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knowing how to ask questions.
I am more confident than most second- or third-language speakers, whose skills are even better than mine, for the simple reason that i know that when eventually i will trip over vocab or verb tenses, i have sufficient language skills to be able to ask how to do it right. That, plus the internet (see below) make me an incredibly fast language learner.
Free online Spanish Lessons / Leçons d'espagnol gratuits en ligne
Aprender ingles gratis por internet / Apprendre l'anglais gratuit dans l'web
Cursos de frances en linea / French courses online
...you get the idea. There are a million of these types of sites if you know what to search for, and most of the Spanish I know comes from the first link up there, plus texting Roberth. The downfall to learning this way is that, although it's free, it does require a certain amount of self-discipline. And for me, I don't really have that (it's procrastination station all the time), so I'd just expose myself to Spanish culture and when I saw a verb tense or some sort of pronoun usage I didn't understand, I'd just hit up the corresponding lesson and BAM I'd have another concept down, and a practical usage to refer to.
Happy learning :)
- Location:Québec, Qc
- Music:1979 ~ The Smashing Pumpkins
because babies should blend into your living room decor.
aside from that though, and i understand that this is a discount baby clothes site, but why can't people realise that mothers make up a very lucrative target market for their lack of realisation of the myriad ways in which they will burn their money with things like pricey baby fashions, when in the first 2 years children will blow right through clothing:
Physical growth is especially rapid during the first 2 years. An infant's birthweight
generally doubles by 6 months and triples by the infant's first birthday. Similarly, a
baby grows between 10 and 12 inches in length (or height), and the baby's
proportions change during the first 2 years. (source)
generally doubles by 6 months and triples by the infant's first birthday. Similarly, a
baby grows between 10 and 12 inches in length (or height), and the baby's
proportions change during the first 2 years. (source)
I realise that this is very uncharacteristic for me to write about, since i am unmarried and without children, but I can still rant it up over these crazy frivolities that make insane amounts of money. Plus, I learned about the baby growth thing in the first 2 years being super fast (amongst a zillion other useful things) in my Fundamentals of Life-Span Development elective a few years ago.
Anyway, all that being said, my future offspring will wear rice sacks for the first 2 years of development. CHA-CHING.
- Location:Québec, Qc
Breakfast! Gallo pinto and egg + tico cheese mixed together, plus
some baby bananas and mandarinas. And of course, Costa Rican coffee.
some baby bananas and mandarinas. And of course, Costa Rican coffee.
I bought some gallo pinto seasoning packets to try to make gallo pinto in Canada because it has this really great flavour that I couldn't explain if I wanted to. It's rice and beans, fried, with the seasoning. I want to try to google how to make it, but I wouldn't use an English recipe because if it's going to be like some Canadian version of gallo pinto then it won't be as good as what I had in Costa Rica. But if I try even with a recipe in Spanish, I will be disappointed (I tried making just the normal rice, which is usually done in a rice cooker, with oil, salt and sliced onion, but I used too much oil, too little salt, not enough onion and it was jasmin rice so it didn't fit the flavour I was going for. And I didn't use a rice cooker. So that was a huge fail.. but my chimichurri turned out to be delicious)
Oh and whatever kind of cheese that crazy tico cheese is, it's the only thing (other than what I posted further below) that I couldn't stomach out of the different foods I tried. The tico cheese is very light in colour, and has a flavour of stinky feet mixed with EXTRA SOUR vomit that had possibly been sitting out for a week and then microwaved on high for a couple minutes. I couldn't put a forkful of it in my mouth without chasing it with either other food or coffee. Bleh. I'd love to know the reason for its repulsive taste..
Lunch or dinner: quesadilla.... not Costa Rican. And yes, it is served on a giant slice of leaf.
