Vote 4 Pedro

Why, hello again. The last couple of days have been pretty interesting and I thought that I should write about them before I go off for training in a few days. Wouldn’t want to leave out the details.

On Thursday, I went with a few of the teachers from the school to the larger town, Orotina, to support a few of our students whose projects were accepted into the science fair. Remember a while back I talked about that little girl who did a project about the environment and how we are destroying it? Remember how I called her Miley? Well, she and her partner made it to the fair and it turns out her name isn’t Miley. It sounds like it though. I looked at her station and realized her name is Maylin. Oops, my bad. Anyway, I couldn’t help but be excited for her and her partner, Nathalie, because they worked really hard on the project and truly believed in it. Another girl from the school was invited to the science fair on her project about growing lettuce. She’s a pretty smart kid in general so I wasn’t surprised that her project made it there. It’s actually kind of inspiring to see these kid’s passion and accomplishing things. It gives me hope for the execution of my future projects.

It was cool to see how a science fair is executed here. It turns out that they aren’t much different from how it works in the States. Basically a bunch of schools bring a few students with the best projects to showcase in the county science fair. Judges come around and the kids try to impress them with their knowledge and their projects. Every project had it’s own station set up and people walked around to see what these kids have been working on. It reminded me a lot of my grade school days. People had the three-part posters and everyone rocked the scientific method. I’ve mentioned in previous blogs how the education system here is tough, but I must give these kids credit. There were some really cool projects. There was a station on the uses of bamboo, a station on burns on skin, a station where the kids converted solar energy into air-conditioning, a station where the kids made paper by recycling paper. It was really impressive. Unfortunately none of our kids went home with a trophy, but they seemed stoked about their participant’s medals.

Oh, I must mention that when the fair started, like all official gatherings I’ve been to, it started with the national flag being carried in, the national anthem and then a prayer. Sometimes at these events, they will have some form of entertainment in the beginning or the middle of proceedings. Like past performances I’ve witnessed, I found the one performed at the science fair to be quite hilarious. I feel a little bad about wanting to laugh at kids putting themselves out there and performing in front of others because I know that can be really tough and also performance is an expression of self and should be taken seriously. Not to mention that the two kids performing were students from the other school in my town so I extra support them and their ambitions. That said I have to ask, have you ever watched Napoleon Dynamite? If you answered yes, remember that scene with the happy hands club where they do that little performance to Bette Midler’s “Like a Rose.” If you answered no, then go to youtube and look up “Napoleon Dynamite Happy Hands Scene,” or better yet, go and watch the movie. Now back to my story. Well, lets just say that the kids’ performance was very similar to that with the hand and arm movements. They even performed to what I can only call, the Latino answer to “Like a Rose.” Ok, so that alone makes me very giggly, but now imagine those two kids dressed in black with face paint that turns them into mimes. Also add to that, the very serious/sad expression on their faces as they perform. In a nutshell, I basically watched the Latino version of the Happy Hands scene in Napoleon Dynamite with the added layer of unhappy mimes. I cannot lie. Not only was my face twitching as I tried to control myself, but my entire body was shaking throughout the performance. I mean, when they went out there with the face paint and the clothes I thought, Jabbawockeez and instead I got Napoleon. Who wouldn’t want to laugh?

The mime dancers.

Maylin and Nathalie waiting with their project at the science fair.

Now that my diagnostic is technically done, I haven’t had much to do. Yet, I still go to the school to kill time, study some Spanish and hang out with the teachers and students. Yesterday, I went to the school expecting to bum around, which pretty much took up my entire morning, but in the afternoon, Rodrigo, one of the teachers asked me if I wanted to help him and a few students plant lettuce in the school’s makeshift greenhouse. Of course I jump at the opportunity to do something productive, let alone fun and amazing. The lettuce that they grow ends up being used in the kitchen to make lunch. Of course, Pamela, the kid who did her science project on planting lettuce was there teaching me the basics of how to plant lettuce heads. It became quite the experience. First, I learned that the little baby heads of lettuce cost like 20 colones. If you consider every dollar equals 500 colones, that would mean that you would get 25 heads of lettuce for a buck. We ended up planting about 120 heads of lettuce.

