Happy Thanksgiving!

This has been a difficult, wild, crazy, unusual, surprising, and amazing year. This year has wrought more difficulties and strife than most, and yet this Thanksgiving I seem to be more grateful than I have ever been.

To be completely honest, I didn’t make it through this Thanksgiving completely content. Like many other volunteers, I have been afflicted with a certain seasonal virus, Homesickness. Symptoms include irritability, slight depression, and frustration. One of the hardest things about being a volunteer is getting through the holidays in a foreign country where people don’t celebrate or understand the importance of your special days. On the one hand, it forces you to make the extra effort to make the day special for your own sake. On the other hand, everyone else’s indifference taints the day with a tone of being ordinary.

For me, what makes Thanksgiving so special is that it is the one day of the year when everyone pauses to reflect about what they are thankful and a spirit of generosity fills the air for a few weeks. It is what makes it my favorite day of the year. Why of all the holidays, birthdays and celebrations do I love it so much? There is just something amazing and comforting about seeing that kind of attitude fill an entire day on all levels from individuals, families, communities, and even the country as a whole. It is a rare time when everyone takes part in the same cause. Even though personal, national, and world issues continue happening at the time, it’s a day when those aren’t important. You could argue that the same thing happens at Christmas. Well, sometimes Christmas feels that it’s more about religious beliefs or receiving presents. Thanksgiving happens just for the sake of being grateful. It’s a day when religion, race, political affiliation, and social class don’t matter. There is a sense of unity and peace. Without that, Thanksgiving was just not the same this year. That special something was missing. It has made me realize that I am grateful that we even have Thanksgiving when most countries do not.

In honor of my favorite holiday, and because I couldn’t be home to celebrate it with my family back home, I decided to bring Thanksgiving here. For one thing, I couldn’t bear the idea that Thanksgiving would pass me by without any sort of celebration, and for another, I really wanted to share something important to me with my host-family. I feel that was important so they could understand not only our culture a bit better, but also to understand me a little more. This year, Thanksgiving happened to be on my host-dad’s birthday so I think they were super excited to have such a big celebration, especially since I was making them dinner. I think part of the excitement was due to the fact that I would be cooking and that also I would be making traditional American food. Outside of hamburgers and sandwiches, most Costa Ricans have never tried American cuisine. It really generated a lot of curiosity.

In theory, cooking a Thanksgiving dinner for my family seems pretty simple. In practice, it’s a lot more complicated. Firstly, we don’t have an oven. Well, considering that an oven is necessary for most Thanksgiving dishes, it becomes a challenge. Once I figured out what I can make without an oven, there was the challenge of finding the ingredients. You’d be surprised how many things we use that they don’t even supply in my site. After scrounging around every single grocery store my site had, I found most things I needed, other specialty items were imported to me (thanks Megan!), and the rest I had to improvise. Improvise? What does that mean? Well, since I needed cream of mushroom soup for my green bean casserole and the stores didn’t carry any (if you don’t count the cans of soup that expired last year), I settled on making it from scratch. Well those were the major hurtles. So as I was prepping, I remembered that we don’t have a stove either. We cook by logs outside. Uh, what does that mean for controlling heat? Well, it meant take a guess and play around with cooking times. Well at the end of the night, it turns out that I’m pretty good at cooking by fire. I successfully made green bean casserole, garlic mashed potatoes, some stuffing (from a box), and a pudding. We settled for fried chicken instead of turkey because let’s face it - I’m broke.

All that was left was for everyone to try it. Those were some hold-your-breath moments. I felt like a contestant on Top Chef. I had to stand there like a fool watching people slowly take bites out of each thing, think a bit, and then let me know what they thought. It was especially stressful when Manuela, our school cook, while tasting everything asked what I put in it and how things were cooked. “Well, it’s different...” Wow, those three dots never seemed to consume so much time. “…I like it!” Well who won Top Chef Orotina Thanksgiving Edition? I did! Yay, the sweet taste of victory!

Even through all the glory and the fun of bringing something traditionally American to my community, I still wish that I could have spent the day with my family back home. For one thing, what’s Thanksgiving without your family? Also, I just miss them. Like I said earlier, it’s been a tough year. I wish that I could have been there to be grateful and celebrate for having survived it and making it through the other side. We might have come out a little battered and bruised, but we did it. We’re still around and maybe we’re in a better place than when the year started out. And through it all, still have each other. I just wish that I could have looked into their faces and smile because we know that we do have so much to be thankful. Nothing makes you feel as isolated as that ache deep down reminding you that you’re missing out. Even with skype, the poor connection and the brief check in, while is exciting and better than nothing, is also a sad reminder about how far away we are.

