Panama: Day 1

I don't think that I'll ever have a job as conducive to traveling as teaching at Jiangsu Teachers University of Technology. It was ridiculous. Because of that, I'm not going to be taking nearly the sorts of vacations I took back then, and of course, the Peace Corps doesn't exist for us to take vacations-but we are given some vacation days. So, although I could write up the trip to Panama in one post, I'm going to string it out into many posts. Also, I have a feeling that some other Peace Corps Volunteers might want to go down there on vacation, so I'll mention restaurants, etc. by name.

The trip down was a 16 hour bus ride, but since I've already been on one of the worst bus rides ever, it was a breeze. Due to all sorts of plans getting changed and ticket purchasing complications-I ended up traveling down with Eric, Liz, Elena, and Katherine, all fellow volunteers. We traveled with TicaBus, in the 'executive' class, which meant they gave us snacks and meals-which I thought were delicious, but I also haven't ever been disappointed with airline fare. The seats reclined and were reasonably comfortable, although I had already seen Taken on a plane, I watched it again. I don't know how in the world two separate travel providers have thought this movie appropriate for traveling, but they have, it blows my mind! They keep the bus super cold, so that if you can't sleep, at least you'll go numb. A fun anecdote was that, at 23:25, for our bus that was to leave at 23:00, when I went out to ask if this was the right bus and everything was okay, the other guy that had gone out to ask the same thing was also American. We left 40 minutes after official departure. No one apologized or said anything. C'est la vie.

(Panama City skyline seen from Casco Viejo)

The border opened at 6:00. We arrived at the border at 4:40. We stood in line, there were some bench like opportunities and plenty of curb to sit on. The British spell curb "kerb." This is only slightly less mind-blowing than the fact that a company that drives buses to Panama every day has its passengers wait at the border for almost an hour and half. And imagine if we had left on time! I can't think of a good reason why this happened, yet I'm open to suggestions. I am proud to say I was the first person to get out of line, cross the street, and sit down at the restaurant that opened at 5:15, and had a nice breakfast of gallo pinto and eggs.

The rest of the trip went very smoothly. Literally, the highways in Panama are significantly, noticeably, considerably better than those in Costa Rica. They're almost exactly the same as American highways. There are certain downfalls to having the U.S. all up in your business for the better part of a century, but certain benefits-like nice highways. Another novel concept in many of the towns where we stopped were pedestrian overpasses. In much of Costa Rica, and the entire region where I live, after you get off the bus, you wait for it to pass and then cross the highway. A student from my high school was hit by a car and killed this way this year. Pedestrian overpasses, on the other hand, either Panama or their American friends, figured out, avoid this problem.

 (Casco Viejo district-where I stayed)

Panama City also has something amazing (number three so far, for those of you keeping score): a central bus station. Yes, one bus station where all the long distance buses stop, and many of the city buses as well. It's also right next to the airport. Amazingly convenient. The bus to our destination didn't seem to come too often, so we taxied into town, got to our respective hostels, washed up, and had a delightful dinner, and I had my first Panama Beer-amazing creativity in that name! We ate at Pedro's, which was kind of an imitation sports bar (emphasis on boxing)-good pizza, good salads, but there's better at other places we went.

Oh, at the border I had to change my watch, which brings up the fourth thing that I instantly loved about Panama, they use Daylight Savings Time. It doesn't make as much sense here as it does in places farther from the equator-but-hey Panama isn't quite there, so it still makes sense. And, well, additionally, I'd much rather have the sun go down at 18:30 than at 17:30!

*There are some pictures from past day one, forgive the inconsistency, but there are lots of pictures I'd like to put up, Panama City is quite photogenic. 

Getting wet

So, my last post went up when I was taking my first vacation in Panama. It was a blast, more to come soon on that. After that I spent five days in San José for my mid-service training, which was a great chance to see everyone from my group, share successes and challenges, and learn some new things. After that, the plan was to come home, relax, and get up some blogs about Panama. Well, the rain had another idea.

Heavy rains in the mountains combined with heavy rains in the area where I live, and the biggest flood I've seen yet came to town. When I returned from training, the main bridge to the side of town I live on was out, meaning that school was out as well-the pedestrian bridge, which is much higher, was still well above the water. Everything seemed fairly okay (the bridge floods every month or so) when I went to bed, but I did notice that family I live with was up super late. The next morning, the family I rent from woke me up and suggested I start to put everything that was on the floor or low shelves onto my desk, shelves, and bed. Coincidentally, one of my two bosses happened to be in town for a meeting with the teachers I and other volunteers work with. Due to the flood, this meeting didn't really happen, but he was concerned about me, so he took a raft over to my side of town, checked out the flooding, and he suggested I get out of dodge for a bit. I left just as the water crossed the doorway into my room. So, I spent two delightful days with Megon and Kevin, a couple near me, and even got to see Megon's elementary school choir sing at a Christmas festival (which included lots of tasty tamales as well!).

(if you look closely, you can see a brown barn on the other side of the where the road and bridge usually are)

To further delay these posts, upon return to my house, everything was fine, besides some water stains on the wall and doors (water got to 14 or 15 inches in my room (.38 meters)), yet, the Internet wasn't working. So, after some wire checking and waiting for the family to call the phone company, the Internet finally got working the other day, so expect the posts to start coming. Enjoy the pictures-the one at the top is my house (when I left it), the one below is the road out of town-it got in on the flooding as well!

Books

While I was fairly busy during training, one thing that I did realize is that I was going to have plenty of time to do some reading in the Peace Corps. I still remember from one of my interviews the interviewer talking about how a girl she served with read War and Peace in just a few days during the rainy season-as there was little else to do. That turned out to be fairly true. I got through a few books during training-and shamelessly plugged the Kindle to anyone who would listen. I still will: I’m a huge Kindle fan. If you travel much, live abroad, or have a fear of libraries: the Kindle is one of the best buys you can make (assuming you enjoy reading).

