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.