Creature Comforts

One of the things living in Costa Rica is teaching me is how many things I take for granted. One of those things: hot running water. I do have an electric-water-heater-shower-head so I get warmish showers, but everything else I do is done with cold water. And hey, I'm not complaining. I can drink the water here. There's enough of it to go round (mostly - the first weekend I was here, there was a planned water-outage for 24 hours) and in most places in the country, its clean water. I am more aware of my water usage here - I take fewer showers, and am a lot better about shutting water off for the brief moments in between kitchen tasks. I hadn't even really noticed not having hot water come out of the taps, until this weekend.

Due to their concerns about our safety, Amanda's parents put us up in a really nice hotel/resort on Saturday night. We walked into our hotel room and immediately decided that we would share the bed, since neither of us wanted to sleep on the pull out couch when a bed that looked that lovely was available (it was very lovely). We explored every inch of the room, but our favorite discovery happened while I was washing my hands. I turned the water on, and after soaping my hands, stuck them under the water, and yelped. The water was too hot for my hands. I hadn't even known how much I had missed being able to wash my hands with hot water until I was able to again. And oh my gosh. A hot water heater for a shower is so much better than the electric-shower-head - there was water pressure and the water was uniformly hot.

I've always known that I am privileged - I live a very comfortable life. My worries tend to be more of what my friends and I term "first-world problems": problems that are not about survival but comfort. Missing hot water? I have running water. Who on earth am I to complain? My privileges came out of nowhere and whacked me on the head with a 2x4, and made me much more aware of the little things that I take for granted that are pretty darn great. My bed. Electricity. Internet. A fridge. Washing machine. . . the list goes on and on. And maybe, instead of thinking about the things I don't have, or would like to have, like hot water or a clothes dryer, I should focus on the other lists, of things I do have. 

Cartago and the Jardin Botanico Lankester

So yesterday, instead of going to work in the library, Amanda and I went to Cartago, which is a city about 30 minutes outside San Jose. Cartago was the capital at one point, but being 20 km from an active volcano is not so great - they occasionally get massive ash cloud-plume-things (like that one in Iceland), and more regularly, earthquakes. A while back, there was a massive one that pretty much leveled the city, and then another one. And another one. At which point, the ticans decided to move the capital. Now the Cartago's claim to fame is the Basilica, which is not so interesting from the outside, but really, really beautiful on the inside. The Basilica de la Virgen de los Angeles (the patron virgin of Costa Rica) is home to La Negrita, or The Black Virgin.
 

Story-time:A young indigenous girl was gathering firewood and found a black, rock statue of the virgin sitting on a rock. She took it home with her, and put it in a box with her other keep-sakes. The next day, she happened by the rock again, and saw another statue sitting on it. She thought it would be fun to have two dolls, so she brought it home with her. But when she opened up her box, the first doll was gone. Assuming someone had stolen it, she put the second doll in the box, and locked it up. When she opened it in the morning, the doll was gone, and once again, could be found on the rock. The same thing happened to the Priest, when the girl showed the doll to him. So, they built a chapel there. The Virgin, if moved, would always reappear there, until too many earthquakes had come (she survived them all), and she decided it wouldn't be the end of the world to be encased in gold and jewels and sit in a Basilica instead. The END.

So. Amanda and I arrived in Cartago, and walked to the Basilica. On the way there, we passed Las Ruinas, which are the ruins of some big church. They are really lovely, and the inner part is planted with a nice garden.
 We continued walking to the Basilica, and slipped inside, where we saw La Negrita, and the Holy Water that's there, as well as the ofertas made in honor and thanksgiving to La Negrita. The Basilica is the Catholic pilgrimage site in Costa Rica, and I am hoping to go back for the Feast Day, on August 2nd. People crawl for kilometers on their way to the Basilica. When it isn't August 2nd, people enter the church, and get down on their knees to crawl to the altar. It is amazing, and completely different from anything I am familiar with in the church.