There are plenty of things to occupy my time here, and many things that I probably ought to be doing a lot more of, but with Costa Rican television offering nothing more than telenovelas during the evening, many a night can be spent with a book. Sometime early in my service I decided that I would try to read a book a week during my service. I got well ahead of pace early on-with no school in January and February, and my community diagnostic report coming along without taking too much of my time (I even turned it in early!) I spent plenty of time on the couch with my Kindle. I was eager for a conversation with my new host family-but understood that they didn’t want to spend every waking hour talking to me and, in the case of Estefany, my host sister, actually watch the telenovelas.

Getting Internet at my house made a million things easier for me, but didn’t help out my reading. Well, rather, just shifted it. I spend lots more time reading news and random Wikipedia articles online than before, but my book reading has slowed down. The other big block to my reading was the fact that I got hold of some TV series, and well Friday Night Lights and The Wire pretty much sucked up all my leisure time. (Both are highly recommended.) Bus rides help, so my trip to Panama (going on right now) will hopefully help that out. Unfortunately, I have to say, that as of November 25, I had slacked a bit, and had only read 55 books. One a week would have had me at 58 or 59. Guess I’ll have to pick it up over the remaining year plus of service. So, now, on to the good stuff: my reviews. I tried to read a balance between non-fiction and fiction, so I’ve broken up the recommendations that way. And, well, in doing these, I’ve realized that I’ve got pretty low standards, which is great, because it meant that I’ve enjoyed almost every book I’ve read so far.

Top three fiction books (this was hard to choose):
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
-The characters were incredibly human. It was difficult at times to understand why the main character did what he did, and at other times not at all. Just like real people. 

The Quiet American by Graham Greene
-Fantastic characters and great settings. Thought provoking and chocked full of quotes to write down, read again, and think about. Not directly emotional for me, as I was born 13 years after the US pulled out of Vietnam. 


The World According to Garp by John Irving
-It was fun, sad, interesting, thought provoking, and fun. I liked the main character a lot, I don't know if that's true for all readers, I tend to think it isn't and probably shouldn't be. Mostly though, it's a fun book, like a good novel can be. 


*Dubliners (Joyce), Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Safran Foer), and Pride and Prejudice (Austen) were also in the running.

Top three non-fiction books (even harder to choose):
Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell
-Much of the reason I like this book is that much of it fits within my beliefs and positions, I'll admit that much. Yet, I'd highly recommend it because it takes an economic and objective view about some of our most commonly held beliefs regarding society.



The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
-It was a page turner for me. Granted I studied finance and am super interested in finance and economics. Regardless, it's a great perspective on the financial crisis by a great author.

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer
-An incredibly interesting subject is treated with the seriousness, attention to detail, and frank honesty that he deserved.

*Plan B 4.0 (Brown), The Looming Tower (Wright) and The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (Schroeder) were also in the running.
Worst fiction book:
The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
-The author used lots of fluffy words and mystical expressions to cover the fact that he was putting an undeveloped character in unrealistic situations-which made the book hard for me to be interested in. I think you can put fantastic crazy characters in realistic situations and vice versa, realistic characters in fantastical situations make amazing fiction-but this book does neither. Maybe it's better in Portuguese. 

Worst non-fiction book:
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
-There were some passages that I wrote down and will repeat and think about for years to come. There truly are some great passages.  Yet, that doesn't overcome the fact that I could barely get myself through pages of describing which lake froze first in the winter, or on what date the lake had frozen the last few years, or how long he cut the boards to make the wall, or a cost analysis of corn meal versus Indian meal...I think you're starting to get the point. It's a whole lot better to visit nature (or watch Planet Earth) than to read about it.

And, in looking over my reading list (there's no way I could've done this from memory) I found it fun that these three books were on the same list: Eat, Pray, Love; The Communist Manifesto; and The Fountainhead. 

Black Friday

Last week, I was walking through San José on Wednesday afternoon, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I was walking down San José's central avenue, which is a pedestrian avenue for a ten-block stretch in the center of town. Walking with a guy I know from my town who had come in on the same bus and was headed the same way, I noticed that a number of the stores had advertisements up for 'viernes negro'-Black Friday-translated without any creativity. I was genuinely surprised.

I asked my friend about it, he seemed to not be fazed. He saw it as a good opportunity for the stores to advertise and celebrate a foreign holiday. I found that to be about as positive an interpretation of the phenomenon as possible, and he's a pretty positive guy. I tried to explain two things to him: one, that Black Friday is only special because it's the day after Thanksgiving, and two, that in the US most people (should be all) don't put up Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving, so Black Friday serves as an unofficial (or heck, official) beginning of the Christmas season. He understood and agreed that it was kind of odd that Costa Rica (and I imagine many other countries) celebrate Black Friday on it's own.

My initial reaction was, how ludicrous (and sad) it is to have Black Friday but no Thanksgiving. I'm sure some people that are better consumers than me are more into Black Friday, but I'd say it is the worst holiday we could export or have imported. Yet, on a more productive note, this conversation got me thinking about how culture is shared. Giant shopping days aren't uniquely American, yet Black Friday is. America's influence on Costa Rica is pretty significant, due to proximity, tourism, and politics (and in a small part The Peace Corps). Yet, why is it that Black Friday is the American holiday with a presence on San José's main street. Did American corporations bring it down here to increase sales? (Granted-it was the Costa Rican vendors that had the most prominent displays.) Did Costa Rican businesspeople working in both the US and Costa Rica implement it to grow sales? There are certainly more possibilities, and perhaps the real answer will surprise me. I wish that having lived abroad a few places would allow me to answer this question, but it hasn't. It is one of the more interesting things about living abroad-seeing which parts of foreign cultures (especially my own) have been adapted and which haven't. Like, why is Slayer so popular in Costa Rica? I don't know why, but it's fun and challenging to think about.