Although not Costa Rican (this was early into my trip and I just ordered what I knew I liked to play it safe, and I wouldn't know one menu item from the other because they were all very specific Spanish names that don't translate into English. The rude awakening was that alllllll that cheese on there was tico cheese, and I ate no more than 3 bites of this dish. Stanky cheese. As much as I love cheese, these experiences made me afraid to eat cheese in Costa Rica for a while. And the "estilo Americano" cheeses I liked were all more expensive :/
Corn Poffis haha.
Guanábana. Everyone uses this tune to pronounce it properly,
with the stress on the accented 'A'. Replace the "manamana" with guanábana.
haha. It can be made with milk or water, but I don't like it very much with milk.
Guanábana. Everyone uses this tune to pronounce it properly,
with the stress on the accented 'A'. Replace the "manamana" with guanábana.
haha. It can be made with milk or water, but I don't like it very much with milk.
The guanábana is known as a soursop in English and has a very, very delicate sweetness and slight creaminess. The fragility of the sweetness means mixing it with any alcohol would ruin it. But it is a very refreshing beverage and I bought a bunch of Tang packs of guanábana juice to bring back to Canada.
Apple juice that tastes like APPLES and not acid. Amazing. And this bottle cost like $1.40.
A bowl of coffee and tostadas con mermelada de guayaba - toast with guava jam. Delish.
A bowl of coffee and tostadas con mermelada de guayaba - toast with guava jam. Delish.
The toast was lightly buttered and you apply your own guava jam and it was just delightful. Guava jam is another product I brought back to Canada with me. And that giant bowl-cup of coffee was delicious, as is pretty much all coffee in Costa Rica.
Again, delicious coffee and amazingly delicious mystery bread.
Coffee is often accompanied by different types of bread, hard or soft, sweet or salty. This particular one didn't have a special name which sucks because I can never reproduce it and can only hope to go back and eat more with my coffee. It had a mild flavour also that compliments coffee very well, but I can't describe it. Like a heavy cake, a LITTLE sweet, but not salty. The top layer of red was sugar, and the jam or whatever in the middle was so little it was almost just for looks. But this combination... man oh man. Delightful. You could buy a pack of 8 of these little guys for about $1.25.
A typical meal from a Costa Rican soda (small fast food restaurant, like a kiosk you sit at to eat).
The meal includes the typical arroz y frijoles (rice and beans, and the rice, like I said, is flavoured with salt, oil and onion, and the beans are slow cooked in a broth that includes garlic, what i believe was bay leaves, and some other viney stuff), tortillas which I mentioned before serve a sort of utensil purpose, fried plantain (which most people like, but I didn't), the most DELICIOUS cold pasta salad with mayonnaise, cilantro and a lemon flavour, and some people add tuna as well... this SUPERDELICIOUS picadillo de papa thing (between the pasta salad and the beans) which I couldn't describe the flavour of, but look at the ingredients on that recipe at the link and maybe you will get an idea.. And I think the stuff in the sauce is chicken, I don't remember. But the sauces were always so rich and savoury it was so good. Plus, my guanábana on the side, and for all that I paid about $4. Yummmmmm all I want is Costa Rican food right now.
I ordered a juice to go from a soda. It was served in a bag.
Costa Ricans are allllways sucking liquids out of bags it's crazy. They pack little bags of cold or frozen water or juice for their fútbol games and bite off the corner and suck out the water. The coach throws them at the players when a call has been made with not enough time to leave the field. And then they just throw the garbage everywhere on the field. Like everywhere in Costa Rica. FULL of litterbugs.
This is what a cow tongue looks like before it's cooked. It's a delicacy in Costa Rica.
I tried it, because I will never have the occasion again in my life. The flavour was awesome, but chewing on that soft, soft texture, while looking at the piece on my plate that still had the tastebuds attached to it, was a bit much for me. Another guy, from the States, who tried it at the same time as me really liked it and went for seconds; he said it was like eating the most tender steak he's ever had. I maintain the only thing good about it was the flavour but that's because it was done in a slow cooker and my host mum is a good cook.
La cerveza de Costa Rica..
