Closing Thoughts

I've had this written for a while, but I hesitated in posing it. Things got really rushed towards the end of the trip and for some reason I never quite found the right moment to finally update. Well, I finally found a few minutes.

Mind you, I wrote this while still in Costa Rica, so it's not pertinent to my life at this very moment, but I thought it would be a nice bit of closure for the blog.

I'd like to thank all of you for going on this little adventure with me. I can only hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did.

***

With all that’s happened since I’ve arrived in Costa Rica, I’m left feeling surprisingly calm here at the end. Whether my calm is borne from exhaustion or genuine tranquility, I don’t know, but it’s nice to be here. I’m still scrambling to tie up loose ends and finish projects and papers and make sure I don’t miss the few sweet moments that I have left, but all in all, I feel ready.

I’m ready to go home. I have loved it here, and I would not change it if given the chance; I have learned more here in three months than I have in a year on campus. I have not only learned the scholarly, but I have learned more about myself and about the world than I ever thought I would. I wouldn’t lie and say that every moment was a dream. There were times I found myself curled in bed wanting nothing more than everything at home, but I think those moments made me stronger. 

I had doubts when I first set out. I didn’t voice them but to a few, but they existed. My bravado tried to hide the fact that I was worried. Not about being away from home- I knew I could do that. Not about meeting new people- I knew I could do that. But rather about failing entirely. What if I had talked myself up, but ended up having to come home? What if my host family ended up hating me? What if I couldn’t do it alone?

All the ‘what if’s cumulated into a ball of tense nerves that I held in my chest. The ball slowly loosened over time, and here I am now, laying in bed, looking back on everything I’ve done, and that ball of fear is gone. I had very little faith in myself at the beginning, and while I’m still not the most confident person in the world, I now know more about my abilities than I did when I set out.

I know that I can travel alone. I can take a map, a phone, and a bus, and I can get anywhere I need to. I can make friends in two different languages. I can hook myself in by my feet and jump off a bridge. I can run and jump from forty feet high into a river without hooking my feet into anything. I can look my fears in the face and say ‘so what?’. I was afraid to jump- I did it anyway. I was afraid to speak- I did it anyway. I was afraid to abandon all of my familiarity for four months- I did it anyway... And I loved it. I have made many more close friendships in three months here than I ever thought I might.

I learned about all that I can endure- frigid showers, ants on my toothbrush, mosquitos in the night, humidity so dense you’d think you were under water... I thought I would leave this trip with a better appreciation of what I have at home, but I was wrong. I am going to leave here knowing that I already wholly appreciated the good in my life. The appreciation I’m leaving with is of myself and what I can do.

I had never been tested before, now I have been, and I held up. I’m going home in one tanned, Spanish speaking, still procrastinating piece. I can do the things I never thought I’d be good enough to do, and no obstacle will be bigger than the one I make of myself. 

I will keep this blog up and running for a few weeks after I get home. I have a few papers I’d like to post, and I’m sure my quirky little brain will think of other things it wants to paste across the internet. But I’d like to thank you for sticking it out with me until the very end. Thanks for you support and your love. 

Pura Vida.

Still Okay

I remember arriving here, exhausted and excited, nearly four months of unknown hovering in front of me. Now I sit here, looking back on my experience, with less than a month ahead of me. Less than twenty days exist between me and a plane back home. When I first arrived I had a thought- that this experience would not last very long- but in those first few days, it felt like I would never go home. 

Even a month ago, I still felt like my life had gotten caught in some weird dream state, where the familiarity of home was a distant memory and I was stuck here in this strange and beautiful place. Now my time is ticking away. The end rushes forward like a strong wave, and I can see it approaching, ready to spirit me hundreds of miles away.