All that sadness, the homesickness, the urge to be home remind me that I am grateful for all that I have waiting for me when I go home. I have people and things to miss, traditions and get-togethers that I love, and while I may be taking a break from all of those things right now, they’ll still be there when I get back. In the meantime, I’m grateful for experiencing a rare opportunity to immerse myself in a different culture, to work with a different kind of people, to self-improve. This year, I have more than my fair share of things to be thankful. What are you thankful for?

Our Thanksgiving/Birthday spread.

Me with my host-family...Beatriz, Doña Ada Luz, Don Antonio, and Anita.

My family and our neighbors singing "Happy Birthday," to my host-dad.

Peaceful Easy Feeling

The world is a funny place sometimes, especially when you work in the Peace Corps. Life goes by moment-to-moment, each capable of being radically different from the next. It spins you around like a top and once you think you’ve got your bearings, you’re not a top, but a yo-yo going up and down, then later a boomerang and after that a paddleball. The role as a PCV seems to be ever changing and while the issues at large remain a constant, circumstances change and with those so do our plans. Yet with amongst all the uncertainty, I have come to realize that even through the turbulence, I have also found my peace. There are times when I am stressed, frustrated and cannot understand why simple ideas refuse to work, and yet I think about where I am in life and what I am doing and feel completely content and satisfied. I’m not sure if this due to living the “simple life” or because I have reached a point where I’ve learned that I can only change that which I can control. Maybe it’s that I know everything that happens here is temporary, everything has an expiration date, but for the moment I have found my peace of mind. The work I do may not be grand, but it is good and that is all I can do. In short, I feel good.

The past few days have had some ups and downs. What else is new, I ask. Well in relation to my exercise class, it turns out the participants aren’t the only ones learning new things. I came to the school one morning and was informed that some of the ladies in my class want to make it exclusively a women’s class. I was told that many of them have husbands who are extremely jealous and if men joined in the class, they would stop participating. This caught me completely off guard and I didn’t have time to filter my reaction. “How’s that my problem?! That sounds like the husbands’ problem!” Oops. Not so graceful. After some funny looks, I catch myself and follow up with, “Well, if the majority of the women feel this way, we can change it. I’m here to serve the community and if it’s important to the community, I can do that. Plus, only one man has ever showed up to our class.” So, I sit there and think for a minute and realize that there may be other reasons to the madness. “Hey, is that really the reason or is it that the women feel uncomfortable in front of the men?” Winner! Response, “Well, yes many don’t feel so self-confident, especially with exercises that they’ve never done before. They would feel better if it was just women. But, there are still jealous husbands.”

OK. Well, I’m not sure what the true reasons are. It’s easier to understand the latter only because self-consciousness seems to be a worldwide issue with women, including in the States. I mean, why else do we have a gym targeted solely to women, aka: Curves? However, I have a hard time grasping the amount of control men have over women here. It may be a cultural difference, but at the same time I don’t think that it’s necessarily correct. Why is it OK that the men all cheat on their women, but when women want to come to better themselves and their health with a bit of exercise, it is a gateway to infidelity and other nonsense? It’s even more astounding that women put up with it. Events like this really make me appreciate how far women have come in the States. Anyway, I decided to work within my cultural boundaries and agree to make it a women’s only class and was pleasantly surprised when 27 women came to my next class. Wow. It was basically double the number of my last class. It just goes to show that you have to listen to the community in order to have a successful project. It is important to take into account what they feel is needed or wanted. If I had decided to get stubborn and stick to my principles, I may not have reached as many people as I did. The fact is that health and nutrition is a major problem here, especially for the women, so the more people I can reach the better. You can’t change a culture, but you can work within it. Lesson learned.

I followed up my week with a weekend in San Jose to meet my friend, Rosie’s, mom who is out here visiting from New York. It was pretty fun. Firstly, it’s always fun to meet people’s families and see where they come from. It’s like finding another piece of the puzzle of what makes a person who he/she is. Secondly, Rosie’s mom hooked us up. Not only did she buy us a round of drinks, she put us up in her little suite, which was nice! Living large in the city is always a great break from the PCV life. The cool thing about hanging out with Rosie’s mom was seeing how proud she was of her. It wasn’t an obnoxious showing or anything like that, but you could tell it was there. Plus, it’s always nice to hear encouraging things from home, especially when things don’t seem so encouraging in site.