When I had my first Imperial, it was nothing special. I mean, Costa Rica has two main national beers. Canada has like a million, and in hotter countries they stick to pilsners and lighter, more refreshing varieties of beer, so these were plain to me. But not long into my trip, a nice cold Imperial at the pool or the Sports Bar or Don Yayos was a welcome time to relax and refresh. A bottle of Imperial at the bar was about $2.50. On comparison, at the bars and restaurants in Nicaragua, the Nicaraguan national beer (Victoria, not Toña, Toña just tastes like water) only cost about a dollar a bottle. At the BAR. Imagine how cheap it is in cases... On a side note, beer is served much colder in Costa Rica (and Nicaragua) since it is so hot, and also served with a glass of ice on the side. I could never pour my beer into that glass of ice because diluting your beer is sacrilegious. I am Canadian, after all. . .
- Location:Québec, Qc
This entry will be substantial in length.
THE BACKGROUND
I went to Costa Rica on December 31st 2011 to spend 12 weeks volunteering, and as a Canadian I didn't need to apply for any special permits or visas to do so as long as it's for no longer than 90 days (on the other hand, a Costa Rican even just wanting a 2 week vacation in Canada needs to apply for a tourist visa, the process for which includes, though is not limited to, 3 months of bank statements, your entire employment history, your entire education history, more than one long and tedious form, a letter from someone in Canada inviting you which includes ALL of their personal information as well as that of the invitee and the itinerary for the trip etc etc, 75$ or 150$ fees and more.. where you run the risk of rejection if you are young and unmarried, they will just say they don't believe you have sufficient funds). When my volunteer contract was up I wanted to stay as long as I could in Costa Rica, and so planned to stay to mid April (since I had a job lined up in Canada for the 25th). The 'secret' to extending your time in Costa Rica is leaving the country for a period of 3 days (called "flag polling"), which is proven by the stamps in your passport you receive at the border. Most people choose to go to neighbouring Panama or Nicaragua. I chose to go to Nicaragua with 2 friends who were travelling by car.
The premise was that they had already gone, Petey the Alaskan had been doing this visa extension trick for almost a year, and it was bullet proof. She and her boyfriend had even been to the exact town, San Juan del Sur, in Nicaragua the last time, and it was just going to be a typical beach vacation; sun, sand, surfers, beers while watching the sunset, cheap shopping. But Nicaragua is not a typical vacation destination, and that is what I failed to take into acount.
THE BORDER
Petey's boyfriend was driving and it seemed like a chill trip. I wasn't worried about the border because I am Canadian, and Petey and Tavo had crossed before. I knew people would be knocking on the windows looking for money and that it would be hectic. Because we were travelling by car we had a lot more steps to take. We paid a Nicaraguan guy to lead us through all the steps and ignored all the other people chasing after us. I was not impressed. It's not like homeless people on the streets of Toronto, it's people chasing you and actually needing to lock your car doors. This border isn't the best either, since there is a better standard of living in Costa Rica and a lot of Nicaraguans try to sneak through for a better life, even though Costa Ricans are often racist against them.
After we were cleared we kept on driving. The geography looks pretty much the same as Costa Rica but maybe a little shabbier in terms of people, vehicles, and homes. We passed a wind farm in Nicaragua which is one of the last things I expected to see. The giant lake we drove past had two big volcanoes floating in the middle, and it was just an unbelievable sight to see.
There aren't really good pictures of it on google (search Ometepe island Nicaragua) because the view is so big it's hard to get on camera. And volcanoes are like fog magnets (the heat at the top plus the cold air of that altitude often hide the tops) so sometimes you can't even see them.
ABOUT 6 HOURS OF NORMAL VACATION
We arrived and it was so hot, I could see the little cove where the beach lies and that it was going to be a beaaaautiful sunset. We prepaid 4 nights in private rooms at a cute little hostel called Casa Romano. We took out some American cash and headed out for dinner, to sit at one of the beachfront restaurants for the picture perfect sunset. I took pictures but since my camera was stolen later that night, I hope whoever has it now enjoys them . . . I guess I will have to keep checking back on I Found Your Camera.
