the days keep coming...

Today was a day unlike but very like the rest. I woke up “late” around 730 and began the second piece of my present for my host sister, today being her birthday. I’m broke, and this being the case for many years, I have increasingly become more apt to making my gifts. Friendship bracelets it is! She is turning 11 and I’m leaving soon and although she gets her room back and her mom back, I’d like to think that she’ll at least keep me in mind. I know that I'll miss her either way. The rest of my day, almost in its entirety, was spent building and decorating a piñata. Tomorrow is our family party for our families and instructors. We were encouraged to bring some of our culture into the mix so its bbq themed with root-beer float deserts. Keeping in mind we are not actually in the States, we kept some Costa Rican traditions around, like piñatas and cafecito. There was an attempt at committees and planning, but then life happened and the balance of keeping sane between new experiences pushed it back until now, when it’s in our laps. I have faith that as long as the food is alright, and it doesn’t rain too much, we will be just fine. My piñata reminds me of a spongebob character but for a first attempt at hand making one, it’s not half bad. At least I’m expecting it to be destroyed. From now until Wednesday we are chock full of activities, none of which I think will give me the time to let it all sink in. Family party, final interviews, final language class, talk by the stand in ambassador, graduation, lunch, dinner, packing, gift giving, saying goodbye, and a bus ride. It’s fair to say that I have made it to the full-fledged  “homesickness” stage. KFC commercials make me both hungry and sad, the breeze puts me back in Vermont on my mountain side campus, laughing makes me miss my mom. It started as something I couldn’t believe, mostly because I don’t have specific home to miss, but I guess it’s about time I missed all of it. The things I once knew and were familiar with are fading into a background as something totally new takes up the space between my ears. A new language, new rhythm, new job, new people to meet, new tasks at hand and new expectations. It’s enough to make one miss KFC commercials and find a newfound appreciation for 80's pop music.

hammocks to hiking to the Basilica

We are working on a month now since we first arrived, suitcases in toe, to Tres Rios. Now as we settle into our communities, I feel a level of comfort in knowing a few things about a few things. Spanish is still a real challenge. While I can catch on to things quicker than before, my host family at times ends up finishing my sentences when I start to stare off into space looking for words. They have been a key part in my adjustment here for sure.  Mother’s Day is coming up and for Ticos, it’s a national holiday, most people have off and more impressively so do we.  I feel pressured to do something nice but judging by the egg I made the other morning, maybe cooking isn’t going to be something I do. We have only one more day off and that is CR’s Independence Day coming up in September.  

                Last weekend was our site visit weekend, where they shipped all of us off to different corners of Costa Rica to visit with current volunteers. They sent me to Limon, the eastern most province that stretches from Nicaragua in the north to Panama in the south. It is the province that most people agree is a whole different world. It has a Caribbean feel and all the tropical diseases you have ever heard about. I left my house early for a Saturday and hopped a bus to San Jose. In efforts to meet up with my travel buddies, I strolled along, trying to look normal with my 3 day pack and gringa accent…I’m not one with an acute sense of directions but I’d like to think I can read street signs. It is important perhaps at this moment to explain how Ticos give directions. They go by commonly understood major landmarks, such as the museum, the clinica biblica, the pedestrian calle and so on. Having to make it to a random corner in the middle of the city turned out to be harder than I thought. Given that everyone here knows these landmarks and what 100 meters is, street signs are seldom, so much for finding it on my own. I stopped and asked two different people working in two different stores and they told me two different directions.

But after a phone call, I found my group and we made our way to the main bus terminal that would take the four of us to southern Limon. The landscape changed from rainforest and ear-popping mountain ranges to palm trees and flat lands. It got hotter and more humid and I’m pretty sure I didn’t dry out the whole time I was there. I was in Bribri, the last “big city” before you get into the indigenous territories. It was a hub for those who lived there to commute out, and for some to come to school, over an hour away. The bus dropped us off where the two main roads intersected and we meet with our volunteers and had pizza (again something done a bit differently here).  Because it was the weekend, not much was planned; some grocery shopping and a hike back to the house, passed the guy with a pig, the cow field and over some streams. That first night two of the next door neighbor girls came over for art hour in the art room/ guest room. The next couple days were peppered with work, waiting and play. I had the chance to visit a classroom at a close by escuela for 1-6^th graders and play that origami fortune game. We also had a nice cafecito with a good friend of my volunteer. I was excited to be able to follow most of what was said, except of course when I was asked things directly…in which case my brain panics. We had the chance to meet up with other volunteers and my fellow trainees both nights as well, being so close to the beaches has its advantages, to be sure. In Calhuita we had our first sloth sighting accompanied by a monkey and raccoon sighting as well. The waves could give you a run for your money but it was good to be near water again. I was also grateful for the mornings of pancakes and French toast we had while I was there, as well as my mosquito net, even though I think it inspired a few bug nightmares.

My last day, the class we had prepped for ended up being cancelled. So we sat around for a few hours chatting through the early morning. Our bus left Bribri around 1030 and would not get back to San Jose until close to 5:30. There was a couple hours of traffic, a quick stop by the feds looking for fugitives or something and a check point for drug search. Needless to say it was a long day and I was ever so happy to come back home.

Since last weekend and this one, there was only 2 days of class/ training. This past Friday was a holiday as well and an annual pilgrimage to the Basilica in Cartago. It has roots in the Catholic story of a girl who found a stone virgin Mary, and no matter how many times she took it from the place she found it, it would reappear at its original location every time. A church was built on the site the stone would return to but burned down in a fire. People took this as a sign and the church was supposedly rebuilt on the land the girls house was. Every year close to half the entire population of Costa Rica take the pilgrimage, mostly on foot to visit this church and pay homage. This year, with the help and coordination of a few volunteers a good handful of us got to go partake in this significant cultural event. From San Jose to Cartago is about 22 kilometers or 15 or so miles. Although many people now-a-days still go for religious reasons, there are some who appreciate it more for its traditional and cultural significance, or do it for the exercise. There was a man we would see often who had been walking, at least from San Jose in his bare feet and when you arrive at the church there is the option to go the last 100 feet, on your knees, and even watching it is a humbling experience. We celebrated our accomplishment at a restaurant in Cartago before the ride back home and once again, I was ever so grateful for a shower that waited until I was almost done to tap out of hot water and to crawl into bed.

Indeed, a note to self, don’t leave things that have juices or open bags of peanuts in your back pack…ever ever ever ever…