Adventures of a twenty-something (Part 4)

The best way to remember some of my experiences is probably through the emails I sent home during my time in Costa Rica.  Here are the most interesting ones I sent home to family and friends.

(I apparently loved exlamation marks and writing in all caps for extra emphasis at this stage in my life, so please excuse the excess use of both in the emails below.  I hope my writing has improved since then!) 

March 2004
I hope life is treating you all well!!!  As always, it’s a joy to hear from you.  All of your emails somehow manage to make me feel just hundreds of miles away from home instead of thousands.  Anyways, here’s an update on “la vida en Costa Rica” which I’ll try not to make too long or boring! 

Last time I wrote I think told you all about my new teaching job and how excited I was to start…well, scratch that!  What they failed to tell me is that this school is where all the kids with extreme learning/behavior/emotional problems that are kicked out of other schools go!  So let’s just say the first day of classes was QUITE the experience for me!  Imagine the worst student you’ve been in class with or taught, multiply that by 20, and you’ve got a class at Angel High School.  Honestly, these kids as individuals are amazing, so intelligent and have such great personalities.  But the second they’re all together in a classroom, their behavior problems take over and in a matter of minutes they’re shouting, talking on their cell phones, wrestling each other, standing on desks, screaming out the window, dancing, listening to their discmans, leaving the room without permission….I could go on all day.  We’ve had 3 weeks of class now, and although some days I can say went “ok,” too many have been “horrible” (or worse).  The school is so completely unorganized that we don’t know what we were teaching each day until the night before, making it almost impossible to prepare adequately and therefore adding to the chaos.  The vast majority of the students have absolutely no respect for the teachers, and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t get some rude, very inappropriate, and insulting comment from one or more students.  And believe me, I became a very strict, insistent teacher with rules up the wazoo in a very short time, even sending students to the director on a daily basis, yet these students could care less.   Overall, it just isn’t a good environment to be working in (or learning in, for the students).  So, after some hard thinking and several weeks of “waiting for it to get better,” I decided to quit and look for work elsewhere.  I kept hoping that it would get better or that I’d somehow magically figure out how to handle these tough situations with students, but to this day class is still a daily struggle and something I dread the moment I wake up.  Also, I’ve been having some health problems as a result of the stress of working there, and decided it just wasn’t worth it.  So…I’m looking forward to spending a week with my dear friends who are coming down to visit, and then it’s back to the old job search.  I have several contacts and job possibilities already, so I don’t anticipate the frustration and difficulty that I experienced when I first arrived.  I’ll keep you all posted as to where I end up!

Besides the high school, everything else is going great!  My roommates are amazing and I’m so incredibly fortunate to have met them.  (Thanks to Debbie!!!)  They were there for me when I went to the ER and have definitely become like family.  Since we’re all “away from home” (they’re Colombian), we´ve sort of made our own little family here, so it’s nice to have that sense of belonging and support system, especially being in a foreign country.  We´ve spent some time up in the mountains, fishing for trout and enjoying the beautiful scenery, a perfect escape from dirty San Jose, and even got to go to the Alejandro Sanz concert a couple weeks ago!  It was the main event of the month here (besides the zillion soccer games, that is) and we were fortunate enough to have gotten calls from MTV in Miami saying that we each won 2 free tickets to the concert!  So not only was it an incredible show by one of my favorite singers of all times, but it was also FREE!!  J 

Anyways, I promised to make this short, but of course I can´t ever write a SHORT email (plus there was quite a lot involved in explaining my teaching job!)...so you´ll have to forgive me!  I think about you all and wish you were here!!  Take care and best of luck with everything. 

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May 2004

Work is going extremely well! I now have 6 classes, considerably more than I expected and a lot more work, but it has been a wonderful experience so far. My schedule is tough, leaving the house at 5:30am and returning at 9:30pm, and leaves me in a zombie-like state by the end of the week. But I can´t complain, because I love my work. I couldn´t ask for better students! They are full of life, excited to learn, intrigued by English (and me, which can be both unfortunate and entertaining), have great senses of humor, and continue to challenge me. I just recently spent about a week trying to convince the security guard at Cafe Britt that there are only 50 states in the US! Apparently there is this misconception that there are 52 states, one of which being Puerto Rico. After hours of entertaining argument and Juan Carlos´s theory that 2 more states must have been added since I left the US, I finally won! So there really is never a dull moment in English class!! :-) I made my students chocolate chip cookies this week, and now have their approval to get married SOME DAY (as I can now bake, I guess!), and have other students plotting to throw eggs and flour at my head on my birthday (a Costa Rican tradition apparently). Let´s just say these guys keep me on my toes!

