Moving on

Hotel Aranjuez, San Jose - 11PM
Quick update as I struggle to stay awake:
Orientation ended today, and we all loaded our bags onto the bus and left Orosi for the "real world." But since school doesn't start until the 16th (mas o menos... classes tend to fully start when everyone "feels" ready), we have a bit of extra time. I'm spending tonight in San Jose, and the dreamworld of cheap food that was Orosi is officially gone: three other volunteers and myself ordered two pizzas from Pizza Hut... for $40.
I'm heading to Boruca for tomorrow night. My family there doesn't quite know this yet, as I haven't called them. Nor do I know exactly how I'm getting there. I'm doing the trek with a few other volunteers for the sake of having people to talk with over the 6-7 hours, but getting up my mountain is going to be a bit of a crapshoot since I'm taking a different bus. At the very worst, I'll learn where the other, quicker road up my mountain is, and hopefully find a nice person to hitch a ride with. I'm hoping to meet my director and take a look at my classroom, as well as drop off the rest of my stuff. After a night in Boruca, about 8 of us are heading to the beaches of Manuel Antonio for 36 hours. Hopefully the sun stays out this weekend; our weekend trip to Cahuita last week had all of two hours of sun.
After heading back to San Jose, most of us will be heading to the province of Limon for a week to build houses for the poor. Pretty much a Habitat For Humanity type deal, and since we'll likely be the only gringos in our group of 60, it should be a chance to brush up on my Spanish.
So I'll likely be away from the computer for at least the next week, and potentially more depending on when I head back to Boruca.
Oh, and just because posts without pictures are boring:
Staring match w/bird. Bird won.
On the trip back from Cahuita, the door to our bus fell off, almost smacking me in the face as I was gazing out on the scenery. This seemed like old hat to our bus driver, who was able to snap the thing back on and get us going within a few minutes. Hooray for sketchy travel!

Once again, thanks for all the messages and e-mails. Keep 'em coming. Until next time...

All the best,
DP

Random bits and pics

A few short thoughts and three new pictures from the last couple of weeks:

- Translation from my Spanish workbook from the “por vs. para” section: “I exchanged my dog for a bicycle.” Hmmm.
- Last week I saw a man riding a horse while talking on a cell phone.
- I’ve seen a number of commercials for the TV show of an animated character that I’ve decided to call “Thomas the Badass Tank.”He’s basically Thomas, but he’s older, speaks Spanish, and looks like he’d break a chair over your head if you looked at him the wrong way. I can’t wait to catch his show.
- On the trip back from Boruca, I paid a man 300 colones (53 cents) and half of my Coke to walk me to a bus stop that I couldn’t find. I thought I got a pretty good deal… I saved 1,200 colones by not taking the taxi and got to find out how to walk to a stop that I’d need to use in the future. Oh, and the stop was three blocks up on the same street.
- All of the volunteers took Latin dance lessons a couple of nights ago. I was awful to the point that students from the summer school we’re running were taking pictures of me. On the bright side, I decided that the “Cotton-Eyed Joe” dance goes well to just about any type of Latin dance, and that I’m better at it than all six million residents of Costa Rica.
- In the states, I got about 5-6 hours of sleep a night, never ate breakfast, and didn’t drink coffee in the morning. Here, I get 10-12 hours of sleep a night, eat breakfast, and drink 3 cups of coffee before lunch. By 11am, I’m usually punching walls just to expend extra energy.
-There’s a reggaeton artist here named Nick-Y. The “Y,” of course, is pronounced like the Spanish word for “and” (i.e., arroz y frijoles). I spend at least twenty minutes a day thinking about how much this bothers me.
- One of the “cultural quirks” that I had been told about (and originally laughed at) was that Ticos never walk around barefoot – even inside – for fear of getting sick. Last night, I was doing some Spanish homework in my bed and needed to get a book out of my backpack. I got up, took a step towards it, realized that I was barefoot, stopped to put on my sandals, took the extra step that it took to get to my backpack, made the two-step journey back to my bed, and took my sandals off. The language part might take a while, but my cultural assimilation has started.
- The kids learned sooo much better when we provided them with words to make fun of people with/their opposites. Recreo usually turned into a verbal war with my sixth graders: "Teacher, you are weak!" "You are weaker!" "No, I am strong!"
- At the post-graduation fiesta, I was making it rain with candy as the kids scattered about and fought each other for it. Easily a top-5 moment in my life.

