new paint, new car, and new people!

Hi again from the land of the pure life. Thanks for all the emails you’ve been sending! :)

Last weekend I did in fact go play some basketball with my friend Ashley – felt really good, but I was a little more out of shape than I thought I would be! We’re not allowed to use the University’s gymnasium until their school year officially starts (February), so we went and found an outdoor public court. It wasn’t great, but it was available, and we had fun. While we were there we ran into David, a fifty-something-year-old gringo from Portland who was spending some time in Costa Rica with his Colombian fiancée while they waited for her to receive her engagement visa from the U.S. We were going to simply ask if he wanted to play with us, but he ending up telling us a good deal of his life story and providing a fairly detailed discourse on his opinion of the United States and our collective outlook on Latin America. Interesting conversation. His Spanish was pretty good, I suppose (ought to be, seeing as how he’s marrying a Colombian in February), though he’s one of those gringos I’ve decided are a little “accent deaf.” Anyway. . .

Things are sure active here around the house. They’ve been painting pretty much the entire house, and Luis is currently working on the living room right now. Eli keeps asking my opinion on different colors for walls without actually showing me the color or knowing exactly which walls she’ll put it on. She just says something like “Sam, what do you think about brown here and yellow here?” I, of course, have no idea what shades she’s talking about, and what’s more, I simply can’t believe that she doesn’t really have it planned out ahead of time. It seems like they just went and got a bunch of colors that they liked and are painting walls on-the-go in combinations that seem to work at the time. I’ll let you know how it turns out. In other news, she finally got her new car! It’s a 2001 forest-green Vitara, and though I haven’t ridden in it yet it looks very pretty. She’s very proud of it, and the rest of us are all very happy that the search and process of buying it is over (*whew!*). Charley is still here, even though they’re still trying to give him to someone else (they just don’t have the time to take care of him properly anymore).

It’s still “very cold” down here, according to Eli and occasionally the others. Eli told me today that she thinks I brought some frigid South Dakota weather with me (so if it’s warming up at all up there, you’re welcome!). Every time she starts telling me how cold it is, I’m always happy to tell her that putting on a sweatshirt might help. She’s starting to catch on to my perpetual response. To be honest, it is considerably cool at time, particularly at night. This is mostly due to the stronger-than-normal winds they get this time of year. I can’t quite say “strong,” because, well, I'm from South Dakota. When they told me how cold it is, I told them they don’t know what cold means. Likewise, when the wind picks up, I tell them that they’ve got nothing on good old SD. Even the gringos down here think it’s pretty blustery.

Speaking of which, I’m still getting to meet a few more people every couple days. I would say that our group isn’t quite as eclectic as last semester’s, but I’m not complaining at all. It’s been very fun getting to know those with whom I’ve shared some casual conversation. Once again, it’s a little different being “one of those ones who were here last semester.” Sometimes I feel very helpful letting people know where stuff is (the best coffee shops, cheap lunches, bus stops, post office, etc) and things like that, but other times I feel a little awkward when we start talking about how our Spanish is coming. Having completed the “Advanced Spanish” track last semester, everyone seems to assume I’m perfectly fluent, which of course is far from true. I’m still learning plenty every day. That having been said, I’m really glad I have another 4 months to smooth out some of my rough points.

This weekend I’ll be spending a day in Palmares, which is a once-a-year mega party that seemingly all of Costa Rica’s youth goes to for music, rodeo, and I’m not sure what else. I saw some coverage of the festivities on TV yesterday and it looks pretty nuts, but fun. I spoke with more than a couple ticos last semester about it, and they all were pretty excited for it. More details to come after I get back.

This past week Angie’s parents and sister were living with us as well, so it was very fun to meet them and have them around the house. Her mom, Vianey, is a hard working mother of three (the eldest was not here) and was very amiable. It was a little odd to hear both her and her daughters refer to Elizabeth as “tía” (aunt) when there’s actually a generation split, but oh well. Angie’s younger sister, who’s very dark complexion has earned her the title “la India” (little Indian girl) was ridiculously shy, and it took almost a full day of being in the same house for me to hear even a sentence out of her. She was very cute following her mom around the house, and it was too bad to see them leave a couple days ago. Angie, by the way, has become considerably more talkative. We talk all the time now when we’re both around, and she’s even joined Jessica and me in our efforts to drive Eli insane. The four of us (Eli, Jessica, Angie, and I) all watched “Hitch” the other night in Eli’s room, all of us managing to cram together on their queen sized bed. Fun night.

Couple more random things: First of all, the title of my last blog post (with the musical notes) actually is a hyperlink to weather.com’s current conditions for Heredia. So, if you ever are feeling particularly cold maybe you could give that a click and feel a little bit better knowing that someone you know is enjoying it!! =)

On a completely different note, please keep Jessica and Eric’s dad in your prayers, as he was assaulted last week in a town here by a couple of men who robbed him and beat him up pretty badly, including breaking his leg in three. Thankfully, the socialized medicine here will cover his upcoming operation and medication costs. That’s not a political statement, just a fact. I very much doubt that he would otherwise have coverage for this.

