They´re here, AND they´re alive...

Dear Adoring Fans,

Hello to you all!

Sorry that it´s been so long since we´ve written, but a recent and quite entertaining post from our aunt Nancy prompted this post. If you haven´t read hers, go read it. Thanks Nancy!

We´re alive. And what´s better, our parents are here! And what´s better yet is that they arrived alive and well and almost ready to attempt all sorts of Spanish! Well, dad is. Mom´s playing it safe and sticking with "Gracias."

Greg and Gail and Danny Wilcox made it safely also last night and are on their way to Monte Verde, while our parents are staying around here to spend some quality morning time in a fantastic hotel overlooking a valley and some waterfall while spending time in a hot-tub, and spending some quality afternoon-time hanging out with their beloved children (me. And Sam. I guess) and Kristen.

I can´t remember what the last couple things were that were posted on this blog, since even I have neglected to read them...ssshhh...so I can give a brief two weekend update.

Two weekends ago, Sam and Kristen and I made plans to go to Guanacaste, which I think I spelled wrong, but that place nontheless. Sam was supposed to take a bus at 1pm after classes, which he missed, so he tried to get tickets for the 2pm bus but they were sold out and the 3pm bus wouldn´t stop in San Ramon to pick up Kristen and I and the 4pm bus would be getting to Liberia which is cose to Guanacaste until like 8pm.

SO.

We aborted and decided to head for Volcano Arenal, which is a quite active volcano that spews lava that can be seen at night running down the side of the mountain, which we viewed after spending 4 hours at a natural hot springs that had 20 different hot-pools and swim-up....soda fountains...um, yeah. Anyway.
Not a bad back-up plan.

This past weekend was my 23rd birthday, which was somewhat different (and by ´somewhat´i mean ´completely and totally´) than my previous birthdays. First, the BAD different.

Kristen was sick. And by sick, I mean that she suddenly got food-poisoning at the Albergue (= orphanage) that morning and threw up 9 times in an hour and a half. Not that we were counting. Ever single one. (Nope; definitely didn´t count the two times at the orphanage, the one time in the street gutter on the way to the bus back home, the three times on the bus in a leaky plastic bag, the one time in front of the mall when we got off the bus, the one time in the bathroom in the mall, and the one time on a street corner on the other side of the mall before we got home. Not counting (seriously now) the times she threw up once we finally (F I N A L L Y) got home.

If you´re thinking "Oh! Poor thing...", Kristen approves, as do I. It wasn´t pretty.

So by this time I´m singing "happy birthday to me..." in what one might call a slightly dismal tone.

But then the GOOD different.

I went to an internet café to call my parents (those of you who are saying to yourselves, "right...by ´went´ he means ´fled,´" might be on to something). Things got quite a bit better when the Skype video camera turned on and I saw our family´s "birthday bear" holding a birthday candle with my parents singing to me in the background. Pretty great bit of work. I felt much better.

Then, our host-mom´s aunt, Tia Macha, who is determined to inform and re-inform me every time she comes over that I have "the face of a baby!" (...yep, I sure do! ...) baked me an incredible carrot cake. Our host-sister Gaby put 26 candles on it (shooting for 23 but missing the mark by 3..oh well) and played me a recorder-flute rendtion of "Happy Birthday". It was quite fun.
Then, Kristen handed me her gift, which was a surprise. Weeks before we had looked into getting tickets to go see Placido Domingo live in San Jose that Friday, thinking it would be a fun thing to do. I was a little bummed out when Kristen looked online and told me sadly that they were all sold out.

Liar.

She gave me my present after the flaming (quite literally almost on fire) cake. Inside the card were two mock-tickets to Placido Domingo!
Awesme.
And that was last weekend. The concert was phenomenal, his voice is phenomenal, the orchestra was phenomenal, and the company was...wel, you get the idea. :)

SIDE NOTE: For those of you who are purportedly constantly asking mom and dad if A.) We are engaged, and B.) We are going to bring children back with us, the answer to A.) is NO. The answer to B.) is also NO. If you would like to come and take home a Naranjo Albergue child, you may come and do so at your own risk. But we are not.

And so now, I am sitting in an internet cafe where the cry of "GOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!" is ringing from the TV nearby, the wind is blowing like crazy, the sky is spitting rain, and the northern air currents have dipped the temperature to a very cold 60ish.

Yes, 60-ish. We´ve grown accustomed after three months to having a nice but rainy climate.
January is going to be...bad, for lack of more colorful words.