Turtle Power

I'm going to dedicate this post to my Aunt Erin and Uncle Dave. She's a great turtle lover, and the two of them keep a good crew of pet turtles in terrariums and their backyard pond/turtle zone.


Last week, I was Gchatting with Angelo, another volunteer, getting some information about my upcoming trip to Panama, as he ran the marathon there last year. It turned out to be one heck of a great decision to get in contact with him that night. He asked me if I lived anywhere near Tortuguero, I told him yes and he invited me to accompany him and another volunteer, David, on a short trip they were taking there at the end of the week. A few texts the next day, I grabbed a bus to Guápiles, then another to Cariari, waited for their bus to arrive, grabbed a tasty lunch, and we were on our way to one of Costa Rica's numerous natural treasures.

The trip to Tortuguero represents incredibly well one aspect of Costa Rica. It's a country with a plethora of beautiful and ecologically rich locations. It's a pain in the neck to get to them. As the crow flies, I'm about 40 miles (65 km) from the coast inside of Tortuguero National Park. Yet, it took three bus rides and a boat ride, (maybe 3.5 hours-not including waiting time) for me to get there. Part of this is due to the fact that the park is only accesible by boat or plane (it's all rainforest and coastal marshes). Yet, the fact that much of the only road to the only river port to Tortuguero is partially dirt road (not even gravel) says lots about the state of Costa Rica's infrastructure. Now, that wouldn't be such a big deal if Tortuguero wasn't so amazing. But, it is.

Hopefully the rest of this post will show why Tortuguero is so awesome. The national park was set up in 1975, after Archie Carr, an American professor/scientist worked with the Costa Rican government to set it up as a protected area for sea turtles to lay their eggs. Since then, it has now become the single largest nesting site for green sea turtles in the Americas. It is 312 square km (120 sq. mi) along the Caribbean Coast in NE Costa Rica.

(my camera's zoom isn't that great--we were really that close)

On the boat ride in, a friendly tour promoter (who ended up being the grandson of one of the locals that helped found the park) got us signed up for a 5:30 am tour of the canals the next day. So the first night was a quick check in at the hostel, dinner at the adjoining restaurant (amazing chicken in Caribbean sauce with rice and beans cooked in coconut oil-Caribbean style), a walk around town, and we hit the hay.

The tour was awesome. We were in a canoe with our guide, Steve, a Nicaraguan immigrant that had been in Costa Rica giving tours for over 20 years, and a young Austrian couple. The silent nature of the the wildlife tour prevented us from getting to know much more about them. There were a fair amount of other boats about, including some motorboats that the rich tourist staying at the fancy lodge took. I didn't see them scare off more than a few birds, but even that is just inexcusable. Get in a canoe! Steve paddled us through the canals, which separate the various islands in the river delta area that makes up the park. We saw three types of monkeys (howler, spider, and white headed capuchin), various types of heron, turtles basking in the sun, three grown caiman, a baby caiman (it was quite small), a sloth chilling in the tree, and so, so much foliage. Although the caiman were the best part for me, I did really enjoy canoeing around in an environment so different than anything I've been in before. It was so green, there were so many plants, I mean, it is the rainforest. The video below is of a white headed capuchin making his way across the canal-without getting wet.

(look to the upper left of the screen to find the monkey)

We passed the day with some naps to make up for the 5:30 am wake up, a delightful lunch looking over the river and a gorgeous, lush island, buying postcards, cruising around town, and then were in for an afternoon hike through the rainforest and a chance to see some baby turtles. The walk was quite interesting, if not hurried by all of hoping to escape the mosquitoes (this included Steve the guide) and our eagerness to see the baby turtles. The walk did include three sightings of the eyelash viper. Luckily all were sleeping and no one was bitten.

Our walk along the beach, hoping to see some baby turtles, was fruitless. The hatchlings, I was told, head to sea when they sense a big change in the temperature, so at sunrise or sunset. In the evening we enjoyed another great thing about Tortuguero-because so many tourists come in, it has some great food. My pasta for dinner was solid, but the nutella crepe for desert was delicious, and I seriously considered making Angelo and David stay as I ordered a second.

The sunset search failed but we had hopes for the sunrise so we headed out early (4:30 am early) which turned out to be too early, as it was still too dark to see, so hatchlings 10 feet ahead of us would've been invisible. We scouted the beach hard, for over an hour, when, as we headed back to the hostel disappointed in seeing nothing, Angelo spotted something, and we ran over. Well, something it was. About 30 green sea turtle hatchlings were making their way to the Caribbean Sea. We all watched in amazement at the tiny, cute little turtles scuttling their way to the ocean. It was awesome. We were just in time, as they had already made it down about half the beach, and we got to see them throw themselves into the calm morning waves. I was lucky that Angelo asked to take some pictures with my camera, as he got up much closer and took some great shots. The video below should give you an idea of what it was like.

Cook and eat like a Costa Rican

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm actually fortunate enough to be attending what should be a great Thanksgiving feast this year, and expect more on that later in the blog.