The ofertas are all gifts made to La Negrita, and they run the gamut from small milagros (silver/pewter charms) to trophies to what looks like heirloom jewlery. Some of the more spectacular ofertas are on display underneath the Basilica - there were a number of replica airplanes, several really beautiful rings, a large clay vase, a medal of honor from the US Airforce. . . and most of them are accompanied by small notes explaining why the offering was made.

From the Basilica, we walked to a bus stop, and got on a bus to Paraiso, which took us to the Lankester Botanical Gardens. We had been told by Ruth (an American professor at the UBL) that we should go, and though skeptical, we decided we might as well make the trip. The gardens were amazing. They have one of the largest orchid collections in the country, and while orchids are not currently in bloom, there were a few that were blooming.

There is a Japanese Garden, which was donated by the Japanese Government to the Universidad de Costa Rica, and it was incredible.

There were also examples of the different types of Costa Rican plants, and forests. In one of them, we saw a butterfly with wings as big as my palms, if not bigger. We also saw a nest with a baby bird inside. We wished we had packed a picnic lunch, but hunger drove us back to Cartago, where we ate, and then hopped on a bus back to San Jose.

Once we arrived back in down town, we trekked to the Coca-cola bus terminal where we bought tickets for our trip this weekend to Manuel Antonio, a national park on the Pacific. It was a bit longer of a walk than expected, but we did manage to buy our tickets. By the time we got home, we were dead on our feet, but it was a great day. Tomorrow morning we leave at about 7:15 to take a bus to downtown to catch our next bus, which will take us to Manuel Antonio. I'm pretty pumped about the trip!

Hasta la proxima vez, ciao!

a brief and terrified interlude

Don't panic. Me and my adrenaline are doing just fine. In fact, I had a test this afternoon to test my adrenal responses. They work well.

Lightening struck the electrical wires I was walking under on my way home from work. Followed immediately by the loudest thunder I have ever heard.

20 minutes later, my heart is finally not racing.

In other news, its the rainy season here in Costa Rica, and if it doesn't start raining before 2pm, we're pretty much guaranteed a pretty fantastic storm.

La Guacima

Or, the trip to church that lasted 12 hours.

 

Today, I went to La Iglesia Presbiteriana Nueva Guacima with Angelica, Luz and Nahun, a Honduran family who are my neighbors. We left to catch the bus at 7:30 in the morning, and rode it all the way down to downtown San Jose. We then walked to the next bus stop, where we waited until 9 to catch a bus to La Guacima, which is a town about an hour outside of San Jose by bus. We arrived at the church at about 10. It was Father's Day, and they were having a celebration for the fathers in the church.

There was a mission group from Hope Presbyterian Church in Springfield, IL there as well, which was nice because there were other English speakers there. One of the women in the group heard me speaking English and said, "You speak English?!""Yes," I replied, a little confused. I mean, never-have-I-ever been mistaken for a native Spanish speaker. "Oh! Are you from the area?" At this point I must have had a very strange look on my face, because I do not look tica at all - I tower over the women, I have blond-ish hair, I dress like an American (surprise, surprise) and am very clearly white. "No, I'm from Minnesota." At which point she began to pepper me with questions - why was I in Costa Rica, did I speak Spanish, where did I learn my Spanish. . . It was pretty funny, and very strange.

Church was long, but entertaining, and I was able to follow most of the Spanish. If I go again, I will bring a Bible, since all the readings are done in unison and I don't have to understand what I'm reading to pronounce it correctly. Nahun was kind enough to share his Bible with me, and so I can tell you that the Old Testament lesson was about Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac. Perfect for Father's Day, don't you think?
 
The photo on the left shows the sanctuary. Its a very simple, open space with a nice breeze. Next door is a community hall of sorts, with a kitchen, where we all ate a celebratory Father's Day lunch, which was really good. I sat with Angelica, Nahun, and Luz, as well as some of the Americans. 