THE UGLY
Later that night we went to a place called the Iguana Bar. Before we left the hostel I packed everything of value that I'd miss if someone broke into the hostel and stole my stuff. My ipod, my camera, my wallet including cash from Costa Rica, Canada, the US, and Nicaragua, debit card, credit card, identification, cell phone (disposable at least). I took out my passport to leave at the hostel and then thought, no, it would be bad if I left that behind and someone broke in. I knew Nicaragua was dangerous and I had heard conflicting advice; leave your valuables in the hotel, or don't leave your valuables in the hotel. I figured since it was a hostel and there was no safe in the room, I'd better bring them. I threw my passport in with the rest of the stuff and we headed out for the evening.
Petey and I thought it would be nice to head out to the beach so we let her boyfriend know and he stayed in the bar. We waded in the water, then headed to the ATM, then back to the bar to meet up with Tavo. A little while later, we decided we wanted to go back to the beach. Petey left her purse with Tavo, but I didn't like the idea of leaving my purse behind so I brought it with me. We got to the beach and I looked all around to make sure nothing looked suspicious. I didn't realise that the beach being *completely* empty was suspicious - I thought that meant it was safe; free from any wrongdoers. But take a closer look at the photo above... see how the verandas of the restaurants are up off the sand? There is nothing in the space under there, and that's where the Nicaraguan thieves sit and wait for people to make a stupid decision like go out onto the beach after dark. I put my purse on top of my sandals so close to the water it would get wet. I covered it with my shorts. I saw no one on the beach. But someone obviously saw me.
We waded into the water just below waist deep. We were there but not long when we decided we should get back to the bar to see how Tavo was doing. I went to put on my shorts and couldn't find my purse, I couldn't figure out where it was, because there was no one around. The gravity of the situation set in slowly, and I kept trying to tell myself it wasn't true, and Petey was off looking for it, and at this point I pretty much realised this trip had just taken a turn for the worst.
A suspiciously short amount of time later, two preteen boys show up and ask us whats wrong. They don't speak English, and the older one, about 13, went off to "help" Petey look for my purse. The younger one, about 11, clung to me, hugging me and repeating "no llora muchacha" (don't cry miss) and starting to cry himself. It was messed up, but my mind was occupied by other things at the moment, mostly thinking about my money, and my camera and ipod. Not realising the most valuable thing to me in that particular situation was actually my passport. The giant statue of Jesus that overlooks the beach which is normally lit up at night, had gone out.
The following hours were more chaotic than ever, because we lost Tavo, and those children kept following us around, I couldn't stop crying. I spent a good while bawling my eyes out on the beach with this strange little Nica kid hugging me (who I realise now was probably part of distracting Petey and I while the thieves unpacked my stuff under those verandas). We made it to the Nicaraguan police station on the good will of a taxi driver who didn't charge us because neither of us had our purse on us (Petey left hers with Tavo). He gave us his card in case I needed any more help and so for the time being, all of my possessions were reduced to a Nicaraguan taxi driver's business card. The police told me to go home and they would take my report in the morning. The young boys were with us this whole time and Petey basically told them to piss off. Some American tourists our age saw me crying and everyone was fussing over me and they gave us 40$ to help me out. I was so thankful for that. An eccentric looking gringo named Chuck kept telling us not to go to the police because they wouldn't do a thing and he could get me my passport back faster. Petey told him to piss off too because that just sounded shady. Thinking back on it later, a Vancouver man I met at the Canadian Consulate told me he probably meant by finding the "right" person in town who hawks the stolen stuff for the thieves, I could try to buy back my passport. At the time I wish I did that, but in hindsight I am glad I didn't. We never saw Chuck again.