I've mentioned gallo pinto-one of Costa Rica's most common dishes-previously on this blog. As many of you may know, I'm not a big cooking enthusiast, although I'm not in any way against it. I just find cleaning equally exciting-so I often am engaged in you cook-I clean exchanges. Regardless, I realized the other day that I didn't know how to make gallo pinto. And that sharing how to make gallo pinto would be a great way to share about C-Rica with all of you, my friends, family, coworkers, and random netizens. Note, I think I've said this before, but gallo pinto translates to English as 'spotted rooster' and gets its name (supposedly) from its likeness to the coat of a spotted rooster.

So, I convinced Laura, a delightful and kind junior at the high school, to allow me over to her house to watch her mom cook gallo pinto. It's nothing special, her mom or she make it every morning or evening, as it's what the family eats (almost) every day for breakfast. That's pretty common among Costa Ricans. I was super excited when Laura informed me that her semi-retired dad is the guy that travels around my town in the afternoon selling pupusas, empanadas, coffee, and various other snacks to all the merchants (afternoon coffee is a big deal here). Her mom makes these snacks, meaning, she's a pro. Above is a picture of me and Laura's mom in their kitchen, and no I wasn't working hard and sweating, that's wear my rain jacket allowed in some water on the bike ride over.


On to the process. I don't have exact measurements, because a woman who's been making gallo pinto for more than twenty years doesn't need a measuring cup. This should serve 3-4 people.

Step 1: finely chop half a red or green pepper, half an onion, and about half a cup of cilantro. She used two types of cilantro, including the never before seen by me type pictured to the right. Looks like dandelion leaves, smells and tastes just like cilantro.

Step 2: cover bottom of pan with cooking oil (maybe 1/4 or 1/3 a cup). Turn on medium/high, add chopped onion, cilantro, and pepper. Allow to cook for 1-2 minutes.

Step 3: add a normal coffe mug full of yesterday's beans (do not strain). I'm guessing this was a bit over a cup, but for real, she just filled up a mug. Allow to cook for one minute.

Step 4: add about two cups of yesterday's rice (already cooked). Stir. Turn up to high. Cook for one minute.

Step 5: add a tablespoon of Salsa Lizano, more or less to taste. Allow to cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. (This is a great time to fry eggs/scramble eggs/fry plantains/make toast/warm tortillas: one or more of these things is what is normally served with gallo pinto.)

Step 6: eat.



Note: the three ingredients that are probably most difficult for the average American family to have would be: yesterday's beans, yesterday's rice (well, not Asian-Americans), and Salsa Lizano. As Costa Ricans eat rice and beans with (almost) every lunch and dinner, it's a non-issue here. I've written previously about Salsa Lizano, which is like Costa Rica's ketchup/ranch dressing/salt and pepper. (They do use ketchup a lot--but gangster European style mixed with mayonnaise). 

I can easily say that, tied with chicharrones, gallo pinto is by far my favorite Costa Rican dish (yes, I know that neither dish is uniquely Costa Rican). I'd highly recommend trying this out. Shoot me an email if you have questions. Use the pictures instead of my measurements to guide your amounts. 

Paso a paso

In high school, if I'm remembering correctly, my Spanish textbook series was called 'Paso a paso' (step by step). Ironically, that phrase turned out to be pretty useless here in rural Costa Rica. 


While I would argue that people in different countries, and even different regions of the same country are much more similar than they are different, differences exist. Sharing and hopefully learning from those differences is much of the Peace Corps' goal/mission. There are big differences, the ones you notice day one, like that the taxis are red here or that people eat rice and beans with every meal. Then there are the less obvious differences that come much later. Which is where the stairs come in.


While stares are often a part of me living in rural Costa Rica, stairs are not. (Bazinga!) I noticed this not because I often think about going up and down stairs, but because I've been occasionally doing some running (I have a race coming up). Now, perhaps my calves are just getting weaker with age, but I've noticed that they have been getting tired first when I run, and are much more sore than any other part of my body the  days after running (sparse running brings about this long soreness period). After some thinking, I think that it may be to a lack of use of the old calf muscle-due to a combination of lots of bike riding (working the quads and gluteals) and not going up any stairs. It's probably more the bike riding, but, isn't it crazy that there's only one building in all of my life that has me going up stairs.

(the world's longest staircase, clue: not in Sarapiquí)

I don't really know why Costa Ricans aren't building more two, three, and four story buildings. Land is pretty valuable in this country-with it being very productive for farms, much of it protected, and in some areas-flat land is hard to come by (three mountain ranges in a country one third the size of Iowa). Maybe the economically feasible building materials  make it hard to build two stories, maybe all the earthquakes discourage taller buildings, maybe Costa Ricans just don't think it's a big deal. Even San José, the capital city, is marked (in my opinion) by it's extreme lack of tall buildings. Many are now being built, but it seems like that should've happened long ago. Either way, I climb maybe 12 stairs, twice a week for my community English classes (given in the community multi-purpose building) but that's it. I guess I could do some jumping exercises, but I'll probably just deal with the sore calves. If nothing else, you can say you've learned something today: not a lot of stairs in Sarapiquí, Costa Rica.


And, I'd be remiss if I wrote about stairs and didn't reference the classic Mitch Hedberg joke about them. It's about halfway through this video. 

MTB

Variety is the spice of life; well at least that’s what I’m told. With that in mind, I was fortunate two weekends ago to do something different, and try something new. Mountain biking. Mountain biking is a pretty big deal here in Costa Rica, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it’s always biking weather and that more than half of the country’s population lives in a valley between two mountain ranges. Or maybe it’s just one of those things, like how there was a ridiculously high amount of Johnnie (sp?) Walker in Laotian small towns based on the income in those towns. (And why only scotch and no regular whiskey?) My bet’s the former. But, back to the story, after the All Volunteer Conference I received a call from José, one of my two bosses (the conference is a three day get together of all the volunteers in country to share ideas, receive training, and engage socially (my team won trivia night!)).He called asking if I wanted to come through on my one time, off hand statement that I'd like to go mountain biking with him sometime. Because I'm a man of my word, I said yes.