Tomorrow we´re going to sit in a hot-tub with our parents and eat overlooking some gorgeous green valley with a waterfall. And then Friday we´re going to a picturesque beach for five days.


Like I´m always telling my dad, we never get to go anywhere.

Yeah right. =)

Peace to you. Kristen and Jeff and Katherine say hi.
I´ll tell them that you (all of you) say hi too.

ben.

Update from Aniiita (as they affectionately call me here)

Greetings from the 'eternal spring' of Costa Rica! Although I think often of the smells, colors, and brisk weather of fall back home, I’m still thoroughly enjoying living in a tropical climate. Life here continues to be wonderful, rich in learning, people, foods, and culture. I’ll share a few of my thoughts with you in this letter and look forward to more extended conversation when I return in a short month and a half.

U.S. ELECTIONS IN COSTA RICA
I found it so exciting to be abroad for the recent U.S. elections because of the global significance of the new presidential administration. Many Ticos share my excitement and are eager to see how the coming four years will affect Latin American and the world as a whole. The leader of my abroad program here has connections to the U.S. ambassador in Costa Rica so the other students and I received invitations to an election celebration at the U.S. Embassy on November 4. Ticos and Americans waited side by side in anticipation of the results and celebrated with food and beverages on the government’s tab! Being some of the only young Americans at this gathering, pictures of us made two Costa Rican newspapers on November 5 and my host family saw us live on TV as well! It was a celebratory, meaningful, historic evening.

CLASSES IN COSTA RICA: THOUGHTS ON DEVELOPMENT, POVERTY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND SUSTAINABILITY
Development, poverty, human rights, and sustainability—globally and with a special focus on Central America—are the topics that shape our classes here. I’m finding it invigorating and refreshing to study subjects outside of English and religion for a semester and, as with any meaningful learning experience, I am also challenged and frustrated by the material. The academic questions that frame our study are both exciting and overwhelming: Why have many countries in Central and Latin America had such a challenging history in terms of poverty, political corruption, and development? How can national and international policy makers focus on human development in addition to economic development? Why and how must environmental and human sustainability be the focus of development? What are the consequences that the world (and the region) is experiencing as a result of deforestation, industrialization, corporate agriculture, pollution, waste, and unsustainable development?

While these questions are fascinating and stimulating for me—not to mention imperative for the world—I struggle with the purely academic perspective with which we look at these issues. I think only looking at these issues academically removes some of our personal responsibility from the equation. While creating indexes for human development and compiling research about poverty or gender are important, if we neglect to ask how each of us can live differently in order to create change, I think little progress will be made. Challenging questions about our lifestyles, our actions and our involvements are largely missing from our program’s discussions (both inside and outside of the classroom). I think these personal questions must be asked side by side academic questions. And so my thoughts these days often revolve around questions such as, how do these issues translate into our comfortable lives? How can I live in a way that doesn’t deny others of resources, opportunity, and well-being? In what ways does the developed world need to “un-develop” to create environmental and social justice? In what ways should we look to the developing world for simpler lifestyles that don’t exploit the earth’s resources as much? In the past month or so I’ve developed some good friendships within my program which help me to explore these questions more deeply and help me to connect academic questions with those that are related to how we should live.

OTHER CHALLENGES WHILE LIVING ABROAD
One of the unexpected things that I miss while being abroad is having responsibility (don’t take this paragraph too seriously, Mom and Dad!). During these four months abroad all of my laundry, cleaning, and cooking is provided. While this is a wonderful luxury on the one hand, it also causes me to be ready to provide these things for myself again. I miss having a job where I earn some money before spending it. And whereas last semester at Concordia my commitments to organizations and involvements on campus sometimes felt overwhelming and burdensome, this semester I long for a community that demands more of me. While my host family now allows me to participate in some of the cooking and cleaning, and while we’re developing a really good, interconnected relationship, I miss having a religious community, a music community, and deep-rooted friends and family to hold me accountable and to remind me of how my actions affect those around me. I find that life in this study abroad program feels rather temporary and unsustainable because of this lack of responsibility and commitment. While many students in my program thrive off of this complete independence or unaccountability, this aspect of my experience is causing me to look forward to being more grounded and committed when I return home.

TRAVELING
Because my program schedules classes Monday through Thursday, I’ve been able to do a lot of traveling around Costa Rica on the weekends. Here are some of the highlights:

• Sam, Ben, Kristen (my Sioux Falls friends who are also volunteering/studying here), and I hiked up the inactive Volcan Barva near Sam’s home in Heredia. We also spent a night with Ben and Kristen’s host family in San Ramon.
  