That’s about all for now. Again, if you ever want to know any more details or input on any aspect of my life down here in particular, please let me know! Until next time, take it easy.

♪ Oh, the weather outside's delightful... ♫

So far, so good. This semester is looking like it’s going to be a pretty good one. Once again I have very small classes this semester (I think the average is something like 4). That having been said, I didn’t really get a chance to meet as many people as I would have liked in class. Nevertheless, we had our first group weekend trip yesterday (Friday) which was originally supposed to include a tour of the Café Britt plantation (more or less the coffee giant down here) and then Volcán Poás. Well, the route to Poás was completely destroyed during the earthquake last week, so they changed it to Irazú. Shortly after that decision was made, the government shut down the route to Irazú as well for safety reasons. Finally they decided to go to INBIO park, the wildlife preserve that last semester’s group visited.

Long story short, I went to Café Britt in the morning, mostly just to get acquainted with some new faces, and walked back to Heredia with the other Costa Rica “veterans” (as we occasionally call ourselves) who had already been to INBIO. Although I didn’t get to meet everyone, it seems as though we have a pretty good group. It’s larger than I originally thought it would be, as many people added the program at the last minute and weren’t on the original list of Spring semester students that USAC sent out. I also finally got to see Derek Harmon yesterday morning (another Augie student) after an entire week of being within a few miles of each other and not seeing one another! We talked about Costa Rica, I told what to expect in different aspects of the culture and academics down here, and he told me how much he loves his host family and everything else. He seems to be settling in nicely.

Wednesday evening a few of us went to the movies, where we split up to see different things and had dinner afterwards in the local mall’s food court. Some of the girls went to see “Marley and Me” (aka “Marley y Yo”) while my host sister Jessica and I saw “Yes Man” (“¡Sí, Señor!”), which we loved. One of the nicer things about being here so far is that Jessica has finished her classes and is not so bogged down by homework every night. She’s currently looking for a job (with her soon-to-be-official business administration degree), but until then she’s had a lot of free time to spend with friends and her little host brother. She started English classes again today, which she takes apart from her university classes, and I’ve been forcing her (kindly) to practice with me.

We also have a temporary addition to the family this month, which I failed to mention in my last post. Angie, the daughter of one of Elizabeth’s nieces, has been living with us since a couple days after I got back. She’s 14 or 15 years old, fairly shy (particularly the first few days we met), and very hard-working. In February she’ll move back to her home in Limón (east coast) where she’ll be taking some very important standardized tests in math and science. In the meantime, she’s living with us, helping around the house whenever she can (certainly much more than I do!), and studying all day long. Jessica has been tutoring her in math (and maybe some of the science, though I’m not sure), which more or less is why she’s here. We don’t talk all that much, but she seems nice enough and we get along well. Sometime this semester my host family and I supposedly are going to go out to Limón to see Angie and her whole family, but when I’m not sure.

I’ve certainly heard plenty of updates from back home about the weather! It seems as though I got out of there just in time to miss the really cold stuff. Some nights here when the wind keeps blowing it gets a little chilly, but in light of the weather conditions I was in just a week and a half ago I never complain (though everyone here does!). Nevertheless, during the day it’s usually pretty steadily between 65 and 75 degrees...not that I’m gloating or anything ;). This weekend my friend Ashley and I were going to go to Sámara, a beach town/popular surfer destination on the Guanacaste coast (west side), but she got a call from a friend of ours who was there and said the waves weren’t that great this weekend, so we postponed it. Some of the new students here already are already traveling – I think a bunch of them rented some private buses out to Puntarenas this weekend.

As for me, I’ll just be laying low this weekend. I’ve got a couple of Skype appointments to keep, and some reading to do. I’m about halfway through reading Les Misérables (one of my Christmas gifts – thanks Santa!), and it’s quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite books. This afternoon I’m going to go play basketball with my friend Ashley (a different one) and some other people. As for classes, it’s looking as though I may well have every Monday and Friday off this entire semester – there’s a lot to be done in Costa Rica with four months of four-day weekends! This isn’t final yet, but it’s very possible. The administrative folks here are still doing some class shuffling to resolve scheduling conflicts that everyone’s having, so we’ll see what happens.

I’ll let you know if anything exciting happens. These are both some ways off, but I have a couple of tentative week-long excursions planned. A few of us are currently either trying to cancel or have canceled our group trip (through USAC) to Nicaragua and travel on our own for cheaper and longer, which we’ll likely do at the same time the group goes (because there’ll be no classes that week). Also, a couple of us are planning on going up to Guatemala for Semana Santa (Holy Week), which is also our spring break. Like I said, I’ll let you know.