So, after a ridiculously early 5:30 wake up, bus ride to the bus stop at the turn off to my county, and a pick up from José (he was coming from the other way but passing by) I was at my first mountain biking event. It was impressive. As I said, mountain biking is a big deal here, so a bunch of the various mountain biking teams have formed an organization that works with communities to put on mountain biking events. They are essentially races-except no one keeps time and there are no winners. The route is marked, there are snack/water stops, everyone has numbers, some get t-shirts, etc (aka just like a race, but not a race). It was impressive. I say that twice because Costa Rica is not exactly proficient at event planning-but everyone was on a bike, had their number tied on, had water bottles filled, tires pumped, and had checked in by nine o'clock-the official start time. Like, not 9:15, not 9:05, but 9:00. It was impressive. Unfortunately, being a race day sign-up, I didn't get a t-shirt-but I still got two energy bars, so what's there to complain about? (There is one thing, I'll get to it in a minute).

The race was awesome. I had a blast. Of course, I love riding bicycles, so that may have been part of it, but not all of it. It was advertised as the 'Hanging Bridges Route', and we did indeed cross five different hanging bridges. Being hanging bridges, they were all too narrow and unstable to ride over, so we walked that part. I walked some other parts, like up the toughest hill, and the one really technical part of the race. But I'm here to write about it, and lost my pride long ago, so I think walking was the best decision. Most of the race was on dirt roads throughout the Rio Frio district of my county (SE of where I live). It's green. It's pretty. Lots of pretty fields, some nice rainforest. Some great vistas. Some of the road was on narrow trails through the banana fields. Main object during these areas was to avoid running over rocks or hitting myself on the metal fencing and cable supports. Some of it was on dirt trails through the forest by the river. Absolutely beautiful. Main objective was to avoid rocks. A small part of the race was through what was essentially a small stream flowing down into a creek. This was the most difficult terrain of the race. Think of the muddiest road/trail you've ever seen in your life, fill it with rocks and small boulders. This is what we were riding through. Well, I wasn't riding. Unless there is some secret I'm not aware of, it was during this part that I learned that mountain biking is essentially a test of who can best grip his handlebars while continually saying 'Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit' to himself. Oh, and avoiding the big rocks. That's where the skill comes in: avoiding big rocks. The wonderful bike that José's brother-in-law loaned me performed beautifully, I only broke one spoke. Not bad for a first timer. Not good either.

The only thorn in an otherwise rosy ride was the fact that at one crucial turn in one of the banana fields the sign indicating for the riders to turn right had been taken down (not exactly sure by whom, or why). José and I had met up at a fruit and water break, then crossed over the bridge and ridden through the forest alongside the river. There wasn't anyone close in front of us, and the guys behind us had waited at the bridge for some other riders. So, we entered a banana field on our own. At the T-intersection it wasn't clear which way to go, as there were trails and bike tires in both directions. We chose left. We should've chosen left. We were in the bottom right hand corner of the field, but instead of cutting through this bottom right corner to get to the road, we road all the way through it to the left edge, then all the way around a giant square back to almost where we had started. As José said, the race was 45 km, but we rode 50.

I'm excited to take part in another event, and hopefully won't break anything if I'm allowed to use a borrowed bike again, and yes, I'll make sure to bring a camera next time (unless I'm again coming from a previous trip where I didn't have it). Thanks for reading! Please send grammatical corrections.

Bullicioso

The blog title is one of the Spanish words for loud/noisy. I love it, mostly because it's long enough that you can make it louder as you say it, to really get your point across. 

Most of the time, on most days, life here in Costa Rica tends to fit the peace part of the Peace Corps job title. As I've tried to get through, Costa Rica is a pretty laid back country, both in people's attitudes, the speed of customer service at the banks, and people's movements about town. This is amplified for most Peace Corps volunteers, as we live in the country. Many of my coworkers live in towns of less than a thousand, where life is generally quite calm. Yet, for me, there are three things that tend to disrupt the tranquility of life out by the edge of Puerto Viejo. The first is a good disruption. The national government has put some priority to getting a road established along the northern border-where it has recently had some border spats with Nicaragua (essentially related to the Nicaraguan election-but a bit more complicated). While I'm a good distance from the border, I think it has motivated the county government to improve the road that heads north from my town. I live about 500 meters from where the paved road turns to gravel road, so, all the trucks full of the gravel to resurface the existing gravel road and build more north go by the house all day. I can deal with that noise, it's the sound of progress. 

(car alarms or a young ne'er-do-well on his motorcycle can quickly ruin this calm, bucolic scene)

Sound number two is the opposite of progress. I've never understood what turns girls on about a guy taking his muffler off of his motorcycle and then incessantly revving his engine and speeding up and down the road. Of course, I've never understood much about what turns girls on. Needless to say, that I don't understand some of the local girls, because they seem to be impressed and some even cheer as some young fellas ride up and down right in front of my house, their motorcycle engines blaring. Living across from the high school comes with this cost. And, yes, if you're wondering, the engines are so loud that teachers have to stop talking as the motorcycles blast by. Loud engines don't seem to be one of the laws that the traffic police enforce, so I think this is a problem I'll be dealing with for awhile. I've tried to explain to some high school girls who lend me their ear about how ridiculous and unattractive revving your muffler-less motorcycle is, maybe I've changed some minds. Change takes a long time, and the social acceptance of this behavior has to change before I can call these guys the misguided punks I think they are: I'm doing my best!