Pictures:

My host mother Luz and I. Her favorite phrase is "Que frio!" and I would give up a year of my life to learn how to make empanadas like her.

My group of teachers switched to 6th grade halfway through the week. Only six students, but they were a good group. Lisandro (far left) was a quick kid. While playing a game of charades to demonstrate adjectives, he discreetly gave the middle finger to the rest of the class to demonstrate "bad" without my fellow volunteer (who was teaching at the time) noticing. I was laughing too hard to say anything... and I thought that it was a pretty good demonstration anyways.
Two students and I at the post-graduation fiesta. Marlon (left) was in my third grade class and constantly by my side, usually asking me where my soccer ball was and if I would be on his team. After he realized that I didn't understand 90% of what he says (he speaks about 1000 words a minute), he decided that he'd name himself my official tape-tearer for when I was preparing for class.

Long-distance rooster calls

It’s been a busy week and a half, but I finally have a few hours off to update this thing on different happenings.
Spanish classes have been ongoing – three hours a day, Monday to Friday. The exact same thing that happened to me in high school is happening now: I started off really well, but hit a brick wall as more and more information was presented. Not only can I not see to remember any of the new information, but it seems to force out the stuff I was previously good at. On the bright side, I’ve learned enough to navigate through everyday tasks like riding the bus and buying things at stores. Also, Ticos (residents of Costa Rica) are generally helpful, and have been pretty willing to take the time to listened to my staggered Spanish and (in two cases) walk me directly to the place that I’m trying to find. My teacher, Margoth, is great, and I’ve spent a good amount of class time trying to convince her that my fellow classmates are petty criminals and liars. That seems to be the one topic of conversation that I’m proficient at.
I visited my “real” site, Boruca, for the first time over this past weekend. If I had to describe the trip to Boruca in a word, it’d be “long.” If I was allowed a couple of more words, I’d probably say “really friggin’ long.” Here’s the itinerary: 40 minute bus from Orosi to Cartago. Walk to another bus station. Take a 30 minute bus from Cartago to San Jose. Walk to another bus station. Take a 4.5 hour bus from San Jose to a random gas station outside of Buenos Aires. Take a pirate taxi from outside of Buenos Aires to the center of the town. Wait for 2-3 hours, depending on when the bus decides it wants to show up. Get on a dilapidated yellow school bus and take a 1.5 hour trip up a mountain on a dirt road. Also, there’s a pretty good chance that I’m standing for most/all of the bus trips as road safety is not a priority in Costa Rica. (For example, I saw a two year old at the wheel of a car the other day, steering the car as his father (who’s lap he was seated on) took the pedals.)
Boruca itself is actually pretty large considering it’s isolated position at the top of a mountain. There’s a couple of restaurants, a store or two, a soccer field, and a cultural museum. I also saw a couple of Americans wandering around looking to buy some indigenous artwork. I only really got to spend a good amount of time with my host mom, Yaneth. She was extremely accommodating with my Spanish, and her living room seems to be the social Mecca of Boruca. I didn’t get to see the inside of my school (the director was on vacation), but from the outside it looked quite nice.
While I’m talking about Boruca, I’d like to change my previous comment about loving roosters. I like roosters in small amounts, and during the day. When I’m trying to sleep at night and 20 of them are having cross-town conversations with each other… not so much.
After the long trip back, we started a one-week summer school English program for the local kids. I’m teaching 3rd grade with two other volunteers. They’ve done a great job of taking in all of the new information. Three hours of voluntary school a day is a lot, but we fill it with games, songs, and other activities that I couldn’t have pulled off with my 7th graders. (However… for those former students who are reading, you’d be happy to know that I’ve introduced FishBall to a new country. They’re big fans, even though none of them could hit anything higher than the one-point shot.) Recreo (recess) is insane, and basically amounts to 70 kids chasing after a soccer ball and running over anything that gets in their way.
That’s the major news. There’s various nighttime activities that all the volunteers take part in. Last night was indoor soccer, tonight is dance lessons. My host mother here in Orosi is one of the nicest people on Earth, but she’s a “mother” in the classic sense – I’m the only volunteer with a curfew, and a 10pm one at that. Even though I didn’t have to be in that early in middle school, I still find it pretty funny, plus I’m usually sleepwalking by 8:30 anyways. That ends the “big news” update, and I’m gonna try to squeeze in some random thoughts before they boot us out of the Spanish school/free wireless locations. Thanks for all the e-mails/comments/Facebook messages… keep them up!