What else can I share with you that might be of SOME interest to you?? We´re now back in winter here, lots of rain, which means never leaving the house without your umbrella! It also means a new danger to avoid - getting your eye poked out as relatively small people with large umbrellas try to all fit on the narrow sidewalks! I miss the summer already. We have plans to go spend a few days in Nicaragua at a friend´s house sometime, but like all plans here, they aren´t really "plans" but rather casually saying we´ll do something such-and-such weekend and then that weekend arrives and we go about our regular lives as if we never even talked about doing it! Kind of frustrating for the overly-organized perfectionist in me, but I´m learning to deal with that! :-) Other than working a lot and making plans that aren´t plans, we manage to get out and have fun and spend time outside this lovely polluted city. Many of you have been asking me, but I´m still not sure what my exact plans are for the near future...I will be with my current classes until November for sure, two of my roommates are getting married in Colombia in January, so it´s hard to say right now exactly when I´ll be home or what my next plan of action is. In the meantime, I´ll be here for any of you with any desire to visit Costa Rica!!!!!! It´s been said that I´m a pretty decent host/tour guide... ;-)

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July 2004

Life in San José is pretty good. I´m teaching 7 classes, about 30 hours a week, which may not seem like much, but adding in travel time and, most importantly, prep time (cutting up pictures, making crossword puzzles, silly games, songs, etc) makes some LONG days. I´m sure you´re all thinking I treat my students like 5-yr olds with the cutting and pasting…but honestly it`s those silly games where they have to run around the room, draw on the board, cut up pictures and create things, etc that they absolutely love! It’s not every day you get to see a director of international sales running around a classroom in his suit and tie, blindfolded with a fly swatter! (Don’t ask…) And I`m not so sure many of you would recognize me, quiet little Lisa, in the classroom here…  :)  I’m now also working for Epson (printers) and Dole (yay bananas!) which has so far been an incredible experience. I’m hoping the contacts I’m making in these multi-national corporations will maybe help me in the future somehow with job possibilities…

I´ve been asked if I´m bilingual yet, after being here almost a year, and I´d have to say NO. Although I´ve greatly improved and can carry a conversation about anything (which usually includes making up words that send people laughing hysterically to the floor), I´d have to be here another 8 years before I´d consider myself completely bilingual. I´m working on getting my roommates to speak more English, although we haven´t made much progress yet. It´s just more convenient for them to talk to me in Spanish, and well, I can´t complain because I learn a lot that way.

I don`t think I`ve told most of you yet…I bought a car! It got to the point where I was spending 6 or more hours a day on buses getting from one class to the next, and that schedule wore me out quickly. So, with some help from my sister’s host family, I bought a Geo Metro – nice and small, cheap, and very economical for gas. So I’m back out on the road!!

Some of you have already heard, but for those of you who haven’t…you’re reading the words of Costa Rican golf champion! ;-) On 4th of July weekend, my dad and I got the opportunity to play in the Father/Child Tournament at one of hte most beautiful, private, expensive golf courses here.  We showed up on Saturday to practice for Sunday's tournament only to find out that it had been changed to THAT day, so we had to tee-off immediately if we still wanted to participate!  So not only had Dad and I not played in months (a year for me), but we didn't have a chance to practice either!  Luckily for us, golfing seems to follow the "riding a bike" theory (you never forget how, no matter how long you don't ride one), and although we didn't play very well at all, we won the Father/Daughter Low Net!  So we got a beautiful trophy, and of course the first thing my roommates asked me was where I bought it and for how much...  It felt great to be out on the course again, and I doubt I'll ever get another opportunity to play at a course where one round of golf costs more than all of my golf clubs and equipment combined!  
 

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August 2004

I have just had the most complicated, fun, disasterous, frustrating, interesting, mind-boggling trip of my life, and thought it might be worth sharing with you all. I´ll try not to make this too lengthy, but leaving out the details just doesn´t really give you a good vision of what this crazy trip was like! So bear with me...