So, after our drinks, the PCVs went out for a night of drunken debauchery. Just kidding. There was no debauchery. We found ourselves at another bar, sharing a few drinks and telling stories. This led to a couple orders of French fries that got demolished really fast. We followed this act by following Tom into some kind bar/club place where “hot mess” doesn’t even begin to describe the scene. It was like the Jersey Shore except that people even more ridiculous if that’s even possible. As soon as we sat down at our table, I see a girl with the biggest boobs I have ever seen. They were weird too. They were basically up to her chin. It was like reverse sagging. It was like discovering a new species of people and I could not stop looking. They also had go-go dancers, one male and one female. Whoa there, Seabiscuit! Now that was a hot mess of a show. The male especially was good people watching. His outfit on it’s own is something to comment on. He was wearing a tan suede vest, the tightest white pants I’ve ever seen, knee-high sneakers, and a bandanna underneath some type of hat. Now top that off with the least sexy moves that were sometimes a series of movements choreographed with the girl and you might have some idea of what was going on. The good thing was that it was a very mellow crowd.

We hung out there for the rest of the night, sometimes just sitting and talking, sometimes dancing. We all took turns out on the dance floor. It was during this time, that I sat there thinking how amazing that moment was. It felt like a “St. Elmo’s Fire” kind of moment. Between myself, Tom, Rosie, Melissa, Maitreya and Allen, we are all so different; we come from different places and are doing different things. Yet we are also the same. Nothing feels better than to hang out, forget our problems, stop worrying about the future, and enjoy each other’s company. We can be our goofy foolish selves and nobody minds, in fact it’s probably those crazy quirks that draws us together most. Knowing that we are there supporting each other and encouraging personal growth maybe one of the few things that gets me through my tough days. So I sat there soaking up the moment because I know that these are some of the best days of our lives, and it won’t last forever. We will eventually go home to our normal lives and move on to other great moments, but for now this is what we have and all I can do is appreciate it while it is here.

The next morning, everyone slowly trickled away to go back to site. Maitreya and I stuck around long enough to eat breakfast with Rosie and her mom at Denny’s. I must say, if this is any indication of how things will look like when we go home for Christmas, we will have to brace ourselves. Who knew Denny’s could be the most overwhelmingly delicious restaurant? I had the breakfast burrito and it was superb. I don’t know if it’s because the Denny’s here uses better quality ingredients, or if it’s just that we are no longer accustomed to such meals, but it was amazing. We couldn’t stop eating and noting how amazing it was. I’m pretty sure this was a bit amusing to Rosie’s mom. Who wouldn’t be entertained? Seriously, it’s not very often that you see a kid from New York and two kids from California (2 states with some great culinary options) going to town at a Denny’s like it’s the best food they’ve ever tasted in life.

Alas, it was time to go back to site. I would end right here, but I feel I must remind everyone how much I hate buses. I now have a higher tolerance for riding them and the people on board, but it doesn’t mean that I enjoy them any more than I ever did. So, on the bus ride back, I was sitting in the aisle seat, minding my own business, aka: sleeping, when all of a sudden I feel something pushing up against my knees. I realize that it’s a girl standing next to me trying to squeeze her legs in between my knees and the seat in front of me. Uh, what? Come on! I’m not sure what this was doing for her, but it sure was making me uncomfortable. Wow, how I miss personal space. So, for the next half our or so, I put up with this girl trying to jam her knees into my leg, for reasons unknown to me. I then get on the next bus to make it to my site. This bus is also crowded. Again, I am sitting in the aisle. Again a girl is standing next to me. Again, I am minding my own business. All of a sudden her mother is yelling at her about her ice cream while rubbing my hair. Oh, no she didn’t! She did. She was dripping ice cream into my hair and her mother literally and politely rubbed it in. Haha. I eventually made it back to site a little bruised and battered, but whole and exhausted. Now, I am gearing up for another week. Who knows what will happen next. Come back and find out.

Happy Birthday Melinda!

It is hard to beat a weekend spent doing nothing but enjoying yourself with friends in a beautiful location, which is exactly how I spent the past weekend. On Friday, I made my way across the country to my friends’, Melinda and Stephen, site in the Puerto Viejo area of Limón to celebrate Melinda’s birthday and also their new place after moving out on their own. Other volunteers also made the journey and at one point there were nine of us staying in one place. Sure it was a bit crowded, but the crowd was made of pretty cool people so it didn’t feel like it.