While we were in the middle of our little lettuce project, it suddenly started to pour rain. This is very common. Especially when the temperature in the morning is extremely hot. Now, science says that when hot air suddenly meets cold air, it produces electricity. Science isn’t wrong. Soon after the rain started, the lightning followed. Normally, I like when the lightning comes. I even like the thunder that comes with it. I find it violently beautiful. However, this lighting storm was different as I could tell that it was really close to where we were. At first I wasn’t too worried, but it was coming on strong and the thunder was really loud. It was obvious that it was coming our way fast. After hearing a story about a friend’s friend who was killed by lightning recently, and the fact that Rodrigo looked freaked out, I got extremely nervous. I finished planting the last few lettuce heads and ran to the “teacher’s lounge” which is basically an overhang outside the cafeteria. The kids soon followed and after Rodrigo checked that all the heads were properly placed, he ran too.

Soaked, Rodrigo and I sat in the teacher’s lounge for a bit talking about the lightning when he decided that we should move. I was more than glad to move considering the teacher’s lounge is pretty exposed and the lighting was close enough that when it would strike we would half crouch into the fetal position. Going into the corridor where the classrooms were was a much better plan. At that point, a few of the classes were done for the day, but obviously nobody was going home. So we all just stood together and waited. Then Erlin, the English teacher said, “I don’t understand this. This never-” and this is where I thought she would say, “happens here.” Instead she finished with a, “-happens before September. This is crazy.” Oh. I guess I need to get used to finding shelter because September is just around the corner. When the lightning started to die down, she offered to drive me home. The first/second grade teacher was also getting a ride. As we waited, I found a dry spot to wait in because I’m fairly certain that if lightning struck the metal roofs which are held by metal poles, which were sitting in a stream of water, if you happen to be standing in that water, you would be toast. I tried explaining this concept but the teacher kept insisting we wait in that little stream of water, as it was closer to where the car was coming around. Fearing my safety, I actually decided to not move until the car pulled around and I could jump in safely. Obviously, as I live to tell the tale I made it home safe. However, I have a whole new depth of respect for the elements. When you can feel the thunder vibrating through your body, it gets pretty scary. No wonder everyone here is scared of lightning. It’s scary!

In other news, my sister sent me a couple episodes of Grey’s Anatomy since I haven’t seen any since I left. I have learned a couple of things. Watching Grey’s Anatomy can sometimes feel very sad and traumatic. Sometimes it’s the storylines and sometimes it’s the images, but it always feels too familiar and it can make me cry. Also, watching these things and crying it out can be very cathartic which makes me feel better. So, since I was feeling down all last week due my dad’s birthday and such, I watched Grey’s, felt traumatized by the images, cried, embraced the pain, re-watched those two episodes I have access to, cried some more and now I’m starting to feel better. All I have to do now is go to IST, meet up with my friends and I’m back to normal.

Next time on my blog...probably stuff about the debaucheries that will happen during training. Tune in!

Pamela and I getting the lettuce ready to be planted.

Me taking out the lettuce from the little planter container.

Rodrigo putting holes into the dirt for the lettuce heads and one of the students getting ready to water the soil.

One of the kids washing his hands with the water pouring off the plastic covering of the greenhouse.

Enter Sandman

Hello. It’s been a while since my last blog. Honestly, I just haven’t had that much time to sit down and write because next week, I’m going to San Jose for 9 days of In-Service Training, which is really exciting, however that also means that the diagnostic I’ve been working on for the past 3 months is due. The good news is that today I just finished my draft of it. Now it’s up to my Tico friends to read all 40 glorious pages with their Spanish-speaking eyes and figure out where I went wrong and fix it. Hahaha. Anyway, a lot has happened in the past couple of weeks besides the stress and massive effort to finish this crazy research paper, and I say “research paper” because that’s exactly what my diagnostic felt like.

So last week my boss, Carolina, came for a run of the mill site visit. It was super awesome getting to see her and show her my town. It was pretty cool hearing other people tell her what I’ve been up to and she said that she was pleasantly surprised at my level of integration. So I consider that a small victory. Along with my counterpart, Don Carlos, we decided that it was time to make some big changes. I won’t get into it here right now as the blog is pretty public and if some people found out what’s going on before the appropriate time, it could make life a whole lot more complicated and uncomfortable.

Ok, remember how a few weeks ago I reported how one of my bandannas mysteriously disappeared into nothing? Well, lets just say that a pair of my boxers has also gone missing. Where to? Apparently nobody knows. All I know is that it went into the laundry never to return again. Since I can’t do anything about the situation now, besides be bitter and suspicious, I am now keeping a listed inventory of everything that goes into the laundry and everything that comes back. I’m not sure how this will help in the instance that something else goes “missing,” but at least I will be able to keep track of my stuff better. Is this crazy and paranoid? Maybe so. I am now embracing my paranoia because sometimes there’s reason to be paranoid.