My 3-month visa expired last week from my last entrance in the country, so it was either risk it and be illegal until I go home for Christmas, or take advantage of a couple days off work and travel a little. So 2 other teachers and I decided to head to Nicaragua for 4 days. Sounds great, right? Well, for the most part, Nicaragua was great. We left last Friday morning, spent hours at the border (we went in their Ford Explorer that they had driven down here from South Carolina - can you imagine that trip?!) getting the car paperwork in order, going through drug inspections, etc. Nicaragua is nice, although the parts I saw weren´t quite as beautiful as Costa Rica. But the lake and volcanoes were amazing. One of the directors of a company we work for recommended we go to Montelimar. So we headed there, only to find out it was entirely a private resort that costs $150 minimum! There were no public beaches or anything, so, disappointed, we were then forced to stay in a nearby town which had 2 hotels, both of which were dirty and rundown and had food that cost at least $8! Now that´s sort of expensive for Costa Rica, but VERY expensive for Nicaragua. But we made the best of it, relaxed on the beach and tried to stay out of our questionable room as much as possible. The next day we went to San Juan del Sur, a really cute litte town on the coast, where we had stayed the first night in a hotel with THE most comfortable beds and airconditiong and all! Well our luck would have it that the electricity went out in the whole town, all night long, so we did not enjoy the airconditioning or the comfortable beds and instead sat around in the dark trying not to die of heat exhaustion.

THEN, as we thought our trip couldn´t possibly get any worse, Monday morning as we´re getting ready to head back to Costa Rica, we discover the car won´t start! AGH! We called a mechanic, who arrived 4 hours later with a tiny lunch pail of tools (none of which seemed to help him any), spent an hour looking at it and said he had no idea. Not a huge surprise, Ford Explorers are NOT common there. We weren´t about to leave the car in Nicaragua, so we called a tow-truck to tow it to the border. They said they´d arrive in 40 minutes...3 hours later we call again and they inform us they don´t HAVE a tow truck! Why we weren´t informed of that the first time I don´t know. It´s Central America for ya! So an hour later they send a man in a small 1980-something Toyota Corolla with broken windows who was supposedly going to pull us to the border! I honestly have no idea how that tiny car pulled the 3.5 ton Explorer, but we made it to the border. Whew!

Oh, but that´s not all...this guy couldn´t cross the border, so we had to push the car through the Nicaraguan border, wait and do the paperwork, then push it to the Costa Rican border. Luckily there are a million guys waiting around to make an extra buck, so we had help. In Costa Rica we had trouble because apparently they don´t allow non-functioning cars to enter the country. We had a new friend that works around there who worked some magic with the immigration and transit police, and somehow got us okayed. Then we had a truck come tow us from the border to the nearest town in CR - La Cruz. On THAT trip, my friend Megan and I were in the other car and THAT car broke down, then the wrong insurance papers were given to us, it was raining, the truck had difficulty getting up hills with the Explorer, the mechanic didn´t have the right part to fix the car...a million and a half things were going wrong at the same time. To make matters worse, we discovered there was a truck strike in the entire country, and these trucks had stopped in the middle of the roads and were blocking traffic. So even if we wanted to leave Tuesday morning by bus to get back to San Jose, we couldn´t, because the highways were jammed. People had to sleep in their cars because they were stuck and couldn´t move. And of course the lovely president here claimed he couldn´t meet their needs, SO we were stranded in La Cruz until Wed. Being up there for 3 days was relaxing I guess, it was a nice place in the mountains and we had food and a bed and were much better off than the people stuck on the road. BUT we were missing our classes, we had no idea what was really going on, and we just wanted to go home! Wed we waited on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere for 2 hours for a bus that never came, but later caught one from a different city. So after a 6.5 hour trip on a bus, being slowed down to a crawl by truckers that were still angry and persistent, we finally got to San Jose. I have never been so happy to see dirty, smelly San Jose before!!!

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October 2004

Hope this finds you all happy and doing well! So, admist all the political scandal that this country is pretty much drowning in, I´m starting to think the States aren´t looking so bad... I doubt any of you keep up with Costa Rican news (most people don´t even know that Costa Rica is NOT an island but rather a part of Central America!), but there have been some serious political problems here in the past weeks. Two former Presidents have just been arrested, convicted of corruption, and one is in jail for 9 months and the other under house arrest for 6 months! And a number of other high officials have been arrested. Apparently many of the government-run institutions have been stealing public funds, giving out special "commissions" and basically just playing around with national money. Billions of US dollars have been used as prizes and commissions, as well as for personal uses for who knows how long now. The wife of the president of Social Security alone received some outrageous amount of money, like millions. It´s definitely THE news of the year, and everyone is pretty disgusted with their fellow ticos. I just watched the second former President that was convicted be driven to jail on the news...I think this is the most instability that this country has experienced in decades!

Anyways, besides the scandal, life is good. Two of my classes just finished up, everyone passed and graduated (yay) and now it looks like I´ll have a little more free time on my hands. We had a graduation party last night with pizza and games, and I had my students rolling on the floor in laughter, so it was definitely a success. I´m sad to see them go.