I expected that after lunch we would head back to San Jose, but instead, we were invited to a birthday party for the pastor's eldest daughter, who was turning 22. So off I went to this birthday party. I knew four people - Angelica, Luz, and Nahun, as well as Victor Hugo, a student at UBL from Peru who had also been at church. They were having a barbeque - Angelica told me it was pretty typical Honduran food.

The pastor's house was on a small granja, or farm. They have several types of fruit trees, including mango and lime, and also grow beans and other vegetables, plus chickens and geese all over the place. Luz told me there were 21 dogs - while I'm not entirely sure I believe here, there were dogs everywhere. Three were "house" dogs, and the rest seemed to be guard dogs. They were chained strategically in a ring around the house and buildings. The granja was very beautiful, all fresh and green. The house itself was very open, with big windows to take advantage of the breezes. It was a lovely place to have a meal. It was, however, super overwhelming for me. Although all the young people, and several of the adults, spoke some English, my Spanish was in general better, so I spent the better part of the day speaking Spanish. It was exhausting, but I felt pretty great that I managed to get myself understood and converse with people.

This last picture is of Luz and me at the granja, sitting in rocking chairs next to each other. She is very sweet, and very patient with me, and we've become great friends. She comes to visit me at the library after school gets out, and "helps" me out with whatever I'm working on. She's wearing a Honduras shirt in honor of the team, who were playing a game that day.

The Day I Tried to Pretend I Wasn't a Tourist. . .

Which failed miserably the moment I stepped into the Tourism Office!
Today Becky, Amanda and I went into San Jose - which here in Costa Rica refers to the downtown area. I wasn't sure what all we were planning to do, so I didn't bring my camera. In retrospect, not the best decision ever! We took the bus into San Jose from San Pedro, which is where we live. Becky took us through the neighborhood to the Mas-x-Menos, which she recommended to us as the best place to do grocery shopping. Unfortunately, its a bit of a hike, and would probably require a taxi to get home. . . so I might stick with the grocery stores 2 and 4 blocks away, unless I have a big shopping trip I need to go on. We saw the Iglesia San Pedro, which is the church our neighborhood is named for, and which I plan visiting - its supposed to be beautiful. (I spent so much time on vacations visiting churches with my family that I even do it now without my parents!) We then took a bus into the city. They're really easy to catch, and really cheap - I think it cost $0.50 to take the bus into San Jose. Of course, you don't get a transfer or anything like that, which makes it slightly less cheap if you have a ways to go, but since I usually only need one bus, it works out well.
We arrived in San Jose with no problems. I was surprised at how much of the downtown I remembered, but I did spend a lot of time there when we visited 4 years ago. Amanda and I took a tour of the Teatro Nacional, which was built in 1897 and is a really stunning building. Very baroque in style. We want to go back and see a show of some sort there. We then walked over to the Cathedral, and slipped inside for a bit. There was a mass going on, so we didn't see much, but what we did see was quite lovely.
For lunch, we went to a restaurant called Nuestra Tierra. This was the very first restaurant our family ate at when we visited Costa Rica. It was much brighter inside than I remembered, but it seemed very much the same. We then meandered across the street and through the Mercado Artesanal - the Artesans Market. Amanda and I have made plans to return and buy earrings there, as well as touristy gifties for our families.
The three of us then meandered back to the pedestrian mall, and walked up to the mercado to get some of Becky's favorite ice cream - vanilla-cinnamon flavor. Amanda and I were very suspicious of the ice cream - it is very yellow and not super solid, but it was fantastic. The flavor reminded me of the dough for the pan de muertos I made for Easter.
It was after this that our real adventure began. Becky wanted to show Amanda and me the Plaza del Sol, which is a market-y sort of area. Its back in San Pedro, so we got back on the bus. We were trundling along in the bus, and Becky told me "When we take a left up ahead, push the button so the driver knows we need to get off." Well, the bus never took a left - we were on the wrong bus. Instead, it turned right, and dropped us off in Curridibat, which is another neighborhood in the city. The rain that had threatened all day had started, and the three of us were lost and wet, even with our umbrellas and rain coats. We started walking in the generally right direction, but really had no idea where we were in relation to anything. Becky was horrified, and kept apologizing to us. Eventually, we ran into some Mormon missionaries, and got directions from them, and made our way to a main thoroughfare, where we caught a taxi and took it back home. Now Amanda and I know to be very, very sure that the bus we are on is the right one! But all's well that ends well, and I am now home and dry.