For the most part, we all just hung out at their new house relaxing and getting to know each other a bit better. However, we also managed to get out to Puerto Viejo and make our way to a couple of bars. That ended up being pretty fun for everyone. The second bar that we went to had tables and chairs out on the beach. So, those of us who didn’t want to dance basically got to chill out on the beach and chill. Sometimes it’s just fun to hear about other people’s lives, experiences or even have intellectually stimulating conversation. Ah Peace Corps, a self-selecting group of goofy, nerdy, fun people who want to change the world.

At some point during the night these fire dancers came out and did a little performance on the beach. It kind of reminded me of fire dancers in the Pacific Islands. They were pretty talented and had some wild tricks. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it through the whole performance because I had to go to the bathroom. If I had known that we were going to go home after, I probably would have waited because the bathroom was disgusting. It’s up there in my top 5 worst bathroom experiences of all time. They were basically stalls behind a screen in the back of the bar, which isn’t the worst in theory, but it was just filthy and nasty. Also, getting through the crowd of hot sweaty bodies was not that fun.

At different points throughout the weekend, we managed to eat a lot. We got to have traditional food of Limón, eat gelato (yes, they actually have Italian gelato), eat delicious pizza, and even make a healthy vegetable stir-fry. Life was pretty good. On the more active side of the trip, we worked out one morning in Melinda and Stephen’s amazing yard/garden/jungle and we took a hike by the beach in Cahuita. The hike was incredible and we were lucky and saw all sorts of animals. Actually, not to do another “Lost” reference, but it did kind of feel like we were cast in a much less glamorous version. The path was small, there were lots of animals, we were sweating profusely and being eaten alive by mosquitoes. All in all, I would say that it was a pretty successful venture. When you mix good people, good food, the beach and some exotic animals and smash them all together in a couple of days, it’s anything but terrible.

On the downside, I had to go back to my current version of the “real world” and was met with terrible news. It turns out that the Ministry of Education is making our English teacher leave due to another English teacher wanting to teach here. This is allowed because the other teacher has property closer to the school. I think that this is ridiculous rule. Anyway, everyone is pretty sad about it. The kids are devastated and I’m not only bummed about losing a good friend at the school but also a bit worried about her replacement. Ugh, life in the Peace Corps, life in Costa Rica. Nothing is predictable. So while I take the time to absorb that information I will just keep on doing what I do and truck on slowly. Hopefully I can find more projects to occupy my time, but until then, I’ve got my exercise class.

Start of trail.


I forget what they call this animal, but it was hanging out on the trail.

One of the many monkeys we saw on the trail.

Donna and Melissa bending over to touch the water coming out of a spring that was an exploratory well for petrol once upon a time.

With Melinda, Donna and Melissa.

The last week of October was pretty uneventful. I can’t even remember what I did for most of it. I guess the highlights were getting my exercise class going por fin! (finally) and visiting my host-dad’s crops. Lowlights were my English music class getting canned (as my nephew once said, “bummer shit.”), and a fairly uneventful Halloween. As for November thus far, I had to go into San Jose for a medical checkup and that was a long slow day.

So, like I said, I got my exercise class started. It went a lot better than I thought it would, but like all starts, there were a few kinks in the works. My class starts at 5 pm. I got there with my host-mom and host-sister about 5 minutes to 5 and was slightly disheartened when there was nobody there. “Well fine,” I said, “it will still be fine with just the three of us, but let’s wait to see if more people come.” Well, people came about 20 minutes later. Seriously though, 20 minutes late? What’s with that? Sometimes I just want to shake Ticos and say, “You see that watch on your wrist?! USE IT!” Well at least they came. It’s more annoying when you have something planned and people just don’t come. Both scenarios are common for PCV’s.

I put on my music and get everyone warmed up. Then, we realize it’s starting to get dark. Well, of course it is. The sun goes down at around 6 daily. Usually, when it’s dark, people turn on lights. The problem with our salon is that they don’t have lights. “Está bien!” I say. We can keep going without lights. Who needs lights? Well, considering people are following my lead, maybe we do. We made the best of it. Though, I think that they weren’t doing the exercises correctly because nobody seemed to be aching the next day, besides myself.

Then, for some reason, my music died. Great. Well, there goes the rhythm! Keep pushing on! I’m not sure why it died. The speakers and the ipod had full battery. Even my own equipment is working against me! We keep going. Well, around 30 minutes in, people are starting to ask about when it will end because they have to cook dinner for their families. So, I cut my losses, stop class early and go home. On the upside, people really seemed to enjoy it. Also, I hear that through word of mouth, a lot of interest has been generated for my next class. We shall see!