Speaking of paranoia, an incident happened last week that I’m now kind of kicking myself for being such a sucker. Basically, I’m pretty sure I was conned out of 2,000 colones. Which, if you bring some perspective into the picture, it’s only worth 4 dollars, so it’s not such a great loss, but I’m sticking to my guns and saying it is the principle of the matter. So, I was walking home after a super long day at the school and had a lot on my mind to say the least, and all I wanted to do was get to my room where I could be alone and relax. On my way there, I ran into a host-aunt. She started to make some small talk and I was on auto-pilot just nodding and small talking back. Then all of a sudden she’s starting to talk about milk and the store and I definitely was not following what she was saying. Then I had her tell me exactly what she was trying to say and she said that she needed money to buy her grandson milk. At that point, I just wanted to be rid of her and said “All right, will 1,000 be good?” and she says, “No, that’s not enough. I need 2,000.” She told me she’d get me back the money during the weekend at my host-brother’s birthday party. So I give her the 2,000 and went home. As soon as I walked away I knew that I had just been conned. I was fairly certain milk does not cost 2,000 colones. I got home, put my stuff in my room and saw my host-mom in the kitchen. At that moment I decided that I needed to get out of the house or risk going ape-shit. So, I went to Manuela’s, one of our school cooks, house to relax a bit. While I was there, I decided to ask how much milk cost. I was informed that a small bag of milk (yes they come in bags here) only costs about 500 and a box costs around 1,000. So, my suspicions were right, I was conned. I really should have known better. Firstly, I knew milk doesn’t cost that much. Secondly, she passed by my house, her other sister’s house and was going to pass her mother’s house on the way home, so if she really needed milk or money she could’ve asked one of them. Oh man, lesson learned.

So after that, Luca, the Italian exchange student living with Manuela, asked me to go on a walk with him and some friends. I jumped the opportunity to hang out with people and be out of my house. It wasn’t very exciting, but I did meet some kids who go to the high school in Orotina. It was cool because I don’t really get to meet many teenagers since the high school is in Orotina and it’s tough just meeting teens on the streets. They were really cool and were super interested in my projects. So, I’m taking that as a sign that the youth will be willing to participate in my future projects.

Earlier that day, I was at the school and was invited to participate in a faculty meeting about educational quality. It was actually really insightful. Firstly, it’s really amazing to see how much these teachers care about their students and how frustrating it can be to work with not so many resources. People in the States can complain all they want, but we really don’t have it that bad. The kids here don’t even get textbooks. To get information, they basically just copy information from the chalkboard. This takes up class time from their already limited day (they only go to school half the day). Also, many parents don’t really care about the quality of education so they don’t encourage or motivate their kids to do homework. Naturally, this results in kids not doing any and thus not really learning much. However, it is uplifting to see that the teachers are making an effort, and they want to improve the quality of education. The kids deserve it.

So over the weekend, my host-family threw a big party on Sunday for my host-brother. He’s the one that lives with his dad. It was originally supposed to be on Saturday, but they changed it to Sunday because my host-mom had to work. Um, thanks for telling me ahead of time, lady. So I had to sit through another weird an uneventful party on the porch. This time, I socialized with some of my host-mom’s friend’s sons because they seemed as uninterested an bored as I was. Also, my host-mom’s boyfriend literally ran over Stevie, our blind dog. Luckily none of the tires got him, so he made it out alive. It was actually quite horrifying. There was Stevie just sleeping on a pile of gravel when this crazy guy comes full-speed, not looking and tries to park on him.

After people went home, I went into my room to work on my diagnostic when a few hours later, like the previous party we hosted, people came with speakers and all sorts of electronics and karaoke began. It was like a whole new party. It probably was. I think that they were celebrating my host-mom’s boyfriend’s birthday. Or perhaps mother’s day as well as it was the next day. All I know, is that I stayed in my room and tried to block out the noise with earphones and my own music and worked all night. Seriously, if you’re going to have a party, maybe you should let people who live in your house know about it. I’m fairly certain, “We’re having a party at lunch for Luis for his birthday,” does not translate into an all night karaoke festival hours after the original party died. Again, thanks for the heads up lady. I don’t have my own plans or anything. Oh, I feel that this is a good time to mention that I never got that 2,000 colones back.

So, Costa Rican Mother’s Day was the next day and unfortunately, it also happened to be my dad’s birthday. Bam! Double whammy! That was a bit miserable. For one thing, I really didn’t want to celebrate mother’s day, and for another I was naturally feeling down about everything. It was just a perfect storm of misery. On the bright side, I did get to skype with my family that afternoon while they got together to celebrate. It was good to not feel completely isolated from them. However, before our little skype date started, everyone in my house decided to go to bed before 7:30. Yes, that’s right. They went to bed before 7:30pm. So, normally when they go to bed early, I try to be respectful and stay quiet. However on this day, I figured that they had found a time that was just too absurd and that it didn’t matter to me on that day so I decided to stick it to the man, give them the bird and swear under my breath as I signed on to my skype account. It was glorious. It was so worth it just to talk to my family.

