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!