I’m torn. I want to go home. So badly do I want to go home. I miss my friends and my family. I miss my long skirts and my girly shoes. I miss kissing my dog’s nose goodnight. But I don’t want to leave. I don’t miss them yet, but I will miss my little sisters and my host mom. I will miss Xinia’s tired ‘¿Como almeneció?’ when I finally crawl out of bed. I will miss fumbling my way through a conversation with my littlest sister as she giggles and corrects my Spanish- ‘Cuchillo. Es hombre.’ I will miss the flora and the fauna and the mountains and the forest. 

I will come back. Throughout my experience here, whenever things got hard or I got blindsided by homesickness, I consoled myself with the thought that I would be going home. Now, I’m comforting myself with the thought that I will be coming back. I will come back, and Maria Jose won’t have any more baby teeth. Camila will be in college. Xinia will still make fun of me for wanting egg sandwiches.

Though it did happen, rarely did I ever really feel cut off from home. I was welcomed here with open arms and the classic Tico-cheek kiss. Like going off to college for the first time, this has been another puddle for me to wade through. The water was a little murky at first, but things cleared up pretty quickly and life went on. I lived my life and took advantage of everything Costa Rica could offer me.

I was struck the other day with how far I am from home and how long I’ve been gone when I got handed six dimes. It had been the first time I had paid for anything with American cash since Panama. I accepted the change without preamble, thinking only that the coins I immediately shoved in my pocket felt tiny and light. When I pulled the shiny silver coins from my pocket later, I was startled to find that they weren’t some strange new colon. They were dimes. Just dimes. It was like picking up an old toy after so much time has past- their weight should have been familiar, but it wasn’t.

I have had a real adventure here. Things have been gritty and sweaty and hard, but that’s what makes it so interesting and worthwhile. I’ve seen and done things I never thought I would. Yesterday I threw myself off a bridge and trusted my life to a bungee cord. A few weeks ago, I travelled this country accompanied only by friends and a sense of adventure. We keep talking about how everything back home will be easier now that we’ve done this. 

I have no lingering fears of traveling alone, of being lost with minimal language skills. I can get around by myself. I can make friends no matter where I am. I can be away from everything familiar and still be okay. 

And in spite of everything- or perhaps because of it- I am still okay.

Another Picture Bomb!

All That Went Wrong and All That Went RIGHT

If I had the literary ability and the singleminded dedication of an author, my Costa Rica adventures would read like a strange comedy. While I assure you that this trip is not all giggles and punchlines, a few very strange things have come about during my time here. 

At home, I am forgetful at best and empty minded at worst, and I tend to lose things occasionally. For some reason, this quirk of mine has been amplified ten-fold by the Costa Rican sun. The running tally of things I have forgotten/ lost is going on nine. This number might not seem terribly large, but when among the tally is a new iPad and a $300 camera, the stakes get a little higher. The situations of the losses makes the high stakes situation just the smallest big stranger.

The first item I managed to lose was my swimsuit. Some others from the group and I went to a pool that sits behind the reserve, and somehow I managed to leave my suit there. After repeatedly asking the reception desk for help, I had conceded defeat. As far as my knowledge goes, people don’t tend to steal old bathing suits, nor do the suits themselves sprout legs and walk off, but those were the only two possibilities I could fathom.

After resigning myself to my reserve (a.k.a. Grandma) suit, I mentioned my loss to my host mom. She immediately asked me for the when and where and got on the phone. I am half convinced that my mother here is part of some Tica housewife mafia, because within a week my abandoned suit had been found. 

The next item I lost was my brand new iPad mini. Yeah- empty minded, I know. We had been on a weekend trip and I managed to leave it at the hotel. Desperately, I pleaded with our accompanying professor to email the owner of the hotel and check if anyone had seen it. I was sure that the shiny bit of technology would not last long. I hadn’t even put a passcode lock on it. 

As I readied myself to admit my vapidity to my parents, an email arrived. And guess what. Someone had not only found the iPad, but had turned it in. I was preparing to take a costly two or three hour long taxi drive to recover the iPad when the owner offered to ship it. I got it a week or two later after our Tico guide, Carlos, picked it up from San Jose for me. I wasn’t even asked to pay shipping. 