Yesterday, I was still feeling a bit of the blues when I found out that Coy and Melissa (a married couple) have quit Peace Corps and are going home this weekend. What a blow! Our group is dwindling! No, the reality is that they had finished a full tour of Peace Corps in Belize when they decided to go another two years here. They said that they lost their spark. It’s understandable. 4 years is intense. Not to mention that Melissa had previously done Peace Corps in Africa also. It’s still a sad loss to our little group. Coy was Mr. Sensible and was generally very calming for us and Melissa would just tell it as it is. They were kind of like our “parents” helping us get through training and managing the quirky things that come along with Peace Corps. So, to see them go is very sad. Also, the fact that they are leaving this weekend and we won’t have a chance to see them is sad. Que lastima that IST (In-Service Training) is so close, but not all of us will be there.

Well, that is all for now. Hopefully next time I’ll have better things to report.

Living and Learning

I have a feeling that today’s blog will be more contemplative than usual. For one thing, I haven’t really done anything that interesting lately. In fact, the past week has just been more of the same, so I have nothing much to report. Secondly, hm…what was that second point? I guess that it wasn’t that important.

The past couple days, I realized that I’ve felt a bit dazed and confused. It’s kind of like I’m at the point where things annoy me and I shrug and move on. Then something exciting happens and I enjoy the moment, but then the glow quickly fades and I return to a state of neutrality. It’s kind of disconcerting.

I think that it may be a result of continually being challenged all day, everyday. For a while, things would really amp me up, either positively or negatively, but now I roll with what comes my way and wait to see what will happen next. Maybe it’s because I feel like something is always lurking just around the corner. Maybe I’m integrating. Maybe it’s my mellow nature coming out. I’m not sure.

I think partly it’s because I’ve been trying to understand why things happen the way they do and figure out why life here is the way it is. I know it is different from life at home. Is it worse? I don’t know. I came out here with an open mind feeling prepared for all the possibilities of the unknown. Then a few crazy things happened that rattled my cage and frustration set in and my open mind became a bit narrower. Perhaps life felt more secure if I maintained the belief that my perception on life was absolute and anything outside of it was ridiculous. If I could just put up with nonsense for a bit, I will eventually return home where things make sense. As I’ve cooled off, that doesn’t really sit well with me. That’s contradicts the nature of why I’m here.

I didn’t come here just to get through and survive. There are many reasons why I came, but I truly did want to find a deeper understanding of the world and of life in general. The truth is that I came out here with ideas about how things are supposed to be. I didn’t realize that I had such stubborn ideas until I merrily crashed into the different and had some very strong reactions. Those ideas are being challenged. While at first, while being metaphorically pushed around, I instinctively want to push back; I realize that I’m going nowhere. I take a step back and realize, well, people have been making it work in a different way for a long time, maybe there’s something to the madness?

So now I don’t know what to believe. Portia de Rossi wrote in her autobiography, “‘Neither here nor there’ was an expression my grandmother would use to describe confusion and displacement, and it is a disturbing place to be.” I know that all of my previous perceptions cannot all be correct, but I also know that not everything about the way of life here is exactly perfect or “right” either. So where do the differences converge to create a more whole picture of what “things should be like?” Again, I’m not sure. I suppose I will have to wait, learn more, and figure it out as I go along. If I’ve suddenly made you feel like you want to now go and listen to Alannis Morissette’s “You Learn,” you’re not alone.

The one thing that I currently understand is that I don’t understand anything. I’ve always known that life isn’t black and white. Life is too complicated for that. I’ve come to learn that it isn’t gray either. In fact, it is a whole myriad of colors. It’s not a two dimensional scale. It exists in three dimensions. I feel like I’m on journey collecting more colors to add to my life’s palette.

On the bright side, work is coming along. My diagnostic now feels more like a massive college research paper, and I feel after years of writing papers, I can definitely tackle that. Everyone at the school is awesome. I love working with them – and not only the kids, but the teachers too. So to quote Mary Shelly, “Yet, do not suppose, because I complain a little or because I can conceive a consolation for my toils which I may never know, that I am wavering in my resolutions.” I definitely feel like I have work to do in this little town and I’m pretty excited about it.

Onwards and upwards! Stick with me folks, I feel like a very interesting story is beginning to unravel.