The Peace Corps Logo: Painted and all over San José

I've been lucky to have been fairly busy this month, so I'll finish up the blogs about Panama, a bike trip, the beach, and a basketball camp I'm about to leave for after I return...sorry again to be such an inconsistent blogger. But, during the wait, you can enjoy some pictures of me with various doves scattered about San José...Costa Rica's take on CowParade. In case it hasn't been made clear in previous posts, Costa Rica (or at least some Costa Ricans) are really proud of not having an army and having the laid back, 'pura vida' lifestyle, and thus identify themselves as a peaceful nation. I generally agree, with the caveat that gaping holes in sidewalks and motorcycles without mufflers can kill any 'peaceful' vibe quite quickly. By the way, I love CowParade-esque exhibits.

Panama Day 3

The three of us started off this day with a jog down to the hotel where we were to pick up the information and gear for the marathon. Oh yeah, the reason I went down to Panama was to participate in the Panama City Marathon. San José had one around the same weekend, but of course, it's more fun to run marathons in interesting places, like where the world's most important canal is (sorry Suez and Erie). It was a gorgeous jog along the promenade that looks to have been recently constructed, which runs from Casco Viejo to the other edge of the bay, which is just minutes from downtown. Running past the fish market first offers delightful seafood odors, but then degrades into a more rendering plant type odor, but fades away quickly. I think what we most noticed during this run (at maybe nine in the morning) was that it was hot. I mean hot. The sun's pretty strong when you're only 8 degrees above the equator-but more on that later. When we got to the hotel we were kindly informed that the packet pick up wasn't that day, but only the next. We had checked the website the previous afternoon, which still said it was both days, but hey, what the heck. We headed back. 

As we were already sweaty and in active wear, I suggested we climb Cerro Ancon (Ancon Hill) which is the highest point in Panama City. We headed that way, getting directions from a friendly old porch sitter that I think wanted to sit us down for a conversation, but we escaped. We had passed somewhat awkwardly through the entire Panamanian department of health and then some very nice houses, including the restored and relocated home of the original Panama Canal director/commissioner/executive. We were about to turn around when we saw a guard booth, and I decided to ask how to get to the trail. There was a bus of people that had been dropped off next to the guard tower, which should have clued me in, but I still asked, as I finished my question, I noticed in my peripheral vision a sign saying "trail for Cerro Ancon" and as the guard lazily pointed to the sign, I realized the stupidity of my question. On the other hand, we weren't lost, and apparently just took the long way up the hill. We enjoyed the rest of the climb, great conversation,  and occasional glimpses of the city and the bay. At the top we were privileged to great views of the city and the bay, and way more exciting for me: the Panama Canal. There were great views of the parking lots lots and more parking lots full of intermodal containers, the Bridge of the Americas (literally, it connects North and South America-legit), and the Western entrance/exit to the canal. 

We stopped for a little snack at a fonda (small, local restaurant) initially just to get something to drink, but they had great prices, and the food looked good so we enjoyed some de-lic-ious meatballs and patacones, along with more than a few fresh juices. I'm sure the lady's thought I was some kind of goofball, ordering three juices, but the climb up the hill had me thirsty. This restaurant also had some sweet posters on the wall ceilings, an eclectic mix of communist revolutionary heroes, baseball players, and 1960s musicians. If you ever thought that Fidel Castro, Ichiro Suzuki, and Jimi Hendrix don't belong on the same wall, you were wrong. 

After showers and some consulting with other people at the hostel, we headed out to see the Granddaddy of Them All: The Panama Canal. It was awesome. Amazing. The ships were so big. That may seem obvious, but, I'm serious, they were enormous. Very impressive. We went to the Miraflores locks, which is where all the tourists go-there is a museum, gift shop, and decks where you can watch the boats go through. Yes, there are actually bleachers where you can watch, just like a football game, boats crawl through the canal. We saw a fishing boat and a cargo ship go through the locks. I think it's one of those things that is just hard to describe. Screw the bleachers, I was leaning over the railing. Infrastructure, industry, and engineering are quite exciting for me (even with my neanderthal like understanding of physics), so I was pretty stoked the whole time. I was so excited I even took videos, of course, watching water rise against a boat for eight minutes isn't probably going to get lots of hits on youtube, but it was so impressive at the time I thought it might. All I can say is, I'd go again. For the fourth or fifth time in two days, we ran into Eric and Liz, who we had ridden down with and who were also running with us.  Additionally, the canal district is very interesting, as the neighborhoods (astonishingly!) look almost exactly like older neighborhoods in small American towns. 

I had dinner at Ciao Pescao, a pricey but delicious ceviche restaurant. Had the Mexican ceviche, super tender and tasty fish with jalapeños and other Mexican treats mixed in. Their beer list also included Paulaner Heffenweizen, one of my favorite beers, so I was very happy. Henley (another volunteer in for the race) and Jake (accompanying Henley-but not on the run) met up with us, and we then walked around the streets and ended up eating at an impromptu restaurant. By impromptu I mean that the lady brought the gas tank, grill, and cooler of food in the taxi and borrowed a table and chairs from a resident. Low on capital cost, but high on flavor, the fried fish was excellent. as was her ability to get some guy to ride his bike and come back with a box of beers. So, after the double dinner, I was in good shape. Not as good shape, though, as Katherine and Elena, who decided to splurge (in retrospect, I should've too) and ate at Manolo Caracol, a restaurant recommended by Angelo (a volunteer who did the marathon the year before and provided some great recommendations). I should've splurged too, because the restaurant serves 11 or 12 courses, the chef's choice. Katherine and Elena both like to cook/are into food and were both just gushing with praise after the meal. 