• A few students and I traveled to Montezuma, a beach town on the Nicoya Peninsula (Pacific coast) known for its beautiful waterfalls, warm-water swimming holes, and live reggae.
  
• My host parents, Gaby and William, have taken me on two short hiking trips in the mountains where we viewed some of the most beautiful countryside I’ve ever seen and eaten the freshest of tropical fruits and vegetables.
  
• Three students and I made the long journey by bus and gondola to the isolated Tortuguero Village on the Caribbean coast in hopes of seeing green turtles lay their eggs. The Village is full of Caribbean character including one of my new favorite foods—rice and beans Caribeno, a dish soaked in fresh coconut milk with spicy, jerk flavor. We not only got to witness a mother turtle laying her eggs in the middle of the night, but we also saw a variety of birds while canoeing, a group of white-face monkeys chasing a bright green lizard (who we named “Jesus Christ Lizard” for its ability to walk on water!), baby turtles making the epic journey from their eggs to the sea, and a few huge crocodiles and caimans lounging on the shore of a lagoon. It is indeed one of the richest places of natural beauty and biodiversity!
  
• My two closest friends from my program (Amanda and Caitlin) and I took two long hikes in the rural town of Orosi. The village is nestled in a mountain valley near two volcanoes, making the soil rich and fertile for incredible plant life. The views from the mountainside were breathtaking and we also enjoyed talking with locals because of the non-touristy nature of the town.
  
• Our main program field trip included site visits to the Dole banana plantation, Earth University (a four-year school that offers agro-engineering degrees to students of developing countries with an emphasis on equipping those students to return to their countries and begin or continue grassroots environmental sustainability programs), a sustainable organic macadamia nut farm that also focuses on maintaining Costa Rican culture and traditions, and a sustainable Quaker dairy farm that specializes in homemade ice cream (where I milked my first cow and thought of the Wolds!). In addition, the final overnight of the field trip were spent in rural host stays at some of the farms in the region. My friend Mike and I stayed at an old woman, Chepita’s organic chocolate farm! Her humble, yet sustainable lifestyle included fresh chocolate milk at every meal and a patio that overlooked the Caribbean on one side and a volcano on the other! The field trip stirred dreams of organic gardening and opening up a café that specializes in local, organic foods and feeding the poor……:)

JOHN’S VISIT
This past week John (my boyfriend) visited for about five days! It was so wonderful to see him again. We traveled to Cahuita, a small beach town on the southern Caribbean coast, and had a relaxing weekend of hiking, swimming, biking, and eating excellent food. We walked the trail in Parque Nacional Cahuita on Friday and Saturday and saw a sloth and two kinds of monkeys. On Sunday we rented bikes and rode 15 km to another beach town, including a stop at Punta Uva where we found the most beautiful sandy beach lined by a palm tree forest with mountains in the distance. When we returned to San Jose John got to meet my host family and see the Universidad Latina where I take classes. It was a highlight to have him come visit!

ESPANOL, MY HOST FAMILY, AND FOOD
My Spanish is still certainly up and down, but I’m enjoying being able to understand and speak with a bit more ease. I still celebrate when I can get full sentences out with correct grammar, but my conversational abilities are at least a lot better than in my first weeks and I’m enjoying the challenge of learning the language.

I continue to absolutely love my host family. Our conversations over coffee and meals are so enjoyable and their patience and persistence in wanting me to feel happy and wanting to teach me Spanish is nothing short of admirable. I am so grateful for how easily and enjoyably we can live together.

Finally, I must write about the food here. One of my favorite ways to encounter Costa Rican culture has been through eating and cooking. Gaby buys a weekly supply of fresh fruits and vegetables from the ferria (market) of local farmers that come to our neighborhood each Saturday. And she is a firm believer in home cooked meals eaten around the table with family and friends—I couldn’t agree with her more. With some frequency, Gaby and I join each other in the kitchen for her to teach me some of her specialties. So far she has taught me how to make sopa negra (her black bean soup), tres leches (a famous Tico torte), arroz con leche (rice pudding), rice and beans Caribeno in coconut milk, apretados (coconut ice cream), fresh fruit batidos (smoothies/milkshakes), patacones (plantain chip-like things), empanadas, and corn tortillas. ¡Que riquisimo!

I apologize for the length of this message—you might think it’s been almost two months since I last wrote!

I miss you all, think of you often, and would love to hear about your lives. Send an update when you have a moment!

Puerto Viejo, dog update, and election night!