All the best,
Dan

A few photos...

We don´t have much in the way of training on the weekends, so we´ve used our free time to explore, eat, sample the night life, catch up on the NFL playoffs, and do nerdy things like update blogs. Here´s a few photos from the first few days in Orosi. I´ll post more at some point, but they´re taking forever to upload because I sized them too big.


Team Ganamos (Jonathan and I) after winning the 3-legged race. I´m showing off my trophy (aka a pen), because I didn´t really win too many of them when I was younger.

Un gallo. They greet me every morning when I walk to our meetings. And by ¨greet,¨ I mean completely ignore me as I tell them that they´re my friends in Spanish. Me encanta gallos.

We took a guided hike up into the mountains with a local legend named Nano. I´ll be adding more about him later, but basically he lives the life that we all wish we could: he lives in the mountains in what amounts to a two-story fort that you would have killed to have when you were ten years old. He grows coffee and gives tours of his mountain farm for about $1.70 per person. Here, he´s bathing in his waterfall for our amusement. (He also speaks the clearest Spanish I´ve come across yet. He spoke for about 4 hours straight and I didn´t miss a thing.)

The ¨inside¨ of Nano´s house, which really isn´t inside at all due to the lack of real walls or ceilings.

Nano swings from his vine swing. Other people got a photo of me doing it/hanging on for dear life.

Looking out on Orosi over the terraced coffee fields. The plaza is the green field in the middle, directly to the left is the oldest operating church in Costa Rica (over 300 years old).

Bonding over mudslides

It´s been about three days since I arrived here in Costa Rica, and it´s been pretty hectic. Getting here was quite the adventure. My flight to Miami was cancelled, my rescheduled flight to Washington DC sat on the runway for an hour, and my flight from Washington to Miami landed and proceeded to sit at the gate as my Costa Rican flight´s departure time came and went. Oh, and they lost my bags. After running through the terminal to catch my slightly delayed flight (kinda like that scene in Home Alone, only without the overly-dramatic music to bring a sense of levity to the situation), I caught the flight with about two minutes to spare. The group spent the first night in a hostel, then set out the next morning to go to the immigration office to fill out the first in a supposedly endless series of forms. Getting fingerprinted was fun, and considering that the office was surrounded by policemen, I was waiting for someone to be whisked out the back door, never to be seen again.
After some lunch, we headed to a hospital to meet out doctors. He gave his talk in a monotone voice, making sure to slip in marginally funny sarcastic comments... needless to say I´m a big fan. During the talk, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck San Jose, shaking the building and causing me to yell out that someone save the leftover sandwiches. Apparently, ticos either don´t understand much English, don´t appreciate jokes during natural disasters, or both. Everyone ended up being OK... the earthquake hit harder outside of San Jose, and unfortunately four people died in mudslides.
After that excitement, we headed onto the bus to move to Orosi, a small town in a valley about an hour and a half from San Jose. After a quick meeting talking about how we´ll definitely be embarrasing ourselves with our language gaffes, we met our host families. My family is quite small by Costa Rican standardsÑ a mother and two songs, ages 18 and 20. They´re quite accomodating, especially when it comes to the fact that I only understand about 30% of what they say, and only respond in choppy sentences solely in the present tense. We ate some dinner (rice, beans, and chicken), and the son and I sat down and went through his bootleg DVD collection. After watching some reggaeton music videos set to cut-up clips from Shrek, SNL, and the like, the whole family sat down to watch news coverage of the earthquake. Despite the morbidity of the situation, it was actually a good way of bonding, as I peppered them with questions about how to say words like ¨landslide¨ in Spanish. Good, clean, family fun.
Today, we hosted some family games on the town´s plaza. I paired up with a kid named Jonathan, who was about ten, and we proceeded to completely dominate the day. Eventually, we dubbed ourselves Equipo Ganamos, and taunted the other teams with the multiple boligrafos that we had won with each contest. (So in case you were wondering... yes, despite the change in country, I´m still a huge jerk.) Some other volunteers and I headed out to lunch after, and I got a giant plate rice, beans, chicken, and other various veggies for all of $4. If the same resaurant was in Braintree, there´s a good chance that I´d be there 3-4 times a day.
Well, we´re done for the day, so I´m off to swim and eventually study some Spanish. I´ll try to upload some pictures soon. As always, e-mails and comments are much appreciated. Talk to everyone soon!