Thank God I have my exercise class going, because that week the English teacher came up to me and told me that our music project could no longer continue. Apparently, the kids have two more units to left in their book that they need to finish by the end of the year. I guess the kids move super slow, so we don’t have the time for my project. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.

Friday I went to my host-dad’s field to see the work he’s been doing. I’ve always known that he had some kind of field in which he harvests corn, squash, sugar cane, beans, and rice but I did not realize the extent of how hard the man works. The field was big. It was big and it was full of crops. That itself is always cool to see, but when you think that this man plants, cares for, and harvests everything on his own, it’s just plain inspiring. My host-dad is kind of a badass. There aren’t many who work as hard as he does.

There was also something completely soothing about being in a field. I know my dad grew up as a farm boy and spent a whole lot of time in the rice fields and I find it interesting that I am now living in a tropical country, with a poor family whose income is dependent on the harvest of their crops. It feels right. The perspective is amazing. It is really cool to get a taste of what it was like for my dad and his family while knowing that they ended up in California where I come from. While there are aspects of the simple life that I enjoy and have come to appreciate, I have a deeper appreciation for where I come from and the work my dad did to get us to where we are.

Halloween came and went without much activity. It makes me sad that it’s not a big holiday here. People know about it, but it’s not a Tico celebration. So the day just passed without a fuss. However, I refused to let it go by without a little bit of celebration. I went into town to the candy store and bought 5 American candy bars to give to my host-family. They were pretty excited about it. They had never tried any of them. That made up for missing Halloween. It’s always fun introducing a little bit of America to the people.

On Tuesday, I had to go into San Jose for a checkup about my allergic reaction. I really don’t see why I had to go back. It was over a month ago and I had been off my meds for a week without a problem. Also, I had an exercise class scheduled that people wanted to do. I tried to get out of it earlier, but got yelled at by our med office secretary. And when I say yelled at, I mean I got a verbal whooping over the phone. So, I begrudgingly cancelled my class and went to San Jose.

The ride to San Jose was horrible. I took the direct bus which normally only lasts an hour, but there was a monster parade of protesters in big-wheelers, which doubled our time. Like other rules of the road (I’m big on rules of the road), road etiquette doesn’t seem to exist here. Slower traffic does not stay to the right. In fact they stay wherever they want. I guess it didn’t matter anyway. I got into San Jose super early, had lunch and still had time to kill.

When I finally saw my doctor he concurred that I was doing a lot better and yet he put me on more mind-numbing medication. He put me on a regimen that slowly weans me off the meds. Fifteen more days of medication for me! I’m not really sure why when I’m obviously not having withdrawals from the drugs nor am I breaking out in hives. Oh whatever.

So, the ride back home was not any more fun than the ride to San Jose. There was an accident on the road that backed up traffic for a long while. This made me paranoid that I would miss the last bus back to my site from Orotina. As we passed the accident, everyone wanted to see. I know we have rubber neckers in the States also, but people here really go for it. I mean some people could have broken their necks trying to catch a little peek. As we passed, people got out of their seats to see what happened. From what I saw, which wasn’t much due to all the people blocking the view, but it looked pretty bad. One of the cars looked like a coke can that had been smashed on all sides and there were still people inside.

After that, the guy next to me started to talk to me about is personal life and his problems, which was interesting but really weird since I had been asleep the entire time up until the accident and hadn’t glanced at him, let alone talk to him. I don’t know what it is about me and buses, but I always end up sitting next to someone strange. So this guy is talking to me about his kids and the girl he wants to marry and I’m trying to pay attention and not barf on him due to carsickness. He seemed really nice and everything, but I just wanted to sleep and get home. He then hands me juice and some fried platanos that he had bought from a vendor on the bus. Hmmm, maybe you should’ve asked me if I wanted anything before buying. I felt bad and took them, which actually helped with my carsickness. As we get into Orotina, he asks for my number. WHAT. You just told me about this woman you are with whom you want to marry and you want my number. Blegh. I say goodbye, barely make my next bus, and go home.

That’s all I’ve got for now. This week I’m going to Limón for a friend’s birthday. Should be fun. Catch you later.

This plot of land is where my host-dad plants beans.

Part of my host-dad's fields.

My host-sister, Anita, in the middle of a corn row.

This is corn that grew fungus and thus is inedible.

This is my host-dad holding up rice that is ready to be harvested.