Panama Day 2

My second day in Panama started out at Luna's Castle, a very cool, fun, and well organized (considering the number of people there) hostel. It had very nice common areas, clean rooms, ample bathrooms (often the make or break issue for me at a hostel), and amazing views of downtown Panama City and the bay-full of sailboats and fishing boats-in between downtown and Casco Viejo.

Most of this day was spent walking around Casco Viejo. It was an amazing place to walk around, for a variety of reasons. First of all, it has beautiful colonial architecture. After Panama Viejo, the original city (which we'll get to later) was sacked by privateers in 1671, the main part of the city was moved to what is now Casco Viejo. So, old buildings from the 1700s and 1800s line almost all of the streets, and there are three or four beautiful plazas. During the 1900s, for a variety of reasons, but perhaps property value and a need for expansion, most of the government agencies, big businesses, and foreign embassies moved out of Casco Viejo. It gradually fell into disrepair and was taken over by squatters. The French Embassy is now a landmark, as it was (according to the brochures) the only institution that never left the area. This has created the second reason why Casco Viejo was so interesting: gentrification and revitalization in process. I have never before seen an entire sector of a city in the process of revitalization. It's quite interesting. On one side of the street will be a trendy restaurant, a boutique clothing shop, and a high end hotel. On the other side of the street would be a gutted out building, with wires going every which way, rusted out corrugated tin sheets serving as the roof, and clothes drying off the crumbling balconies-these squatters hadn't given up yet. On the weekend, huge numbers of fancy cars would come crawling into this part of town, with Panama City's elite coming to enjoy the fancy restaurants and trendy bars. During the day a similar dichotomy was found, with tourists cruising the streets and stopping in the shops, and the squatters kids playing pick-up soccer on the street and their mothers screaming from one balcony to another. Needless to say, Elena, Katherine, and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves taking pictures of and gazing at the multitude of pretty facades.

Taking a taxi in a foreign country is always an adventure. To be fair, I've heard of random taxi zone rules in certain American cities also throwing passengers for a loop. When one really thinks about it, there's a lot of trust involved in taking a taxi to any location for the first time. Although highly unlikely, one has to assume the taxi is legitimate and not going to kidnap you and demand exorbitant payment to be taken back to safety. More reasonably, one has to trust that the driver knows where the desired location is and will take a generally direct route. Furthermore, one has to trust the meter is working correctly (yes, meter tampering is common in certain places, and the button is always pressed if a white tourist gets in the car) or if one has to negotiate the rate, one has to trust the taxi driver isn't scamming him (generally best to assume the driver is doing so, and go from there).

In Panama City, taxi rates are negotiated for every ride. For the locals, there is a base fare, and then depending on the zone of the destination a charge is added, as well as a charge for each additional passenger. Of course, even after having read what these charges were, Katherine, Elena, and I had absolutely no idea, no idea, what zone we were in, what zone we were going to, etc. So, we wanted to go to Panama Viejo, and stopped a taxi, asked him how much, he told us, it seemed high, so we tried to negotiate, he was unwilling, so he left. He seemed perturbed. So, the next taxi told us the exact same rate, so we hopped in. Turns out Panama Viejo was actually across about half the main part of the city.

(earning her project points)

It was well worth it. Panama Viejo was a blast. Founded in 1519, it was the site of the original city, the oldest Spanish colonial city on the Pacific, yes, a specific record, but one nonetheless. In 1671 it was sacked by the privateer Henry Morgan (yes, the same Captain Morgan that is now mixed with Mountain Dew (or Coke if you're lame) and inspiring all sorts of hijinks and bad decisions by young co-eds all across the U.S). The reasons are still a bit fishy, but the mayor of the town burned much of the outlying areas to either block Morgan's advance or eliminate the desire to pillage the ashy city. Furthermore, most of the gold and other valuables had already been pillaged by other pirates, so Morgan and his troops fought a battle, ruining what the fire hadn't. Then he left. Most of the town was moved to Casco Viejo, and the burned out ruins were used as building materials. Yet, ruins still exist, and, at least for me, walking among buildings and up stairs that were built in the 1500s is always a mystifying experience. What made the visit about 10 times better was a group of high school juniors who, for their English/Tourism class, had to videotape themselves giving information about the site to foreign visitors. They really lucked out with us, in my opinion, as we helped them with pronunciation and translation-not every day the tourists also have rockin' Spanish. They were a lot of fun, had pretty darn good English for their level (I found out later they went to a magnet school) and we were able to ask them about their hobbies, favorite foods, the best Panamanian food, and various other things. It was lots of fun. I was super glad they approached us and we said yes.

We had lunch this day at Cafe Coca-Cola, a popular and historic Panama City eatery, which had a great vibe, good, simple food and was very reasonably priced. A definite recommendation. I'd also highly recommend Los del Patio, where we had dinner. It had a really cool atmosphere, a limited menu (which I love!) and very, very good food. The portions were small, but it the prices were reasonable and the service was great considering they were understaffed. A very relaxing place to slowly enjoy a nice meal and beer Panama or two to top it off.

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.