Dan

Last update before leaving

It's now past 2:00 in the morning, it looks like a bomb went off in my room, and I'm currently more concerned with finding random songs that I couldn't live without to put on my iPod (and by that, I mean early-90's rap songs that I plan on using as dance party songs with my students... Snow's 'Informer" is going to take the Costa Rican charts by storm!) than doing any actual packing. The fact that I'm limited to two or three bags is making things a bit easier; when it comes time to actually start shoving my life into some duffel bags, I know that anything non-essential can't make the cut. That means you, Sigmund A . Lavine's 1980 classic "Wonders of Goats" - a Christmas gift from my grandmother that I've held on to for over twenty years even though I never particularly liked goats to begin with. (I think it's the picture of the goat on the front cover... its facial expression conveys anything but wonder. Probably closer to boredom, or at least acceptance of a mediocre existence.)
As it's past midnight, I'm officially leaving tomorrow. I'll be flying to Miami on Wednesday morning, meeting up with the rest of the volunteers, then heading to a town called Orosi (outside of the capital of San Jose) to start training. I'm sure things will be beyond busy during the first week or two, so this could be the last update for a bit.
First off, I'll share some quick info on my site for the year. I'll go into more detail once I get there, but here's what I've learned from the volunteer that was there last year, Kevin. All credit to him, especially for the pictures. I'll be living in Boruca, a town of about 700 in the southwestern portion of Costa Rica. It's in the mountains and a bit isolated, but compared to other volunteer sites (like my friend Becca's from last year) it's relatively large. The Borucans are an indigenous people of Costa Rica, meaning that they were there before the Spaniards arrived in the 1500's. They take great pride in the fact that they were one of the few tribes not conquered by the Spaniards. This puts an interesting spin on things, as I'll get to experience both Costa Rican culture (which they still are very much a part of) as well as their unique tribal heritage. I'll save the rest for later, but for now, here are some pictures of my town and school:

Here's a picture of my host family's house, my home for the year. Pretty large by local standards; there's no hot water, but my years at camp have more than prepared me.


Exterior and interior shots of my classroom. It's not quite Cohasset, but I've been told that Boruca's school is better funded than the average Costa Rican school because of their indigenous status. We have a small computer lab with internet access, which isn't something most schools down there have. Happy days.
And finally, what's a picture tour without a little scenery? Here's a 65 foot waterfall that's a short walk from my village. Notice the lack of townies jumping off of it? That means we're not in Braintree.

Donations Update!

As promised, I want to thank those who have helped make this year possible by donating to the cause. These are the names of the people that have either given me money directly or sent an e-card through Universal Giving. If you sent a check or didn't send an e-card, I probably won't find out about your donation until after I leave. (Don't worry, you'll still get your shout-out then.) In no particular order:

Diane (Scout) and Andrew Osborne
Morven Buchanan
Deborah and Frank Ursino
Michelle, Tori, and Allie Ibrahim
John Coyne
Kathy Marquis
The Schaub Family (all 437 of them)
Sherry and Michael DeHay
Jason McCabe
Bill Fish
Kevin Valorz
Patti Perkins
Bob Blaney
Michael Schaub

If you happen to see these people around, give them a pat on the back and remind them how awesome they are.

..And a special mention for:

Sue Beatrice

Sue is a complete stranger who was kind enough to donate a digital camera so I can share pictures and videos with you. The camera is beyond amazing (even if I'm a poor photographer), and I'm looking forward to posting images of my town, students, and poisonous creatures that I wake up to in the morning. Oh, and because I'm sure you all know how much I love random cultural trivia, Sue was the person who made the Travelocity garden gnome!

Once again, thanks to everyone who has donated so far. If you still want to donate, you still have about a week or so to donate directly to WorldTeach. The step-by-step instructions to do that are in my previous post. After that, my 'account' at WorldTeach closes, but you can still send donations directly to my mother, who'll be handling my US financials and be able to put it into an account that I can access in Costa Rica. And don't worry, I'll be more than happy to let you know what the money goes towards, and it'll all go to the students/school.

Este es todo para ahora. Not sure when I'll get to update this next, but I'm sure it'll be with something so exciting that you'll forget that I ever made a pun about the rapper Snow. (OK... go back and find it... see! Didn't catch that the first time, did you?)

All the best,
Dan