Petey went off to look for Tavo as I headed back to the hostel. The owner's daughter who is about my age let me in, and the owner, Claudia, came down when she heard me crying. I was trying to explain the whole thing in Spanish. Claudia told me I was LUCKY. I couldn't believe how anyone could get out of the whole story I just told that there was anything lucky about it. And then she told me that I am lucky because I wasn't raped as can often happen, and that no one attacked me with any kind of weapon. In spite of that, and though I know better now, there was no way in that moment I was going to listen to anyone telling me that I was lucky.
The next morning I was in the police station by 8am. I was giving my first police statement ever, and first police statement in Spanish of all things. The officer typed it out on an old typewriter and then pulled out a macbook to show me a virtual photo lineup of known criminals to identify the two boys. I couldn't believe they had so many child criminals on file. I couldn't make a positive ID because I never really looked at the kids, one was always off with Petey and the littler one was stuck at my side. If they were helping the thieves I do not understand why they came with us to the police station the night before. Anyway the following morning at the police station I looked like a damned mess. The one pair of sandals I brought had broken the night before and I had to limp around to keep them on my feet while I walked. My eyes were puffy and I just looked like my whole world had come crashing down. I had to wait a long time in the police station and one of the officers brought out a handcuffed guy to sit a few seats away from me. I started crying thinking it might be him. I wanted to strangle him. But in the end I don't think he was related to my case. Anyway a few officers came out and asked me to come with them, so they grab some rifles and we all get in this police SUV. I have never seen a rifle like that before let alone have one sitting right beside me. We went looking for the boys in town but found nothing. We drove through a slum that the tourists never see and I didn't spot them there either.
The day following the robbery was full of weird emotions. I was really upset, and trying to compartmentalize. Petey and Tavo paid for my meals so I could eat. The reality of how proactive I would need to be just to get out of the country hadn't set in yet. I almost liked the novelty of warding off beach vendors by telling them I was already robbed and had nothing to pay for their stupid sunglasses or cashews with. Some of their reactions were funny, like "oh.. shit sorry.." and two of them kinda made a little joke with me and told me to call them if I needed any help. Probably the worst part of that day was Tavo hesitantly telling me that I wasn't going to be allowed to leave Nicaragua without a passport.
THE GOOD
Claudia the owner of our hostel, Casa Romano, was like a guardian angel to me. She lent me sandals because she saw that mine had broken. She lent me boardshorts to go into the capital city of Managua because I only had short shorts and tank tops, and it's not safe to go into the city without conservative clothing. I couldn't believe it, there were so many things I didn't know about and couldn't understand. My parents transferred me money by Western Union and the employees there were sympathetic to my situation and so unofficially accepted only a photocopy of my passport to claim it. The reality of needing a passport to get out of the country also meant I needed to be proactive to get out of there, which was a challenge for me because my usual manner of letting bad situations work themselves out on their own was not gonna get me across the border just as much as smiling and saying "but I'm a Canadian" wouldn't do a thing either. I had to grow up real fast, and become a street smart rogue tourist. Claudia offered to go into Managua with me by bus (a 2 hour trip) instead of having Tavo try to get there and getting lost (have I mentioned yet there are no street addresses in Central America?). From the bus we had to take taxis, and I realised just how great it was to have her with me (aside from giving me breakfast or lunch), because she knew which taxis to take or not take. Tourists are advised to take only official taxis, though that just means paint on the door of a super beat up car, like every other car. Taxis in Nicaragua charge per person, and often pick up as many people as it takes to fill the car. Claudia always turned down the taxis that had a man sitting in the back seat because they are often not official and working with the driver to rob you. You also have to ask the price before you get in so they don't change it, or tell you it was 25$ instead of 25 córdobas (1$).
It was funny because on the way to the Consulate there was a manhole and instead of putting pylons up around it they used boulders. I couldn't figure out if it was because the country is poor or because they were more serious about getting a point across. Haha. It made me smile in the midst of all that anyway.