I finally made it to a scanner, so here are some pictures that I had promised some of you. The first ones are of our dogs here, Congo - the American Stanford puppy, and Cest - the sweetest Rotweiller you´ll ever meet (who, by the way, LOVES wearing a babushka). And the other pictures are of friends, roommates, etc. I´m not sure if you've heard, but I´ve been seeing someone here for the past 4 months, his name is Alvaro, he´s from Colombia and is an engineering student working with Play Station equipment (like everyone else I know). He was one of the first people I met here last year. So there are a couple pictures with him (for those of you asking what he looks like!), along with my roommates and some friends, and lastly a picture of Dad and me when we won the golf tournament down here. Pretty sweet trophy, huh? Anyways, hope this email doesn´t destroy your inbox space!!

Well, the sky is darkening and I hear thunder, which only means one thing...it´s 1pm. So I´d better get home before I have to wade home ankle-deep through the streets. I miss you all and look forward to seeing you in December.

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November 2004

From a land where turkey is almost nonexistent and rice and beans prevail over meat and potatoes any day, I hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving this Thursday, filled with family and lots of delicious food!! Fortunately (for me!), a group of us gringo teachers are attempting to have our own traditional Thanksgiving celebration here, so I will not miss out on turkey two years in a row. That is, if everything goes as planned… I’m making green bean casserole, so wish me luck!

Well, ‘tis the season to be……stealing. That’s right. Jolly, sure…the Christmas lights and decorations have taken over the city. But theft is the true dominator during this merry season here in Costa Rica. Ticos go absolutely crazy in November and December in regards to making and spending money, as they are legally entitled to a 13th month of pay, and unfortunately those who don’t have jobs or an income simply take from others. And I’m sorry to say that we have been victims to this greed. I think most of you saw the pictures I sent of our dogs…well our adorable, green-eyed little puppy was stolen from our house a few weeks ago. Someone actually had the nerve to cut open the wiring on our gate and yank the poor little guy threw the bars (which he was really too big to even fit through) while we were all home! The sad part is that our rotweiller, “trained” to protect the house, did nothing to alert us. We’re assuming that little Congo was immediately sold, probably for a lot of money, and we can only hope he has a good home. I know that theft is always a problem here, as in most of the world, but taking someone’s puppy??? That’s pretty low in my book. Knock on wood that that is the worst that’s happened to any of us in our house, although some days I think I’d have rather had a TV taken than our puppy that we loved!

Despite the lookout for puppy snatchers (or snatchers of any kind), I have no complaints here! Same old story… Summer is finally upon us here, and it’s more beautiful than ever! We’re in that transition phase, so it’s been perfect “Minnesota Fall weather” and not much of that nasty rain. FINALLY! Also, just the other night we experienced a small earthquake, 6.2 in some areas. Here in San Jose it did very little damage (destroying some roads and houses down on the Pacific coast), but scared us silly! It happened at 2am, and I think we spent the first 15 seconds so confused because we were all woken from deep sleep, and then the second 15 seconds panicking and running for the doorways. We have little tremors here all the time (feels like a train or huge semi truck racing by your house) but this was the first real strong one we´ve had all year. Keeps life interesting, to say the least!

I’m getting very excited for Christmas and being home for awhile that my bags are practically packed! Ok, lie, but if I had the free time, I’d probably already be packed by now. My plans have changed slightly, and I’ll now be home until Jan 12th. One whole month to take in all the cold weather my body can now handle! Better yet, one month to enjoy with all the people I love that I don’t get to see here. So I’m looking forward to good old Minnesota again. I will then come back here, return to my classes and students, and keep on going (for how long I don’t know)! I really feel like I’ve come a long way as far as reaching my goals and accomplishing what I originally intended here in Costa Rica, yet I don’t feel like my time here is complete. So there are plenty of opportunities left for any of you longing to take a vacation (and have your own personal tour guide!!). Think about it…  

Well, I’ll close here, and let you all get back to whatever you were doing! Nos vemos muy pronto! (See you all soon!)

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May 2005

Nearing my two year mark here in Costa Rica, one would expect me to be quite a “tico expert” by now.  However, just when I think I start to understand and feel it’s all “normal,” BAM, something comes up that leaves me scratching my head, wrinkling my brow, and wondering, “REALLY??”  So I thought I would enlighten you with a few of those BAM moments. 