Disruption number three comes in the sound of car alarms. Now, car theft is a real threat. Prosecution of criminals and justice isn't Costa Rica's best suit, and definitely not Central America's, so I'm all about prevention. Having said that (great Seinfeld episode), car alarms drive me up the freaking wall. Those who know me well know that I can get pretty amped up about things, well, this is one of them. I have to use two hands to count the number of times I've seen a car owner take more than 10 seconds to turn off the car alarm. Here's my simple question: when you, dearest Costa Rican car owner, got your car alarm installed, did the mechanic really not tell you how to turn it off? Furthermore, did you really not ask? This is a disruption that I'm unwilling to accept, how can people not know how to turn off their own car alarms. My worst case of suffering was watching a woman set off her own car alarm trying to lock her car, then take 2-3 minutes to figure out how to turn it off. 

So, now you know what waves (type: sound) are abounding around Sarapiquí. And you've read an entire blog post that was nothing but a rant, I apologize, I'll try not to do it too often. To reward you: here you can find out how many words are in the US tax code. And here you can see the amazing (if tacky) power of free markets and free minds. 

Independence Day

I've never been good about getting things done ahead of time, if anything, I really perfected the just in time manufacturing process when in college. One of my favorite college professors used to always joke that my papers were "hot off the press". So, you shouldn't at all be surprised, that due to vacation and then the Internet issues, I'm only just now reporting on Costa Rica's Independence Day. As a number of my coworkers have confirmed via Facebook, blog posts, or text messages, Costa Rica's clear leader (I mean way ahead of the pack) for most important holiday is Independence Day. Having now been here for more than a year, I've seen the whole gamut of Costa Rican holidays, and Independence Day is just way, way, way more celebrated than any other holiday. 

Independence Day really is a misnomer, I mean it is one day, but the celebration essentially lasts for a week. Classes will be cancelled almost every day of the week that includes September 15th, as assemblies will be held celebrating various aspects of Costa Rica's independence. This is actually quite a task, because, well Costa Rica never really did anything for its independence. Before 1821, the land that is Costa Rica belonged to the Spanish captaincy general of Guatemala. After Mexico fought over a decade for its independence, the rest of Central America met in Guatemala and sent off a little letter to Spain proclaiming independence. Its independence as a country was kind of murky for the next 27 years, before Costa Rica really takes off with being a sovereign country (government institutions, currency, flag, etc.). So, due to this nature of independence, Independence Day and the whole week that goes with it kind of becomes a civic and patriotism week. In fact, I heard more in the assemblies about Costa Rica defending itself from filibustering Americans and border invading Nicaraguans than about independence from Spain. Assemblies also included traditional dancing, which is a big deal here!

Costa Rica's Independence Day Celebration really gets going the day before. School is cancelled in the afternoon as students do a torch run. They reenact the (possibly apocryphal) run of torches from Guatemala to the outlying provinces to announce the independence. I consider it possibly apocryphal because I got various stories about exactly how far into Costa Rica the torch run came, what route it took, and why the delegates at the assembly in Guatemala couldn't have just brought the news back themselves. I was told the torch run started at 12:00, so I rolled into town to watch it at about 12:15, having become a proper Peace Corps Volunteer and integrated into the countries way of not ever starting on time. But, somehow, a miracle occurred, and I had actually missed the students bringing the torch to our town. I rode my bike a bit along the route, and didn't see any runners-so think maybe I was given bad information. 

The next item of business are the lanterns. All the elementary school students make and decorate little wood lanterns and then there is a little parade/ceremony as the kids show them off a bit after sunset, the national anthem is sung, as are a few other anthems. I'm not exactly sure the inspiration for the lanterns, but from what the Internet has to offer, it has to do with a bunch of lanterns being used the night of September 14, 1821 all around Guatemala City to wake everyone and tell them of the independence. I was unable to attend this ceremony as I was at home sleeping in preparation for the next activity. 

La diana (etymology and appropriate translation very uncertain) is an activity which is not uniform across Costa Rica. In some regions, like Sarapiquí, where I live, it's a big deal. In other regions it doesn't happen at all. I was told that it couldn't be missed, by more than a few people, and that I should plan to get to the plaza (soccer field in center of town) around 11 or 12, and plan on being up all night. So, to prepare, I took a nap from six to ten. La diana had been explained to me as people partying to bring in Independence Day. It was exactly that. I arrived at the plaza a bit before midnight, and after cruising around on my bike, found a guy from my community class and the son of a night school secretary. I enjoyed chatting with them, but, in general the first three hours were pretty underwhelming. There was really only a group of 20-30 people in the plaza, and many might be considered "sketchy" by most observers. Around two am, the owner of the copy shop and some of the copy shop employees showed up. These are the guys that call me marsupial, and who had invited me most strongly. Pepo, the copy shop owner, had a cooler stocked full of brews and had the stereos going full blast. It was around two or three that la diana really took off. More and more cars and motorcycles came to the main street of town, more and more people were walking about the sidewalks, drinking domestic brews and generally having a good time. Some of the guys from the copy shop played a concert until they blew out a speaker. Only one fight broke out, and actually amounted just to lots of posturing, and very little fighting. As dawn was just about to crack, I jumped in the back of Pepo's van and the main event started. This is a parade of cars driving among the communities in the area, waking everyone up for Independence Day. The parade goes about 3 miles an hour, and is a good thing, as most drivers have been imbibing in the center of town for awhile, and they can't really shift gears, as one hand is permanently pressed on the horn. One of the hardware stores in town even had a small band playing in the back of a big truck. Impressed doesn't even begin to describe my opinion of the way Costa Ricans bring in their Independence Day.

