really come to know, who I generally like and I am really going to miss them.  This is the first goodbye that brought tears to my eyes, blah! Emotions...

On Monday I head to DC at 6:00 am for my 12:30 staging.  Our flight to Costa Rica leaves at 7:00am the following morning.  In one week, I will be in Costa Rica.  I am having a really hard time wrapping my mind around that fact.  Denial... it's not just a river in Africa...