Birthdays and Really Awesome Presents

So I was headed back from grocery shopping with the new volunteer (more on her later), when Alvaro asked me if I'd ever had a birthday away from home. I realized that I actually haven't been home for a birthday since I turned 19. My last three birthdays have all been away from my family: DuNord YMCA camp in Ely, in Melbourne last year, and now in Costa Rica. I guess I'm getting used to it, but it does make me a little homesick - I want family on my birthday!There must be some part of me that actually likes fuss being made about my birthday, though I can never seem to find it while the fuss happens. I guess I like the idea of fuss, but not the actual fuss? Anyway, I told the folks at UBL that it was my birthday today (I mean, I told them the 16th was my birthday. I didn't casually mention it this morning) so this morning at cafecito they had two of their liturgical musicians play a tican happy birthday - though the song is apparently Mexican? It was very sweet of them. Then Becky took Ruth (an American professor at UBL), Amanda, and me out to lunch at a sort of fast food place called "Spoon." This evening Amanda and I went out for pizza, and had a great time, though the pizza itself was edible and not much else.Becky took the pictures during the "concert", and also took a video of the last minute plus of the birthday song, which I now have on my computer. If I could figure out how to edit it, I'd post it, but since I can't, I think you all get a pass.
Amanda is the newest volunteer. She's a rising college senior majoring in theater, and is from Alabama. She seems really nice - and certainly was game for lunch immediately following her arrival. She was supposed to live with me in the apartment, but her parents had some safety concerns, so she's up in the student dormitories. She has an open invitation to come down whenever - its really nice to have someone my age here, because as much as I enjoy chatting with Luz, in the end, she's still only 9. I think Amanda and I might travel some together. I'm excited to get to know her better, and she made for a pretty sweet birthday present.

Pura Vida!

I am in San Jose! Or, more correctly, I am in Cedros, San Pedro. My address is all sorts of fun – it includes 400 m E as part of it. I had quite the adventure getting here. After a mechanical delay in Minneapolis, I spent three hours in Denver (as noted in yesterday's post), before hopping on a plane to San Jose. Upon arriving and picking up my bag, I discovered that one of my soap bottles – a bottle of Dr. Bronner's Original, to be exact – had opened during the flight. The plastic bag I had set it in had sprung a leak, and about half of what I had in the bottle spilled everywhere. The suitcase smells very peppermint-y, and the soap soaked all the way through to my top layer of clothes. Then I headed out to the “Parada de Taxis” to wait for the driver the seminary was sending. After waiting about an hour, I decided he probably wasn't coming (I found out later they thought my flight was at 5:20pm, not 5:20 am). However, I didn't have an address for UBL, nor did I have a phone number. So, I called dad. $50 later, I had an address and several phone numbers. I got in a taxi, and we drove to the seminary, where I was met by the guy who will be my boss – Alvaro – for the next few months. He drove me to my apartment thing, which I will apparently be sharing with a young woman who will arrive Wednesday. And to top it all off, I'm losing my voice. But! I'm here, and that's what really matters.

The Universidad Biblica Latinoamericana (UBILA) library is basically undergoing a catalog overhaul. My job is to pull books from a section, find their cards in the card catalogs (Author, title, and subject), and then look up the full information from the Library of Congress, or the Barcelona National Library. It is slow going – it takes a while to pull all three cards, and looking up the books is a tedious process, because sometimes they don't exist in the Library of Congress catalog, or the Barcelona National Library catalog, but there's a lot of data entry before I can be completely certain. I have a funny little office that would make my dad flip out – there is pretty much space for a desktop computer plus maybe a foot on either side, and bookshelves lining the walls. Its very long and narrow, but behind the computer is a window, which overlooks a little garden with some beautiful flowers.

