Volcano Irazu

Me, Jenny, Nora, Andres, and Valery at the Volcano.

Me on the bridge.

The crater at the volcano.

So, this week has been flown by quickly! Training has been super informative and slightly overwhelming, but I feel like I’m getting a lot out of it, especially on the Spanish front. Sometimes it feels like I haven’t improved at all, but when I stop to think about it, I’m definitely having an easier time communicating with my host family and others in Spanish. Also, I don’t have to stare as hard when people are talking to me. I count that as progress.

This week, I met my mentor, Morgan, who seems like a pretty awesome volunteer. I think I lucked out. Basically, the staff have been using her as a model for all of our sessions, so I’m thinking she’s gotta be pretty good. Also, she is staying on for another year and working as a PCVL (Peace Corps Volunteer Leader), which means that she will be one of our CYF (Children Youth and Families) leaders, so I will probably be working with her in the future. Also, this upcoming weekend is our PCV visits. Everyone gets to leave our community to visit PCVs and see what they are doing at their sites. I get to go visit Morgan. You’ll probably hear about it in my next post.

Basically, I’ve realized that my host mom is quite over-protective. She gets very concerned when I don’t come straight home after school. For example, the first day of language training, she sent my host sister to walk with me and Claire to our class, which is actually the next street over. When we finally got to my class, I was in the middle of saying goodbye when I realized she was walking into the room with us. She wanted to ask my language facilitator what time class ended and what time I would be home. Hahaha. This week, after training on Tuesday, I went over to my friend Allen’s house to use his internet and upload my last post. Claire and I then took a bus to the street that leads up to our community. After getting off the bus, a taxi pulls over next to us and Claire goes, “I think that’s your mom.” Oh yes, it was my host mom. To be fair, I must say that the taxi driver was her brother so it’s no like she paid some guy to drive her around looking for me. It was pretty hilarious. We didn’t even walk a block. At first the short leash was frustrating and I hated feeling like I was back in high school, but now I just think it’s hilarious and I think it’s kinda nice that she cares that much. Also, I’ve learned to communicate about my whereabouts much better.

So this weekend was pretty awesome. On Saturday, it was pretty mellow, which exactly what I needed. All I did was work on my Spanish and read a little bit. It just felt good to bum around after such a busy week. After that, my host mom took me to mass at the local church. I was excited. I thought, “Yeah! I’ve got this! After 13 years of Catholic school, there’s no way I’ll be lost. This ain’t my first rodeo!” I mean seriously, after feeling constantly lost, something familiar was exciting. Ohhh man, Costa Rica thought differently. It said, “Oh little girl. What on earth are you talking about? Sit your cocky ass back down.” Yeah, I definitely did not know what was going on in the mass and it wasn’t the language barrier. First of all, there was no First or Second readings. The priest just started talking about morals and pre-marital sex and whatnot. So, I’m thinking, “Hm, maybe they don’t do readings here? Maybe they skip straight to the homily during Saturday masses.” Oh no, then there was the Gospel and the homily. Then the mass picked up to the familiar…well, up to Communion. I was so ready for Communion. I figured “Amen” is the same regardless of the language. Oh, but communion happened and literally only half the church got up to receive it. My host mom didn’t get up, so I didn’t either. I wasn’t sure what was going on. Oh, and then at the end there was a raffle and some lady won a gift. Then we went home. It was pretty interesting to see how things are done at mass here. I’ll have to go to another one to see if that’s generally how things are done, or if I just happened to go to the abnormal mass.

On Sunday, my host brother, Andres, and his family and my host mom took me all over the place. First, we went to the Irazu Volcano. It was pretty cool. In the middle of the crater, there was some really green water. I heard someone say that it was that green because of the sulfur and other minerals coming from the volcano. Irazu is one of 8 volcanoes here in Costa Rica and it is still active. Anyway, we ended up picnicking there for lunch. It’s crazy how they do picnics here! We brought a huge pot of some kind of fried rice and a huge dish of tuna pasta and tons of chips. Andres brought a mini-stove thing so that we could warm up the rice. It was so much food for 4 adults and 1 kid. Seriously, it’s probably best that I don’t live with Andres’ family because I would get fat. That’s a fact. They make mountains of food and it’s all delicious. By the way, the food here is amazing. The only things I don’t like are tomatoes, but that’s nothing new, and papayas, but that’s not really that new either. I’ll have to talk about food some other time.