The third thing I lost, and one of the few I have not recovered, was a headlamp. I have no idea when or where I lost that. Whoops.

Next, I abandoned my sunglasses at a bird observatory. I got them back the same day.

The last item I lost was that $300 camera I mentioned earlier. This story is a little unreal. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it.

My parents came down for Spring Break and we went to Arenal volcano area. Mom and I had signed up to do the zip line, and we were all going to hike around the forest. The weather was a little bit on the wrong side of miserable. The air was thick and there was a perpetual drizzle that had been going on for a week. We had crossed two hanging bridges and were trying to keep ourselves in decent moods as we trudged through the rain. 

We had finally reached the first lookout point and took a moment to appreciate the beauty of the forest canopy half hidden in the mist. My jacket was completely saturated with water and did nothing to protect me from the wet or the cold, so I took it off. I glanced around for a place to put it, eventually deciding to drape it over the railing which  kept the clumsier souls (me) from falling to a miserable death. Mind you, there was plenty of space on the platform for the jacket, and I had pointedly ignored the nagging voice telling me that the banister was a bad idea- but I did it anyway.

If you haven’t guessed yet, the jacket fell. It fell at least a hundred feet to land on the top  of a tree below us. Well, shit. 

As I had a silent panic attack, my mother walked away in frustration, and my father declared the camera lost. I took a chance wandering through the brush to retrieve the jacket to no avail. I was less afraid of the distance and the drop than I was of the infamous terciopelos which inhabit the forests of Cost Rica. One bite from a terciopelo (viper) and you’ve got an average of two hours to find a hospital, assuming you can keep yourself calm enough not to pump the venom faster into your heart.

Despite my intimidation of the forest, I refused to admit defeat. I had seen a guide a few hundred feet back, and I went for his help. When I asked if he was a guide and told him I had a problem, his immediate response was, “What fell?” Well, at least I wasn’t the first poor soul to overestimate my luck.

To make a short story shorter, within thirty minutes I had my jacket and accompanying camera back in my grasp. The lovely guide plunged into the forest to retrieve my fallen comrade with little to no cajoling, and he wandered much farther than most gringos would have dared- but then again, Ticos have a special kind of locura. 

Recently I managed to leave a watch and a hairbrush at a hostel in San José, but all in all, I’m going to consider myself lucky to have recovered what I have. It seems like for all that could have gone very wrong, more has gone very right.

I’m pretty okay with that.

Machismo

Gender Roles in a Machismo Society

Many Latin American countries are characterized by the strong machismo sentimentalities of their societies. Though Costa Rica ranks higher than most other Latin American countries, it has not escaped completely from its history with machismo. Despite sweeping political reforms to include women in policy making and in the branches of the government, certain strict gender roles still linger in the Tico mentality. 

Walking down the street alone, as a woman, solicits all manner of catcalls and come-ons. Leering and blatant flirting are as prevalent in the rural areas as they are in the cities. Most Ticas have learned to ignore the harassment, but some foreigners tend to struggle with the insistent behavior. Unlike in the United States where a law suit can be filed in response to harassment, local women tend to accept the hisses and whistles with little complaint.

Compared to many of the Ticas, I am fiercely feminist. The whistles and gestures cause me to grind my teeth as I shuffle down the main road back home. When I complained to my host mother, Xinia, she shook her head and explained that it was they way the world worked and there was nothing to be done about it. Xinia is wife to Orlando Gomez and the mother of three daughters. Like many of the women living in rural Sarapiquí, she is a dedicated house wife and is very accepting of her position in the house. Either she or one of her daughters prepares dinner every night and cleans up afterwards. Orlando neither fills his plate nor takes it to the sink. There is no begrudgement in the household about his lack of involvement.