After a quick nap and cheese stuffed plantains and coffee, we headed back into town for the main event-the Independence Day parade. School bands had been practicing for months (more on that later) to get ready for the parade. Now, Costa Rica is a very relaxed country, it is still developing, and Sarapiquí is a very poor and underdeveloped part of Costa Rica. But, shoot, they don't mess around with the Independence Day parade. All the practice and dedication that I had seen by the various bands was augmented by their sharp uniforms (even the super poor elementary school bands had snazzy uniforms) and the water suppliers. It was a typical hot and humid Sarapiquí day on September 15, so each school had a group of volunteers going around squeezing water into the band members parched mouths. The parade was awesome. Seeing the teachers I work with with their families was awesome. Seeing the community get together (only time of the year they do) was awesome. Seeing my host brother as a flag bearer for the high school band was awesome. Coming down from a long night of drinking wasn't awesome, but seeing students' and teachers' looks as I told them I participated in la diana was awesome. 

*These photos are from Chris and Tarah, a couple serving near me, participating in la diana kind of prevented me from having my camera for the parade. Trust me, I'm more disappointed than you are. 

Stickers and bananas

I've got an excuse, but a poor one, for my lack of posts since getting back to Costa Rica 10 days ago. I've been having very odd Internet problems, and it took me a few days before I could chat with some of my more enlightened friends to figure out what the problem was. I'm actually still not sure, but now have a temporary workaround. So, blogs should be coming up. It was great to see everyone I saw back home, and unfortunately my time was limited, so I wasn't able to visit everyone/everywhere I would've liked to.
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It's not every day that you meet someone that does something that you end up seeing every day. Well I didn't today, but I did a while back. I hope everyone bears with me as I recount blogs from long ago, I've got plenty of free time, but haven't seemed to get myself to write blogs of recent. 

On with the story, which may not be that interesting for you, but it was quite interesting for me. During the week long celebration of Independence Day at the night school (more on that later) there was some sort of assembly or "civic activity" every night. Now, don't imagine a gym full of students paying attention to a well planned out program. Instead, imagine a few people on a sidewalk next to a field, talking on a not quite loud enough speaker system, it's night, so you can't see them too well-as if huge number of students standing on the flat field between you and the sidewalk weren't blocking them anyways. So, in this type of environment, a lady gave some speech about staying in school (having already completed that task, I stopped paying attention). Well, there was some down time after the speech, so I chatted up some students standing next to me. 

After determining (sadly, I have to add) that I knew more about Costa Rica's independence from Spain than they did, I asked them about where they lived, if they worked, etc. One student, not surprisingly told me she worked on the banana plantations. I asked what she did, she said she worked in the packing plant. I dug deeper, and found out she puts the stickers on the bananas. She works for the Chiquita subsidiary, so we're talking about the blue and yellow stickers with the Chiquita banana lady. My guess that my impressed, amazed, intrigued look was a bit different than what she gets from most of the rest of the people in town. She said it's not the worst job, but is hard on her back, as the conveyor belt with the bananas is pretty low so she has to bend down to put the stickers on. I was incredulous and thought a machine would have put them on, or at least a sticker gun, but nope, they have little racks with spools of the stickers and put them on all day long. She added that putting stickers on bananas eight or nine hours a day is pretty boring, but she can chat with the other ladies/girls doing the same thing. She seemed fairly ambivalent about the job-it was not much fun, but it was a job, indoors, with good hours (the men that work in the fields get up super early) and she likes her coworkers. Either due to my amazement that I had met a banana sticker lady, or to my incredulity regarding the lack of machines, she brought some stickers for me the next night. So, as you can see, there's proof. They now adorn my bike. 

I'm currently living it up in the USA (you should start chanting USA! USA! USA! right now). I have plenty of stuff to share about all sorts of happenings in Costa Rica, but probably won't be doing that during my vacation. But, for the time being, if you're wondering about what Costa Rica does really, really well-it's celebrate its Independence Day.

The ol' J-O-B

While I spend most of my time working on Peace Corps goal #1-the helping Costa Rica meet its need for trained men and women, I thought I'd throw up some observations about Costa Rica-part of goal #3-helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the behalf of Americans. 

First of all, I'd like to quote my good buddy David W., who probably was quoting someone else, in that "the differences within groups are much greater than the differences between groups." I firmly believe that a well-educated, wealthy, urban, middle-aged Costa Rican male would probably find as much, if not more, in common with a similarly well-educated, wealthy, urban, middle-aged American male than he would with a poor, sixth grade educated, rural, middle-aged Costa Rican female. Or more succinctly, I think socio-economic factors affect one's personality and interests as much as where they are from, if maybe much more. But, I'm no sociologist, and the U.S. government isn't paying me to act like one. So, here's to promoting a better understanding of Costa Ricans (or Ticos, as they all call themselves). 

Costa Ricans are super open, friendly, and nice. I think this is something that is super noticeable between the various countries I've been to. Especially where I live, in a town, but in a rural area, people smile, wave, nod heads, whistle, or utter a grunt at almost everyone. A low, guttural 'hayyyuuuuppp' is my preferred method. It makes sense, it's a relaxed tropical country (aren't they all)-so there's always time to say hi, shake hands and chat.  Add on that it has a huge tourism sector, and there's lots of incentive to smile and wave. 

Costa Rican teenagers and young adults (mostly male) are infatuated with heavy metal. Iron Maiden, Slayer, and Megadeth make t-shirt, backpack patch, and graffiti appearances way, way, way, way more often than would be expected. And it's not like it's that a bunch of old guys are wearing ropa americana t-shirts (see below), they look to be original buys.

