Hola,
After 12 hours of travel, including a plane change in Chicago and one in Miami, I arrived in Costa Rica on Thursday, December 7, without a single problem. I hope my remaining 21 flight segments are so smooth!
Marco, the director of the Amistad Institute, and Horacio, one of his associates, met me at the airport and delivered me to my host family that night. It was too dark to see much on the ride from the airport. So I was pleasantly surprised when I left the house the next morning to go to the Institute. What a pleasant town!
Okay, so where am I exactly? I´m living and working in a town named Santa Barbara, in the province of Heredia, and located about 45 minutes outside of San Jose. This Santa Barbara looks NOTHING like Santa Barbara, CA, however, it is clean and charming. Many well-kempt, single family homes, painted all sorts of bright colors, with flowering trees and bushes everywhere. ¡Que lindo!
It´s tranquil here. It´s so different from Madrid, New York City, even Barcelona. The pace is much slower. The Ticos (how Costa Ricans refer to themselves) are pleasant, sociable, polite, friendly. When surrounded by such pleasant people, weather, scenery, why be cranky? But cranks don´t see the world that way. There must be cranky Ticos, but I haven´t met any in my one and a half days here.
My host family situation is the opposite of my host family situation in Madrid. Here, I´m living in a spacious house, in a large bedroom. The outside of the house is painted turquoise (adobe finish, ranch style) and has three bedrooms, at least two bathrooms, a living room, a family room, a kitched, a garage (with a car), a mudroom(for lack of a better description), and a backyard. It´s a lovely, lovely house.
The family consists of Mother Ivannia, Father Ivan, Daughter Oky, a mellow maltese dog named Punkey, and a friendly black and white cat named Whoosie the Cat, or Gato. Okay, so I forgot the cat´s name. He/she doesn´t come when called, anyway. Ivannia is a stay-at-home mom who doesn´t stay at home much. She´s very active at Oky´s school, and at her church. Ivan is an electronics salesman who works 12 hours a day, 7 days a week! Oky is 15 years old and cute as a button! She´s sweet. And all but two of her friends are boys. Her boy-harem protects her. They also hang out at Oky´s house so Ivannia can keep an eye out. You don´t mess with Ivannia. Ivannia is 5´2", normal thin, sociable, but very serious about certain things.
Much to my surprise, I´ve spoken little English since I´ve been here. I suspect the people with whom I live and work could speak English, but since, in theory, I speak Spanish, we´re speaking in Spanish. What I´m saying must be somewhat understandable as the conversation does progress. I´m just tickled pink that after only three months of study in Spain, I´m living using Spanish! Who knew?
Next week I start doing whatever it is that I will be doing. In the mornings I will study three hours of Spanish, then I will assist in the soup kitchen center across the street for four hours, then I can take additional cultural classes like dancing, cooking and fruit. Yes, fruit class. I´m definitely taking this one. Just what do they teach us in fruit class? As long as it includes fruit eating, I´ll be happy.
The Amistad Institute is the host organization in Costa Rica. In the States, I signed up with an organization called ELIabroad.org, who has relationships in various countries around the world. In Costa Rica, ELI works with the Amistad Institute, which is based in Santa Barbara. The Institute has relationships with various agencies in the area, and depending on what you can do or want to do, they will arrange the appropriate volunteer placement. In addition, the Institute teaches Spanish to foreigners, so many hours are devoted to helping you learn or develop your spanish. Lastly, the Institute wants to teach about Costa Rican culture and society.
The Institute is located on a beautiful piece of land that overlooks a gorgeous river. Part of the area reminds me of Wissahicken Park in Philadelphia, however the river at the Institute is bigger and has more water. They created a beautiful garden in one part. There is a bunch of huge bamboo growing by the river. And there is also a good view of the town of either Heredia or San Jose. It´s so tranquil there. A small paradise.
This morning I decided to take the bus to ¨downtown¨ Santa Barbara, all by myself! Yesterday, Avram, one of the associates at the Institute showed me how to do this. He took me on a tour of the center that lasted all of 10 minutes. There are actually quite a few stores. And an internet cafe from which I am writing this blog.
And such has been my adventure thus far.
cheers,
Stacey
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