Thanks always for the emails and support, and for keeping me in your prayers. I miss you all, and I hope some of this nice weather heads your way soon. Take care of yourselves.

There and back again: A Gringo's Tale

Hey there everyone...

It has been a LONG time since ANYone posted on this blog, so please forgive us and allow me to do a little catch-up. After our parents left Costa Rica, I had a good but fast few weeks before I headed back to the states myself. It was SO good to see everyone at home – even though I missed all my friends a ton, I don’t think I fully realized how happy I’d be to see everyone again. I spent pretty much my first week back at Augie (it was finals week and I wanted to see as many people as I could before everyone went home for the holidays). Afterwards, I had a very relaxing couple weeks leading up to Christmas. As most of you reading this may already know, Ben and Kristen surprised everyone by coming back December 23, just in time for Christmas, instead of the January 6th arrival that we all had been expecting. A six-month lie, while terribly naughty of them both, turned out to be the joyous surprise that I’m sure they had in mind when they bought their airplane tickets in June (even going so far as forging documents indicating a false date of return). I’ll let them post to fill you all in on the details.

Christmas was great – seeing my family was fantastic. I called my host mom Elizabeth Christmas morning, and Ben called Gretel. After passing through Minnesota and Wisconsin, we came back to Sioux Falls in time for New Years Eve events. Nevertheless, before I knew it, the number of days before my departure to Costa Rica quickly became 0. It’s a very confusing state to be in, being simultaneously excited to come back to Costa Rica and see my host family and all the new students in my program, and at the same time having to say goodbye to a hundred-and-too-many people all over again having just spent such a great month with them. To everyone to whom I didn’t get to say farewell, I’m sorry, and I’ll see you in May (unless you Skype me!). I’m trying not to think about it too much, but just for an FYI I’ll be flying back into the states on the 7th of May. Until then, letters are still appreciated and are still the highlights of my weeks and months.

That having been said, I’m back here in Costa Rica! Saturday I spent pretty much a full day on planes and in airports, which happens to be one of the worst ways with which I’m familiar to spend a day. My Spanish is not as bad as I thought it might be after a solid month of not using it at all. It is, of course, a little behind (which my host sister is delighted to point out at all possible moments – we haven’t lost our wonderfully bickering brother-sister relationship). Classes started today, and I’m sure the Spanish will come back fast and furiously and be better than ever by May. Being in my host family’s house was a little odd – the evening I got here I looked around and felt at the same time as if it had been forever yet at the same time like not a day had passed. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but hey, I’m Lutheran. Speaking of which, I still need to find that Lutheran Church that’s allegedly in San José somewhere….

A word about the earthquake: For those of you who aren’t aware, this past Thursday there was a major earthquake in Costa Rica which made world news and had some pretty serious effects in different parts of the country. Fortunately, neither Ben and Kristen’s host family nor mine here in Heredia were affected, but certainly a little scared. Nevertheless, communities not too far from here were hit hard. As I write this blog entry I think the official death toll is 25, but the number of missing people exceeds 60. I watched the local news here tonight, and some of the landscapes they showed are a more than a little disheartening. La Paz Waterfalls Park, for example, which I visited near the beginning of my time here last semester, has been ravaged and access to it aside from helicopters is virtually impossible. If you log onto KELO TV’s website (http://www.keloland.com/videoarchive/index.cfm?VideoFile=010909costarica) there is a story about the quake featuring interviews with my brother and me (does not seem to work in Mozilla Firefox).

Anyway, life goes on. They’ll be talking about this quake for quite some time, and rightfully so, but everything is still pretty pura vida around here. Our first trip for the program is supposedly this Friday, including a stop at Volcán Poás. Seeing as how you can’t really get there anymore, I’m sure that will change. Since I was already here last semester I didn’t attend orientation, so I’ll have to start meeting people at class. It’s going to be different without Ben, Kristen, and Anna around here (a matter which also obligates me to post more often to this blog, as I’m the only one here now). I’m not the New Year’s resolution-type, but one thing I’m determined to do this semester is speak less English. I certainly learned plenty of Spanish last semester, but I feel as though I regressed way too often with my fellow gringos. I suppose that if the grammar and spelling of these posts become really terrible, you’ll know I’m doing a good job of keeping mi resolución.

I’ll try to get an update posted after the first week of classes. All new professors, all new classes, and almost all new classmates (including Derek Harmon, a fellow Augie Viking!). This semester I’m taking Spanish Stylistics (a sort of advanced composition course), 20th Century Latin American Cinema, International Political Economy, School & Societies in the Global Environment (I’m not entirely sure what this class will be about), and hopefully an internship in a local school. I’ll likely be adding to that list, if not in another class from my program then perhaps an audit or two in classes with the locals. Neither my internship nor audits with the ticos will start until February, so I’ve got a pretty lazy schedule until then.

Take care of yourselves. Email me anytime! =)