Conclusions

It's very hard to summarize my whole experience now, a week after the trip, though I imagine it will continue to remain difficult for quite some time. I met some amazing people from all the over world during my travels, one of the great boons of solo trips, and had lot of experiences I wouldn't have been able to have had I been with others. The relaxed and friendly demeanor of Costa Ricans was very appealing to experience especially following my time in D.C. I saw that the relationship between students and teachers is a very delicate one that can only be fostered through dedication and trust. I also grappled with several relationships between foreigners and locals: tourists, imperialists, completely ignorant visitors and those who attempted to help but had to overcome the bad taste that the other kinds of foreigners had left in the mouths' of the locals.
Costa Rica is not an unambiguously perfect place, it has its warts, but I really, really enjoyed my time there. There are many more, subtler conclusions that I think will make themselves clear to me over time but at this point the experience still looms a little too large in my field of vision to perceive clearly.
I really enjoyed writing recording my travels, despite the technical difficulties, in this blog. I'm planning on resuming Time and again in the summer, when my traveling will recommence. Til then, thanks for reading.



Alex

Playa Potrero - Pacific Paradise

On Sunday afternoon, after an arduous ride from the center of the country, I arrived at the sleepy, Pacific coast fishing village of Playa Potrero. There were three restuarants in town, one supermarket, a church, a communal salon and an abandoned police station surrounding the Potrero's centerpiece: its new soccer field. I immediately took a liking to the atmosphere of Potrero. Of course there were some drawbacks to the smalltown. Every Costa Rican in Potrero was a member of one of the three families that first established the town some time ago. Clearly the potential for vaguely incestuous relationships was pretty high: basically everyone in town was related to one another in some not so distant manner. Also the variety of food available to me was sharply limited: rice, beans, meat (some pretty good fish thankfully) greeted me for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I stayed in the home of one of the premiere families of Potrero, the Merinos, who owned an entire street of houses, a restaurant and the supermarket. Staying in a home was a fun experience and much more intimate than even a hostel. In just 5 days I became quite close with the mother and 2 year old son in the family. The 8 year old daughter was impossibly shy so I didn't get to know her very well and the father sat around in front of the TV much of the day, shirtless and immobile.
I couldn't really blame him though: each day in Potrero felt like it was 100 degrees. The roads were all dirt, the seabreeze was anemic and none of the houses had AC, it really was an incredibly hot climate. The only reprieve was a jump in the Pacific, which you could certainly do worse than. No, in fact, I loved the Pacific: the water was clear and warm, the beaches were picturesque and stunningly empty and the waves were big enough for surfing but not big enough to kill you.
A quick note: unfortunately I did not take many photos in Potrero because my digital camera succumbed to the tremendous amount of dust in the air and stopped working. I fixed it by the end of my stay but didn't want to push my luck.


3 minute walk from the place I slept.




My new homestay friend, the two year old Dylan.

My work in Potrero consisted of helping out at a program in the town that was dedicated to offering free English lessons to anyone who wanted them. The program was run by two great Americans, Drew and Meradith, both recently out of college, that had dropped everything to live in this town year round and teach English. Like everyone I saw in Potrero, they were happy, healthy and perfectly content with their lives. For the 5 days I was there, I joined them in their bliss. Every day I woke up early, went for a swim, returned for a homemade breakfast (rice and beans), went for another swim, ate lunch at a restaurant (rice, beans and meat), taught English for a few hours, went for a last swim Drew and Meradith (we went surfing a few times too), had a homemade dinner (take a guess), and then hung out with D&M, watching movies/The Wire/BBC Life (check it out, the sequel to Planet Earth but even cooler) until around 9:30 at which point I was exhausted and fell asleep. The early to bed/early to rise routine was really nice to get into and felt very energizing. The children I taught were fun, able learners. The adults were a different story, really like speaking to brick walls, but luckily my exposure to them was limited. Also, Drew and Meradith were really fun to hang out with both in the class and outside of it. In short, I loved the time I spent in Potrero.

Pelicans fishing in a BBC Life/Planet Earth esque scene that I witnessed.