The other day I received the most unexpected phone message – from THE president of Costa Rica, Mr. Abel Pacheco himself!  Granted it was no “Hey Lisa, how’s the teaching going?” message, but rather a recorded message sent out to probably every cell phone in the country (I’m not THAT special) – apparently Mr. Pacheco is very concerned about today’s youth, and is reminding us to embrace our youth and teach them good values that will carry them through life.  A fine message, and an interesting way to spread the word around! 

Grocery stores here never cease to amaze me.  Not only do they have free aerobic classes in the parking lot and offer free samples in the liquor aisle at 9am, but they also provide entertainment!  A couple of weeks ago, I was informed by some friends that we were all going to watch the big soccer game…at the grocery store.  Intrigued and afraid to ask any questions, we walked a few blocks down to the store - and sure enough, they had the game projected on the wall of the building!  We sat in the parking lot, ate some delicious barbeque from the grill, and watched Costa Rica become the champions of the Americas.  I laugh every time I think about the insane number of people huddled together, watching soccer on a giant cement wall in a parking lot…what Ticos will do for a little soccer…

Another place I find myself in awe is the movie theater.  Whether this is a Tico trait or exists in all of Latin America I do not know.  What I DO know is that when Ticos go to a movie, they go fully armed…with junk food!  A typical tico will order a combo to drown themselves in during the movie – meaning they sit down with a cafeteria tray (too much food, too few hands) filled with nachos, popcorn, a hotdog, a candy bar, and a giant coke.  I’ve never seen people eat so much!  Also, you have the option of going to a VIP movie – at double the price, one can cross the velvet dividing rope and enter “luxury land.”  Here seating is in huge leather recliners, and waiters come in to serve you – you can go the traditional route and order the nachos and hotdogs, or you can go a more sophisticated route and have sushi or roasted chicken.    

And perhaps the sweetest surprise I’ve had is a token to the kind-heartedness that nearly all Ticos possess.  One morning awhile back I had been out jogging around the park.  On one of my last laps, an adorable little old man approached me, handed me a carton of orange juice, said, “Here, reina…you look like you could use this,” then smiled at me and walked away.  What a sweet random act of kindness!  Not something I saw very often back home.

Well, there’s a little peek into the captivating life among Ticos!

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September 2005

I hope this email finds you all happy and healthy and well, those of you in Minnesota enjoying the oh-so-beautiful fall that I miss dearly. It’s certainly been awhile since I last wrote, I know (and apologize)! But until recently, there hasn’t been much “to write home about.”

I’m still teaching English in several companies, just starting a new private class with a very young, sweet, flamboyant make-up artist who has seriously changed his hair color every single day we’ve had class! It continues to rain so much that I think I’d be fine with never seeing rain again in my life (okay, slight exaggeration). It’s apparently now illegal for me to drive downtown on Thursdays (new traffic laws to regulate traffic), which I find slightly amusing and very doubtful that it will solve anything. I give them credit for trying to prevent the horrible traffic jams though. I ate snail, from those big sea shells that we always put up to our ears, for the first time (in the same company of those who fed me turtle last year) and although I found it surprisingly tolerable, I think it’ll be another item for my “tried once and never again” list. My dear friends Alicia and Dan came to visit me last month, which was excellent (as it always is with them around). We did canopy tour, flying on cables from tree to tree in the rain forest like monkeys, which I was ecstatic to finally do. Who doesn’t want to fly through the tree tops hundreds of feet off the ground in a tiny harness??? My sister was in town for a short visit before getting ready for her big move to Houston (where she is now getting settled). This weekend I will be heading to Panama City to both renew my visa and see Alvaro, who will meet me there, as he was denied a visa into Costa Rica (despite having the correct papers, reasons, money, etc.). Poor Colombians can’t catch a break! So our plan is to try to sneak him across the border – wish us luck!! Actually, it’s quite easy to do, there is a row of stores along the border, with doors on both the Panama side and Costa Rican side…so, in one door, out the other!

The best news to write home about is regarding a little angel named Daniel Alfonso. My dearest friends here, Bero and Freddy, had a baby 2 weeks ago, and it’s been the excitement (and exhaustion) of our lives! Them being like my second family and roommates, I’ve been lucky to have been a part of this from the start (from buying the pregnancy test to delivery and bringing him home) and have now become the super nanny! I’m sending in another email a couple photos of the little guy, in case you’d like to see one good-lookin baby.  He’s truly an angel, letting out a little squeal/cry occasionally when he’s VERY hungry (takes after his dad), and otherwise very quiet and content with watching all the lights and activity around him. I sure hope my kids will be that calm and well-behaved!!!

WELL, that’s my cue to say goodbye. Take care and miss you all!