It’s been entirely too long since my last blog post, and for that I apologize. The family computer here at home is still out of commission, and by that I mean it completely died. Which is lamentable on various counts, my inability to have internet access at home being one of them, though dwarfed by the fact that their hard drive was one of the things that was fried. Meaning, they lost everything they didn’t have backed up, including years of pictures of students they’ve had with them, I don’t know how much music and video Eric had, and four years of university work of Jessica’s. Life goes on. . . pura vida.

In other news, a couple weekends ago I went to Puerto Viejo, a Caribbean getaway town near the Panamanian border on the east coast. I spent the weekend there with Genna, a friend from Chicago, and Marius, the Norwegian. Genna asked me literally the day before if I wanted to go with them, and so on a whim (and two buses) I headed out with them Friday after class. The culture there was about as relaxed as I’ve ever encountered . . . it seemed most aspects of the lifestyle revolved around Bob Marley and marijuana; I’ve never been surrounded by so much of either (though I personally had none of the latter . . . hi mom!). We hung out at the beach most of Saturday, after which I once again escaped a full day of beating sun with very little sunburn! In the evenings we heard live reggae bands play, including a fun jazzy-acid-reggae group called JasminKarma, from whom I got a free CD!

The second night we met up with a couple more Heredians/gringos we knew, Chelsea and Ben, and had dinner at an excellent Indian restaurant. Afterward we headed to a couple of clubs, and at the last one we met two gentlemen in classy white shorts, sports jackets, and bowler hats (think outfits from The Untouchables with short sleeves), one from Colombia and Honduras. I talked with both of them as much as I could, and although the Colombian provided more intelligent dialogue (his companion was rather drunk), the man from Honduras said one of the more interesting things I’ve heard while down here. Not wanting to limit my input from locals to Costa Ricans, I asked various cultural things to both. When I asked (in Spanish, of course) the Honduran “What’s the Honduran government like?” he gave me a very serious look and in an extremely sober (despite his drunkenness) tone, he told me, “Fragmented . . . greedy . . . and corrupt. But, I love my country. I love my country.” Shortly afterward we regressed into a conversation about the evils of the United States for which I lacked the energy and he the ability of articulation, but his commentary about his country was not something I will easily forget. I can’t help but wonder if his attitude is entirely common amongst Central American countries we so easily label as “backward” or “corrupt” (and usually with some good reason).

On an entirely different note, I’d like to give an update on the dogs in my community. Pork Chop (whose real name I still don’t know) has learned to trust me, and only comes barreling at the gate of his home barking away if I’m accompanied by people he does not know (just ask Ben & Kristen!). Charley (our family dog) is learning to like me more and more, mostly because I’ve been taking more opportunities to go out back and give him even one minute of attention, a major highlight of his day. There are two pieces of news regarding The Captain. The first is that it is a she, much to my surprise. The second, sadly, is that The Captain is no more. She got a little cavalier with a passing car and no longer greets any of us. Strangely, I learned (along with the news of her fate) that she was not owned by anyway. Apparently she just found our neighborhood one day, one of the neighbors occasionally gave her food, and she just decided to live here guarding the neighborhood of her own accord. Dogs are so cool.

On election night, Ben and Kristen (who do not have cable in their San Ramón home) came over to Heredia. We had Pizza Hutt for lunch (the first American food I have had, thank you very much!), then headed back to my house and watched CNN for about six hours straight, from about 5:00 right on through Barack’s speech around 11. It was very fun for all of us to feel somewhat a part of the excitement that night, connected to the events of our home so far away. It takes a trip outside our borders to see how important our presidential election is to the rest of the world. Obama made front pages everywhere I looked Wednesday morning, the vast majority of Ticos being happy with the results. The evening before Election Day I talked about the candidates, electoral system, and other things with my host brother Erick. He was pretty frustrated, agreed that the Electoral College is bunk, and expressed strongly his hopes that Obama would win. He made another cultural comment that moved me: after telling him in the past two elections in presidential years our country averaged roughly 46-47% voter turnout, he shook his head and said, “How can it be that over half the people in the United States that can vote don’t take the time to do so? They must not understand that they have a voice in deciding the fate of the modern world.” Central America sits on edge while half of us stay at home . . . yet another interesting perspective you don’t get in the states.

As I write this, I just got back from a weekend near Volcán Arenal with Ben and Kristen (Anna, unfortunately, is sick). I’ll let them fill you in on the details about that. My parents are coming in a week! That’s got me pretty excited. As always, if you’re reading this, I’d love to hear from you – not to ask me about my life here, but I want to hear how you’re doing. You matter to me =)

Take care!