'Cano Climbing

After leaving La Escuelita and smoggy San Jose behind on Friday morning, I traveled to Lake/Volcano/Rainforest Arenal for the weekend on my way to my destination on the Pacific coast. It was overcast almost constantly all three days, the humidity/moisture in the air was unbelievable: if something got wet, it was simply not going to get dry (towels were worthless after the first shower) and the town was overrun by tour operators. Nevertheless, I saw an amazing waterfall, walked through a small rainforest, gazed up at a volcano (but no lava), photographed some cool wildlife, and relaxed on Saturday night at a very classy thermal springs. Photos of all these things below except the hot springs (unfortunately)


Witnessed this crazy scene on the side of the road. Those are a bunch of Costa Rican racoons, coatis, being fed by some pretty ignorant people. There were signs everywhere telling you not to feed wild animals for all sorts of reasons. Apparently these people weren't convinced by any of them. At least something positive came out of it (this picture)


Probably the clearest the volcano got all weekend. Yup, didn't get too lucky on that count.

Happiest VW bus I've ever seen.


The 2 mile walk to the waterfall was really cool. Here are some of the highlights.


Walked by a banana grove which appeared like a strange weird cross between vegetable and fruit cultivation.

A life-saving coconut water stand on the side of the road (I didn't have a water bottle). A facebook profile picture quickly ensued.

Sup droopy.

There were fresh fruit nailed to the top of this sign and birds of practically every color had flocked to it when it first came into view. I mean legitimate ROYGBIV. By the time I was close enough to get a photo off, the effect had diminished somewhat.



A very environmentally conscious sign on the side of the road. As far as I could tell, someone had just decided to put on their lawn. I loved Costa Rican's environmental awareness: almost 100% of the country's energy comes from renewable resources, I noticed people make legitimate efforts to turn off lights/save water/not use AC etc. It was cool to see.


The waterfall. Tough to give it a sense of scale, it was over 200 ft tall.

People, including myself after taking this photo, swam in the river next to it. Bathing suit didn't dry until I left the town, not joking

Shows the scale a bit but not really. There was a sign warning you that swimming at the base of the waterfall was not a good idea, but that was about it. Nothing was stopping you from just diving right into that white-water pulverizer which I doubt would ever happen in the US.


I was in a rainforest so photos were hard to come by, particularly without flash, but this tree happened to be in a patch of sunlight. Hard to appreciate in this photo, but this tree probably had about 20 different plant species living in/around/because of it.

The roots to the walking palm tree. Grows spindly stilt roots to find sunlight. Looks really eery in person, photo doesn't quite do it justice.


The weekend was a great, green reprieve after almost 10 days in the cement jungle of San Jose although I definitely barely scratched the surface of Costa Rica's green offerings. Next time I guess. Another post or two probably by tonight, so I can wrap this up before my memories get too stale.

La Escuelita de Esperanza

Ok clearly a quick explanation is due:

Sorry I didn't update the blog as promised. After spending the first three days of my trip in a hostel with free, unlimited internet access, I began my work at a school in San Jose. At that point I started spending a majority of my time at school, hanging out with the other volunteer there (a sophomore from Middlebury) or sleeping. At the end of that week I left San Jose, and had no consistent internet access for the rest of my trip. So these posts are an attempt at piecing together this trip retrospectively.


I spent this week working at La Escuelita, a school in a neighborhood on the edge of San Jose. Neighborhood however might be a generous word; shantytown is honestly more descriptive. The school serves a neighborhood of illegal Nicaraguan immigrants who have formed a community on the fringes of a city which they are attempting to integrate themselves into. But their efforts are not hopeless; the older men in the community seemed to have some sort of jobs and Costa Rica is an enlightened country that allows anyone, regardless of their immigration status, to attend public schools. So despite appearances, the people here had the chance to do better than they could have in Nicaragua.




On the first day I had some difficulty finding the school, turned down some wrong streets, got attacked by some vicious, semi-wild dogs (that I kicked in the mouth to chase off), and almost turned back and gave up. But then a rainbow broke out over the whole valley that this neighborhood sits in and I knew I was going to be alright.