When we arrived at the Consulate and I took one look at my country's flag, I broke down in tears. I was obviously emotionally fragile but it was like seeing an old friend. The happiness was short lived however, since it was Friday, and when I told the man my ride out of Nicaragua was leaving Sunday, he told me my passport would never arrive by then. I buried my face in my arms at the kiosk window and started weeping again in spite of a concerted effort to keep it together. My options were a 24 hr emergency passport that would repatriate me to Canada and nowhere else (whereas I had a month left on my volunteer term, and all my belongings and my other credit and debit cards and birth certificate in Costa Rica, as well as a boyfriend I wasn't ready to leave, since we never got to say goodbye). Or a white replacement passport that would take a week (which was super cool looking, though I had no camera to take a picture of it and had to turn it in a few weeks later in San José, Costa Rica, when I picked up my official one). I had borrowed enough money to pay for half of the 220$ I owed for not only the passport but the declaration saying my passport was stolen. I paid the second half when it was ready for pick-up.
Passport photo I had taken in Managua, 2 days after being robbed. Explains the look on my face.
Getting back to San Juan armed with this information, I was strangely calm and knew that the following days, which included my friends leaving for Costa Rica without me, would be a series of things to do efficiently and quickly. I was emailing back and forth with a lot of people, trying to keep people back home calm. A cousin emailed me the travel warnings for Nicaragua from the Canadian government, which I had wish I had seen before going. If I had seen it more as a trip to Nicaragua and not a beach town vacation, things might have been different. But I was falsely reassured by Petey and Tavo's previous experience. My poor mum was just dying from worry, and my dad and brother were angry and frustrated because they couldn't do anything, it was me, on my own, trying to figure out how to get out of a foreign country in a foreign language. I'm glad I wasn't going straight home after that because my brother would have ripped me a new one. I think if he could see how hard it already was on me and how hard I was on myself, he would have cut me some slack.
It was nice to see how many people offered their help to me. Of course Claudia, walking me through every step and seeing to it that I got back to Costa Rica alright. Many friends and family members offered prayers and money if I needed it. My friend Eugénie even told me to get in contact with her parents who were going to be in Nicaragua 2 hours from where I was on the Tuesday, and said they would pick me up and let me stay at their family's bed and breakfast if I wanted to wait for my passport there and feel like I was with family (I declined since I thought trying to travel any more might just get me lost, and I had already paid the hostel for the time up to when I was expecting my passport). At the Consulate when I was using the phone to update my parents on how I was, other Canadians there who live in Nicaragua overheard my conversation and offered phone numbers, rides and a place to stay in Managua if it made it easier for me to get to the Tica Bus which was eventually how I would have to get back to Costa Rica.
CASTAWAY
Maybe it wasn't exactly like that but I really did feel like a one woman wolfpack. I didn't go out after dark. I spent my days washing my face (at least 5 times a day because of the heat) and collecting seashells on the beach. I carried all of my valuables in an empty cigarette pack in my pocket. The word "valuables" is relative and when you have nothing; some pocket change and a list of important information and contacts means everything to you. I bought local fruits and bread to stop from being hungry. I would buy one cheap meal a day at a gringo cafe. I was like the zen tourist who had already been rocked so from there on all I could do was chill and roll with the punches. After applying for the replacement passport I decided to make the best of being stuck there, since from an objective point of view, it was a nice little surfer town. Tourists tend to stick together so I decided to try to make friends, but the foreigners there were either surfers, hippies or ecclectic middle aged people who left teenaged children behind to 'live off the earth'. I have nothing in common with any of those groups. And when I did try to make friends at the gringo cafe, with a Canadian girl, an American guy and a German guy, it was working out pretty well until 15 minutes into the conversation they offered me valium and started talking about how they wanted to find some weed to crystalize some liquid codeine with or some odd thing, at which time I decided I should probably run away and hide. It kind of sucked because at the point I remembered what a Canadian man at the Consulate had told me regarding the drug problems in Nicaragua and tourist towns like that. The Nicas don't do the drugs; they are simply responding to a demand created by foreign tourists. Hence, the tourists create a dangerous drug market as well as keep the local economy going by 1) paying for things in town and 2) getting robbed. You're welcome.