After the volcano, we visited this lake, which has a dam. The lake also has a river that runs into it. It was kind of cool to see. The dam is smaller than Hoover dam, which I’m pretty sure is the only other dam I’ve seen, but still pretty impressive. I still don’t understand how people build something so huge while holding back all that water. After, we drove around the lake to walk across this crazy suspension bridge that hangs over the river. I thought it was fun to walk across, but because it was shaky, my host mom was really nervous. I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m the bravest person on the planet because I don’t have a fear of heights. For example, crossing that plank bridge on our hike from the week before. Anyway, we also drove all around and saw a bunch of farms. It was really cool to see a different side of Costa Rica.

That leads me to today. In Spanish class today, we went back to my house so that we could cook and learn about different flavors and foods of Costa Rica. We made a dish called picadillo. It tastes amazing. It’s basically ground beef with all these vegetables cooked into it. Apparently I’m good at cutting vegetables. At least, it seemed impressive to my host mom. It’s funny because she said that now I can get married. Hahahaha. Apparently once you learn to cook one dish, you become good enough to get married. Watch out Costa Rica…I’m a one-dish single girl! Hahahahaha. I can only laugh at that. I thought I heard wrong at first, but they kept saying it. Maybe I’ll make it for you one day, if you’re lucky! All right, that’s all for now. Hope all is well from wherever you are reading from.

A rose by another name...

A picture of me, my host nieces, and Abby, the girl who lived in my host house last year.


What a coffee bean looks like before it's roasted.


The entrance to the mountain I hiked up next to my street.

My host brother helping my host mom walk across this make-shift bridge on our hike.

Oh Shakespeare, you are much more eloquent than I. Basically I have come to realize that Ticos (Costa Ricans) have a really difficult time saying Carlia. So, I let them call me Carli, which they seem to find easier because they watch the show iCarly. Fine by me, it’s not like I haven’t been called that my entire life anyway. So I think it’s been a week since my last post and a lot has happened already.

I decided that a lot of the time, my life here feels like a weird hybrid of the shows “Lost” and “Dora the Explorer.” Yes, let me explain that for you. After accomplishing some kind of task, I started to sing that song from Dora…”We did it. We did it. Hicimos…” Then I was talking to my friend Claire, whom I’ve mentioned before, and we decided that our life really does resemble Dora the Explorer. Everyday, especially in Spanish training, we get sent out into town to do crazy tasks. Along the way we learn some new things in Spanish. Sound familiar? We also have to watch out for “swipers” and keep our things close and not carry around flashy and expensive things.

As for feeling like I’m in an episode of “Lost,” well, sometimes it just looks like it. The tropical mountains, lack of amenities and the fact that I don’t know what’s coming my way at any point in the day sometimes feels like I crash-landed on some crazy island. I just always feel disoriented. What amenities could I be lacking? Oh, well you know, hot water for one thing. Yep, nothing gets you up like a cold shower at 6 am. Although, I went running today before my shower and that made it a whole lot better. I didn’t have to stand there convincing myself to jump in. Also, my host mom does my laundry for me, but I have to do my own underwear, and this weekend I realized that we wash underwear in a bucket outside. Just put a little soap in the bucket, some water, and you’re good to go. Don’t worry though, we have a washing machine for normal clothes. Everything gets hang-dried outside.

You know what else I miss? I miss really nice toilet paper. The TP here is just so, well crappy. It’s super thing and rough, and frankly the kind my family buys is worse than the TP in a lot of public restrooms back home. It sucks, but I can live with that.

So, this weekend had some crazy ups and downs. I woke up on Saturday pretty bummed out that I was missing the 40 day thing with my family. It was definitely depressing and tough getting through it alone. However, I also woke up with my host mom rattling off in Spanish about going somewhere. As I am not a morning person in general, trying to figure out what was happening was quite the task. I eventually figured out that my Andres, my host brother, wanted to take me to the Costa Rican version of a farmer’s market.

The market was pretty awesome. I wanted to take pictures but didn’t want to make myself a target for thieves and such, but maybe I’ll get a few next time. Anyway, that market kicks butt on our farmer’s markets. It was huge! There was also so many different fruits and vegetables. Andres tried to teach me the names of a lot of them, but I can’t really remember a lot of them.