Essentially a one room schoolhouse. Each morning, from 9-11, and afternoon from 1-3 anywhere from 20-40 kids would cram themselves into this space, tearing apart this short-lived order and calm that I photographed before my final day at the school. The time with the kids was spent pretty informally, playing uno (with pretty fun La escuelita house rules that the kids had made up over time) doing lots and lots of jigsaw puzzles, reading dora the explorer (actually a great bilingual teaching tool, who knew?) and doing the occasional arts and crafts activities when we could grab the kid's interest.

Little Jose walked into school on the second day with his new toy: a syringe-less plunger.

I took it away from him and gave him a walrus puppet instead. I definitely preferred the second one, I hope he did too.


The kids never, ever, ever got bored of Uno, but I sure did. One remarkable thing about the kids in the school was how little they fought, bickered, or bullied each other in any way. You'd think in a tough neighborhood like this there would be a lot of hard kids, but I didn't see a raised fist all week. The kids in this circle probably ranged in age from 7-10 but there didn't seem to be any problems between them. One of the nicest aspects of working with Costa Rican kids in general as it turned out.

Milton playing Jenga. Costa Rican kids had the craziest names! Milton, Gixie, Disney, Brandon and many other super American (or just ridiculous -- Gixie??) names were popular despite the fact that the kids could not come even close to pronouncing them correctly. There were also a lot of names that began with S, Stephanie/Stephen etc. that were inevitably pronounced "eeeeeStephanie/eeeeeStephen" because Spanish speakers naturally put an e in such cases (escuela, estudiante and so on). By the end of the week, I couldn't help but do it.

eeeeStephanie herself, the very cute daughter of the school's teacher. I hung out with her a lot. Between the morning and afternoon sessions of school, we (me, Julie the Middlebury girl, Marci the teacher, eeeStephanie, and Victor the teacher's son) all went back to Marci's house for lunch. She cooked rice, beans and homemade tortillas every day and also made guacamole a few times. The guacamole was amazing, made from avocados picked in her backyard, but the tortillas were actually pretty awful. On the first day I helped her make them from scratch and figured that they would taste incredible. Instead they tasted exactly like flour and water, which is what they were. Costa Rican's strong dislike of spices, herbs, flavor and variety became quite a debilitating aspect of the country's cuisine. More on that later.

My parting shot as I walked away on Thursday afternoon. Overall the experience was a mixed one. It was amazing how quickly I became close with many of the kids and the last afternoon was a legitimately sad parting, especially with Victor and Stephanie who I had a lot of time with. On the other hand, I got the despairing sense that as soon as many of the kids finished primary school, which was all that was required them, and became teenagers, they would stop going to the Escuelita and become like any other shirtless, 14 year old drug addict I saw sitting on the train tracks day in and day out (who I didn't get to photograph unfortunately). It was a fun week, I improved my Spanish from non-existent to usable and I learned something about the enthusiasm and flexibility of young kids. But I also saw firsthand how these qualities can be so quickly lost without encouragement.


As a side note, it's interesting to see how much the tone of the blog has changed now that I'm writing it all after the fact rather than in the moment. Would have preferred it all in the moment but So it goes. Next post in a few hours probably.

San Jose Grindin'