My apartment is 100 m (1 city block) west of UBILA, on a side street. Like most houses in San Jose and the surrounding areas, there is a gate and a fence that I have to unlock to get inside. There are 7 apartments in the building block, and I live in the furthest one back. I have a small, mostly furnished kitchen, a bathroom, and my own room. There is also another bedroom, and a small dining/living area. This might be the same place my parents stayed several years ago when we traveled to Costa Rica. There are two grocery stores near by. One is the Perimercado de Cedros, which is a big store about 300 m from my apartment. There is also a smaller supermercado inbetween my apartment and the Perimercado. Everyone has told me that the supermercado is not as good, and if I am going to get groceries, I might as well walk the extra block.

My Spanish is less rusty than I expected, but is definitely not one hundred percent there. I have some pretty large vocabulary gaps at the moment, but Alvaro speaks English fluently, so we get along alright. I met a nine year old in the library today. Her name is Luz (I think. She speaks very quickly), and she is learning some English in school. She is very sweet, but says that I spend too much time thinking about the translation in my head and should just get a dictionary already. I don't think using a dictionary will really help with my speed!

So in sum: I'm here, entonces todo está pura vida!

Travelling. . .

Airports are really strange places. Airplanes are too. Time does strange things in them; for much of the actual airtime it ceases to exist, but then it suddenly reasserts itself in a desperate rush of hurry. Avowed introvert that I am, I interact with strangers regularly in airports and on airplanes. The man I sat next to while waiting for our delayed flight to start boarding was on his way to San Francisco via Denver to watch his daughter graduate from high school. The woman who sat next to me on the plane was worried about making her connection, and that she didn't have a dog sitter for the night if she couldn't make it back to San Diego. They could tell you that I'm on my way to Costa Rica to volunteer in a library for a summer, and she could tell you that I have at least one cat who sleeps on my bed regularly. I chat with the people at the fast food places where I get my dinner, or at the bookstore. A woman and I chuckled in the bathroom at the difficulties of getting the automatic water faucets to turn on. And airports are strange, because they are places that exist solely to provide transportation to other places. No one goes to an airport for the airport. Maybe the people who work in airports feel differently, but really. Even a train station can be a meeting place, a destination in itself. Airports? Not so much. Maybe some of that has to do with the security - all of the interesting stuff at airports happens past the security booths.
This plane, though, was a strange place not only because of the strange things time does in transit, but because we had a flight attendant with the biggest personality on the plane. He made irreverent asides during the "In the case of _______ emergency, do this. . . " speech, causing much of the front half of the plane to crack up. The best was his "We are arriving in Denver" speech, during which it became apparent that he either spends far too much time planning this sort of thing or far too much time without sleep. Aside from forgetting to account for the time change when he gave the local time, he also made several other gaffes. The best one was the one that seemed the least planned: "As you exit the plane, there will be an uninformed Frontier representative who can help you find your next gate." Read that carefully.
Also, I have a three-ish hour layover in Denver, so I am people watching as my gate slowly fills. There are two very excited little girls who are playing on the electric sidewalks, running up and down them. The man across from me looks like a business traveler - he is reading a newspaper and checking his blackberry compulsively. I am also judging the people who walk by on the moving sidewalk. Really? You want to fly in a mini-skirt and 3 inch heels?! Or, slow down! Your kid can't keep up with you - look behind you. In other news, I'm really not that great a person. . .
Anyway. I am very excited for my time in Costa Rica. I do wish that my flight weren't at such a late time - I arrive in San Jose at 5:19am, which is much earlier than I would really like. That's what I get for having a cheap flight, I guess. I'm getting super rambly, so I'm going to close this off. Next post will be from Costa Rica!