Oh speaking of exotic fruits, let me tell you about this one really interesting fruit that I tried eating and also tried drinking in juice form. I forget the name of this fruit, but I can tell you that it is related to the pomegranate. Like the pomegranate, it is sweet and when you open it up and there are little fruit things with seeds inside. It is also supposed to be good for your health. That would be where the similarities end. You know how when you open up the pomegranate, it looks like little rubies of goodness? Um, that would not be the case for this fruit. You open it up and it looks like a pouch of frog’s eggs. The seed is black and a clear sac surrounds it where the pomegranate seeds would be surrounded by red. Oh, so it doesn’t just look like frog’s eggs. You put it in your mouth and it feels like you’re eating frog’s eggs. It’s slimy going down and when you chew, it’s crunchy. You would think in juice form it would be less slimy, but no it’s just as slimy and crunchy. Again, next time I will have to take a picture.

On Sunday, Andres and his family and my host mom took me on a hike into the mountains behind our house. It was pretty awesome. There were some great views and the foliage here is pretty amazing. Not to mention it was a great break before getting back to the weekly grind that is PC training.

So that’s about all for now. Hope you enjoyed! Also, please keep e-mailing me stories about your lives. I know I haven’t been responding, but I just haven’t had time as I am literally online for minutes at a time. I do read them, and they do make me smile….except that story about Bentley. Poor guy. He looks so sad in that picture too. Fun fact, California is now only an hour behind Costa Rica. Maybe I will find time to video chat next weekend. It might have to be Skype though as I cannot log in my AIM account on another computer. I tried on Saturday and it didn’t work out. All right, until next time!

First week with Host Family

Hello Everyone!

This should be dated March 8, 2011. I’m writing this on word before transferring it onto the internet. Sorry for disappearing for a while. It turns out that I ended up at a house without internet, which I’m assuming that you’ve figured out from the lack of posts, e-mail, and facebook updates. Well, not only am I in a house without internet, I’m in a town without internet. Hahaha. But just before you start to freak out, the next town is only a mile away and I can get to an internet café pretty easily…the only issue is time. I don’t have time for anything these days! I guess I could always try to use the internet at one of my peers’ houses after one of our training sessions that takes place in the larger towns. We’ll see.

So about the time thing, Peace Corps training is no joke. They pretty much have every hour planned out from 8-5 everyday, and the time that I’m not training, I’ve got tons of homework that I have to do. Add that to hanging out with my friends and bonding with my host family, and getting home before it gets too dangerous out at night, and there really is no time for anything else. It’s really kind of crazy. I don’t have time for sleep. My sleep time has been severely cut. If you know me at all, you know how big of a sacrifice that is for me, but I guess I had to start waking up before 10 eventually. I just wish that it wasn’t before 7 everyday. On the bright side, I’ve only been with my family for 4 days and already my Spanish has improved immensely. I still need to work on my grammar though. But I really have to give it up to Berlitz, man, they totally helped me brush up on my high school Spanish. I ended up in the Intermediate Spanish group, which is way beyond what I expected. See Mom, I really was doing work all those days.

So, I guess I should talk about my family a bit. They are super nice. They can be a bit over-protective, but they are just so welcoming. I guess I should be more descriptive, huh? I live with a mom, her daughter, and her granddaughter. In the back lives her son and his wife and their daughter. I don’t see the Andres’ (the son) family all too much, but they are really cool too. Today, he told me he always wanted a little sister and that he should think of his house as mine too. It was really sweet. Adriana (the daughter) basically loves all my clothes. That’s right everyone, especially you Pres girls!, I am fashionable here. Everything I wear from my shoes to my sunglasses are a huge hit. My days of being a slob are over. Which is hilarious because I didn’t really buy anything new to come out here.