Well, the magic splendor and euphoria of being in a warm place in January has worn off and I've started to see San Jose in a more realistic light: a pretty damn gritty city. It has its sights, some nice neighborhoods to be sure, good food, and great people...but despite that, I feel pretty unsafe walking around once it gets dark and I've kind of exhausted its obvious offerings in three days. Based on the fact that (almost) everyone in the hostel is only staying a night in the city before moving on, San Jose is certainly not the jewel of Central America. Obviously if my Spanish were better or I had someone to show me around, I think I'd be enjoying another side to San Jose much more, but unfortunately neither of those two things have panned out as planned. But not to worry! I'm still enjoying myself and my day today was strongly colored by the fact that I woke up at 6 AM to go to a volcano only to be greeted by a suddenly unfamiliar sight: clouds. Clouds?? Yeah, lots of them. So many that they would have rendered going to the volcano pointless. Well so it goes, probably an unfair reason to criticize a city. I did have a relaxing day around the neighborhood, in the park, around the hostel etc. Once I start working at the school tomorrow, I'll really start having fun again.
Oh yeah, I never explained what I'm doing in Costa Rica. At Amherst, I work at Reader to Reader, an online mentoring program. In tenuous connection to that, (which is not really worth explaining in this space but ask me if you're curious,) I secured some funding to teach at some schools in Costa Rica, one in the outskirts of San Jose, and one in the beach town of Playa Potrero. Links to the two programs, respectively, http://sites.google.com/site/laescuelitadeesperanza/, and http://mozillaservice.org/activity/story/313/en_US. The first one promises to be the much more challenging and more taxing on my Spanish...and unfortunately I start there tomorrow, my Spanish nary a lick better than it was when I got here. Well, I'll figure it out, it'll certainly be an experience one way or another. Anyways, some more pictures from San Jose (which upon further reflection/rereading the positive side I described at the beginning of this post, I still like as a city. It just has its rough patches. Also the mosquitoes are killing me and no one sells bugspray. Ok fine, can't condemn two cities in a row, San Jose's more than alright.

The outskirts

This was on the campus of the University of Costa Rica. And I mean smack in the middle of it.


A vibrant nativity scene on someone's lawn.

Really enjoying the graffiti in general. (More later)

Downtown again

A cool game I witnessed downtown where one pushes a tennis ball into some pins, trying to knock off the screws perched atop the pins (without knocking the pins over)

I legitimately think the sign is trying to convey MacDonald's tyranical rule over the world's food scene. Bold marketing I suppose. McD's, BK, Subway, and Pizza Hut blanket the city.

More things I liked

More cool graffiti, the city's full of it!

A big menorah in the park next to my house? Couldn't figure out whether or not it had Jewish significance, there was no plaque in sight.

Hola gallo!

Starting tomorrow about to get much more busy. Hopefully, I'll have time to post at some point during this week. Hasta luego til then.

Hello Costa Rica!

The new title photo says it all. Spent the morning/early afternoon just exploring the city, really enjoyed it. I can't spend long writing this because my internet use has a time limit so I'll post some of my favorite photos (took almost a hundred just today) and provide a bit of commentary. The general highlights of the day were a moving conversation I had with a saintly old man named San Antonio outside a church who was so moved by the sculpture outside that he had to explain its meaning to me with tears streaming down his face. Amazingly, he had a niece who lives in Springfield, MA. Wow. Went to the National Theatre which was incredible and is better described by photos. The park outside my hostel is really cool too, you'll see that. Why all the barbed wire photos? It's really striking how seriously people take home security here. Hope that doesn't bode poorly for the future of my belongings...

The photos are in the opposite order I inteded. Meh, so it goes. Also this is a long post because I was didn't sleep well last night and thus had to turn back early from my adventures. Hopefully a nap now and a good night's rest tomorrow will give me the energy for some sunup-sundown excursions this weekend.

Misc. cool things that I liked

Oh you know, just the post office. No really it's San Jose's post office.

The Federal Mogul takes his security very seriously apparently (vertical barbed wire??). I have many more photos of beefed up home security that I didn't have time to upload.

From the Museum of Jade. Underwhelmingly overall, esp. for the price of the ticket, but had some very interesting pieces, such as this one.

The National Theatre

Photo below: Degas inspired

Barely begins to capture the opulence of the inside. Would not seem out of place in Rome/Paris etc.

Sculptures

The first one is the artwork that San Antonio broke down over. Read the inscription if you can, it is quite touching.

The Park

Horses next to modern art sculptures. Of course.
The low-lying clouds crowning the mountains are visibile from most parts of the city.
There are way more photos I'd like to upload of every section of the city but don't have the time.

Ok that's all for now, probably another post on Sunday, though who knows what each day will hold?