The origins of the machismo attitude are as varied and complex as human history itself and thus, Costa Rica’s efforts to counteract the sentiments have been just as varied. The internet is awash with travel advice for women, Citing a stiff upper lip as the best way to deal with harassment and common sense the best way to avoid dangerous situations, but beyond the atmosphere for tourists, the government of Costa Rica has taken large steps in combating its historically machista society. In 1984 the government ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

 to help eliminate sexist stereotypes and practices which perpetuated gender inequality within the school system. In 1990 the Act for promoting the Equality of Women legally bound the central government and educational institutions to giving both males and females equal access to the same type and quality of education.

Beyond the educational system, lawmakers in Costa Rica have guaranteed that women will have a place in the government. Currently, 39% of the legislative assembly is women, a number which easily trumps the 18% of women currently serving in the United States Congress. Quota laws fist implemented in the late 1990s have evolved beyond simple legislation into an launching block for female politicians. A 1999 law ruled that women should have a minimum of 40% of electable seats in the legislative assembly. A new law, to be inaugurated in the next election year of 2014, will require women to hold at least 50% of the seats.

With a female president and 39% of the legislative body being women, it might be hard to reconcile the machista attitude of Costa Rica, but a history of rural life and Catholicism combined with Spanish colonialism possibly prepped the Ticos for such behavior. However one chooses to view it, it can easily be said the the government is striving to provide equality to its citizens. But despite how hard the government might try, it cannot change the minds of its people. In order for equality to reign, the people must come to the idea on their own.

Be Here.

I know it's been a while since I've updated and I apologize for that. I'm sure can all sympathize with how crazy life gets sometimes.

So we've all been here for over a month, and I think everyone has finally settled down. Everyone's personalities are starting to show, and we have a cluster of strange and wonderful people here. I'm sure we're going to (and probably already have) get on each other's nerves, but in the long-run I think we got lucky. For ten strangers who thought a semester in Costa Rica would be a great experience- we seem to be working very well together. Things could have gone very wrong very quickly, but I think that it takes a certain kind of personality, or at least some tick- to leave home for a semester and go somewhere entirely new. Because this country is very different from home- and without that tick, I don't think any of us would make it.

After a month away, there are a few things I've come to miss. I miss a few things very profoundly, and I miss a lot of stupid things.

I'd have to put familiarity at the top of the list of things that I miss. There's something very comfortable about knowing a place or a person. Here, the people, the place, the food- it's all new. I am not afraid of the newness, but it is exhausting. You don't have to work with things that you know. You don't have to figure them out, to learn them, adjust to them. My home is not my home, my friends here are not the friends that I have known for years. They're strangers that I've known for a month.

Do not misunderstand, I am still enjoying myself. I just ache a little (sometimes a lot) for my mom's hands, my papa's mustache on my cheek, for my roommate's morning fumblings, the clinking of my dogs's collars.

I don't miss many things. I don't miss my iPhone. I don't miss my bed. I don't miss my desk or my shower or my car. I miss my kitchen. I miss remembering things with my friends.

I miss leftovers. I miss judo. I miss English.

Among the stupid things do I miss, my kitchen, pause-able TV, and flushing toilet paper probably top the list.

These little bits of homesickness crept up on me like a sunset. Inching little by little towards the horizon- into my awareness- until suddenly the sun has disappeared- I am struck with how little I have here and how much I left at home.

The entire group now has jokes revolving around our experience. I am sure that when the time comes to leave, I will not want to go. For now, I am trying my best to roll with the punches. I am not letting my longing for home intrude upon how much I am enjoying this experience. For now, I am trying my best to be here- and love it.

This was my gift to my family for St. Valentine's day. 

My name carved into the cactus that guards our house

My beautiful green bedroom!

Not quite sure what this is, but it was pretty!

The oldest cathedral in Cartago, "Our Lady of the Angels Basilica". 

Alyssa's 21st!

My host mom and I about to go on our canopy tour.

My family minus the oldest sister, Camila.

My 21st! My face was later dunked into the cake.

Hot springs with Sam and her sister

This is where the women usually make bread in the mornings.

Something pretty in the Tallamanca Mtn Range.

Something pretty in the Tallamanca Mtn Range.