Anyway, I already have some stories for you guys. The first night that I moved in with my family, I was in my room contemplating getting ready for bed even though it was barely 8, when my host mom came in and asked me if I wanted to go with her to buy milk. I’m thinking, “Well, I’m exhausted, but it would be good to explore my new town. I should go.” So, after agreeing to go, we walk up the street in a different direction from the town. I find out we’re going to her brother’s house. I figure, “Cool, I just got here. She wants to introduce me to her family. Quick stop before getting milk.” Then after some small talk, we get into the car and I think, “Oh man, we must be going to a supermarket that’s far if we need a car to get there.” So then we pick up a neighbor and I’m starting to get a bit confused. Maybe this neighbor also needs to get stuff at the market. He jumps into the car and we start to drive. My confusion grows as I realize that we are definitely not going to the store since we passed about 50 of them on the way to where we are going. We finally stopped at someone’s house, and I realize we’re at a party. It was pretty hilarious. Super fun, but I was exhausted and had no idea what was going on since I speak minimal Spanish. We didn’t even get milk that night.

Oh, but there is one good thing about where I live. Another PCT (Peace Corps Trainee (oh get ready for all the acronyms, because the PC seems to really love them)), Claire lives on my street. It’s pretty cool considering we’re the only ones in our town, but it’s even more cool that she’s pretty awesome. It would be terrible if the only other person who I can speak to normally was someone I didn’t get along with. So, we basically hang out when we have free time or have to go over homework together.

Oh and yesterday I introduced Claire to Scrabble Slam and then we introduced it to my host sister and her boyfriend. That’s right people, I just introduced Scrabble Slam to Costa Rica! We have to play in Spanish of course, but it’s actually an amazing way to learn some Spanish words and bond with my family at the same time. I lost all 3 games that we played.

So, I think that’s about it for now. Oh, about my Spanish, I feel like my sister’s dog Bentley all the time: Staring really hard at people trying to figure out what they are saying. Then I just flash that Suba grin that my family is known for and say, “Si.” I have never been more agreeable in my life, and that’s saying something if you know me at all.

Oh, and I almost forgot, while I am super happy and busy here, I hope that everyone at home, especially my family knows that I think about you all the time and I miss you tons. I definitely was having a tough time a few days ago when I realized that I was missing the 40 days thing for my Dad and that I might not be able to skype in. So, don’t think I left and forgot about you. My time here is going to be filled with ups and downs, and I’ve already started the ride.

Pictures from the Orientation

So, I finally took pictures today. Here they are. Tomorrow we're going into a town and doing a scavenger hunt so I'll have more to say tomorrow. As for now, you can take a look at where I'm at.

As you can see, we have an amazing view of San Jose. We have recreational areas. And pretty cool foliage around here. Tomorrow I'll have to post a picture of the view at night because it is something else.

From San Jose to San Jose

Hello Everyone! Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, but things have been crazy for the past few months. The super abridged version of what happened is this....I didn't end up going to Moldova because of more family health emergencies, but the Peace Corps was super cool and understanding about all of it and reassigned me to serve in Costa Rica. So far it is amazing.

Basically, I flew from San Jose, CA to Washington, DC for staging (basically pre-orientation orientation) with a layover in Dallas. Because of a flight delay, I had zero minutes to get onto my connecting plane, yet somehow my bags and I made it to DC. The next day, we had staging which wasn't the most riveting thing in the world, but it was really cool meeting all the people in my group. Everyone is super cool, laid-back and interesting. So I decided not to go to sleep that night since we had to check out of our hotel at 2 in the morning which is 11pm California time. We checked out, got on the bus to the airport to leave for Costa Rica. Wow, that was one of the most chaotic things I've experienced. Checking everyone and their bags in was not fun. We were all exhausted and frustrated, yet we somehow made it. Once in San Jose, Costa Rica, we took a bus to a retreat site where we are now having a pre-training orientation. On Saturday, we will finally move in with our host families.

So far, Costa Rica is amazing. It is so beautiful where we are at, it's not hard to imagine loving my time here for the next 2 years. And yes, I've experienced my first meal of rice and beans. It was delicious. We've also tried a variety of different juices that I've never tasted before. I don't know their names, so I couldn't tell you what was in them. I took my language proficiency test and I'm fairly certain that I'm going to be in one of the lower groups for language training. I really don't mind though...since there are a few of us in the same boat anyway. As long as they get us through to past the test at the end of training, I don't care what level I'm at right now.

Anyway, I wish everyone could see what I'm talking about. I haven't taken any pictures yet, but tomorrow I will drag my camera around so that I can post pictures for everyone to see before my internet access becomes less predictable.