Ropa Americana (American Clothing) is a big deal in every small town I've been too. From what I can tell, it's less donated clothing, and more unsold/excess stock from clothing brands back in the US. Tiny little Rosario, where I did my training, featured a ropa americana store among it's six or seven businesses. Some of the biggest clothing stores in Puerto Viejo are ropa americana stores. Aéropostale and American Eagle seem to be the brands with the biggest influence at my high school. 

Out here in the hot, humid plains/river deltas, Costa Ricans young and old absolutely, totally, completely LOVE ice cream popsicles. Regular ice popsicles not so much, but ice cream popsicles absolutely. Coconut and chocolate chip cookie are the biggest sellers at the high school. I believe my use of the obnoxious all-caps was justified in that I'd say each high school student averages 1.5 if not two ice cream popsicles per day.

Despite having gorgeous flowers growing everywhere, surrounded by lush green foliage, littering is a big problem. Except in the center of town, most litter never gets picked up, so sidewalks, roads, and trails are generally bordered by ice cream popsicle wrappers, among others. It's not just a countryside thing, San José is littered with litter (haha) and the street sweepers are constantly falling behind. 

I'm often the only male with more than a quarter inch of hair at the high school without gel in my hair. Includes teachers and staff. Costa Rican dudes are all about gelling up the hair. I attribute this to the emulation of European soccer stars (see image on right (most popular athlete on Facebook, 7th most paid athlete in the world, and my least favorite player on my favorite team)). That's my best guess, maybe it's something else, I'm willing to take any guesses for gratuitous gel glops. 

Men watch soccer. Women watch telenovelas.  Okay, maybe that's a bit too general for my list of generalizations-yeah, there are popular variety shows, the news, random American TV series (CSI, Smallville, House), and reality shows. But lets not get caught up in the exceptions. I'd bet a Hamilton (or a Gamboa for Costa Ricans) that if the TV's on and a man's watching-it's soccer and if a woman's watching-it's a telenovela (imported from Mexico/Colombia/Argentina).

Let's all remember, these are all generalizations, but, I've been to every province this country has to offer, and well, I'll bet a rojo to anyone that disagrees with these generalizations. Oh, yeah, if you don't know what a rojo is, then you're not qualified to be making generalizations about the country. 

(image source: http://www.whitegadget.com/pc-wallpapers/41210-cristiano-ronaldo.html, http://scenerux.blogspot.com/2011/08/zion-lennox-amor-genuino.html)

Do I look like a kangaroo? Opossum?

I promise, the post title will make sense. So, one of the big goals of the Peace Corps is community integration. I think the idea is that if we are seen as a member of our community that people will trust us to lead economic development, health, and education projects. Also, being part of the community will help us be able to share about American culture and learn Costa Rican culture. Integrating into my community is a big task. I'm not going to say that integrating into a community is harder in one community than another, and on the whole, I'd say among the 68 countries that the Peace Corps is currently working, Costa Rica is probably one of the easiest in which to integrate. Yet, I say it's a big task because my community is much bigger than almost all other Peace Corps communities in Costa Rica. The regular high school has 1,100 students enrolled and the night school more than 700, so with 1,800 people, my two high schools have more people than communities of maybe half my colleagues. I'm not making excuses or complaining, just explaining, that I'm in no way about to claim that I'm integrated into my community. I'm still working on integrating into the high schools. community integration. 


I do though, spend a lot of time at my town's version of Kinko's. Copicentro Sarapiquí has the poster board, markers, folders, and contact paper I need to make classroom materials for the community classes I teach. And, as it's name indicates (I'm going to boldly assume you're witty enough to figure it out without the translation) it provides me with all my printing and photocopy needs. On top of that, it has a friendly and funny staff of young twenty-ish guys, most of them pretty fresh out of high school. I originally introduced myself to the staff during one of my walks around town introducing myself and the Peace Corps. After that, despite being in the store once or twice a week, I didn't develop much more than a friendly business-customer relationship. 

Two events changed this, one of the guys that works there lives with my host mom's nephew, who had told the worker of an arepa dance I had done. Arepas are like pancakes-not exactly the same, but pretty much. My host dad had a little song that he sang sometimes when we ate arepas, I think there is a slight sexual innuendo used with arepas, but honestly, I can't remember it now. I made up a dance to the song some day when we were eating arepas and much of the maternal extended family was around, because all songs need dances. Well, one day at the copy store, upon hearing about my dance from his roommate asked me to do it, so I did a brief, subtle version (I'm not trying to look like a giant fool in public, well, not yet).



After this event I joked more often with the copy store staff and/or make comments about how I had no problem with homosexuality to them-which may make them think I'm gay, open-minded, or both. The second event happened when one night as I came in they were making some jokes amongst themselves involving the YMCA music video, sadly, the joke was probably quasi-homophobic. But, I not only sang along with vigor, but threw up my arms and did the YMCA. I let them know that a good song is a good song, whoever sings it. I had time, so I sang along as they played some Doors and Led Zeppelin videos. Since then I have all sorts of fun when I go to make copies, mostly saying ridiculous things (or things that become ridiculous said with my accent), and joking around with the workers. Often they see if I know what a Costa Rican slang word means: I often don't. They have called me a few nicknames (one guy refuses to call me anything but Clark Kent) which usually have to do with the slang words they are trying out. I'm more than willing to be the butt of their jokes.

So, the most recent nickname, which came at the end of a conversation a few of them had that I didn't understand (lots of slang, plenty of distractions to my listening) was marsupial. Luckily marsupial in Spanish is marsupial, so I understood what they were calling me. Just not why. I guess that means I've got some more integration to do, eh?


(images: http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek030608.html, http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Eastern-Grey-Kangaroo-Kosciuszko-National-Park-New-South-Wales-Australia-Posters_i2668538_.htm)