ALONG THE WAY
I had to make 2 or 3 trips into Managua along the way and I mean, that place sucks, because it's dangerous and you have to watch your back. It's not obvious danger; it's danger that sneaks up on you if you have no common sense. I'm not sure I could even say it's common sense because it's not for problems I've ever had in Canada; in Canada the children playing on bicycles outside of the banks aren't watching you and reporting to the people who will later rob you. Despite all that though, the trip into Managua was interesting because we got to drive past the lake with the two volcanoes every time, we had to stop the taxi because there would just be a random herd of cows in the middle of the road, people still drove around in wooden carts pulled by oxen, and there was a beautiful little town we passed through called Rivas, with a light blue church and a lime green and pink gazebo in the park facing the church. There would also be vendors that get on the bus at stops and off at others and during this time they sell bread or cold fruit juices or pirated DVDs. On a 6am 2-hour bus ride from San Juan to Managua a preacher guy got on and started yelling scripture to everyone. Not because I am openly atheist, but because I was in a fragile emotional state AND it was 6am, I wanted to give him a punch in the lack of courtesy.
Walking through San Juan I heard the familiar song "Sexy and I know it" but it turns out it was a Nicaraguan TV channel filming the music video for the Spanish equivalent, Sexy en la playa. I walked right on set, I posted the video here.
BACK TO COSTA RICA
I was expecting my passport to arrive on the Friday, since I applied the Friday before and they said one business week. I was worried when the Embassy in San José, Costa Rica, emailed me and said two of my references were unreachable (they never answer their phone but I was naming references and contact info from memory), so they needed two more to complete my request. Frantically I called and emailed everyone I knew and added nine more to the list. I was really hoping for my passport to arrive on the Thursday, because that meant I would be able to make it to the Nicaraguan immigration office (also in Managua) to get my stamp to say when I entered the country, so that they would let me out again. This all went according to plan (if it arrived Friday when the immigration office closes at noon, I would have had to wait til the Monday to go back to Managua, get the stamp, and get the bus ticket and take the Tica Bus out of Managua, which is specifically listed as one of the dangerous places to avoid in the travel alerts. As it arrived Thursday, I got my stamp, bought my ticket in San Juan and was able to catch the early bus out of Rivas the next morning instead of Managua, which was safer and closer to San Juan).
Having a passport and a bus ticket in hand didn't turn out to be a guaranteed border crossing however, after the tour bus spent an hour clearing everyone to leave Nicaragua, and we reached the Costa Rican side and had to actually go into the "office" for our stamps. As it turns out, they won't let you in if you don't have your ticket to leave again. I didn't have one. I hadn't bought my plane ticket yet and now had no money left to pay for one. I thought a Canadian passport was proof enough I wasnt a Nicaraguan sneaking in for a better life. I felt the same crashing sense of defeat when they man at the border tells me "no exceptions". I ran out of there in a panic looking for someone from the bus to tell them not to leave without me, when one of the TransNica bus employees asks me what's wrong. I explained I needed a ticket out of Costa Rica to get my stamp to be allowed in, and she knew the situation so she told me to buy a 25$ bus ticket back to Nicaragua (shudder) and run back in for my stamp. I had all that done but by then I was so stressed out my hands were shaking. I wanted to enjoy my long bus ride as I usually do, but I just couldn't. I knew I wouldn't feel right until I got out of that stupid bus at San José where no one could send me back to Nicaragua.
I made it back, took a bus from San José to Atenas and found a nice note from my host mum on my bed saying thank god I was back. It didn't feel the same though. I was really uprooted and it took awhile for me to feel okay again. Thankfully I had had a second credit card and debit card in my suitcase in Costa Rica and so after a lot of working things out with the bank I had access to my funds again.
A FACEBOOK MESSAGE FROM A MAN IN SAN JUAN DEL SUR
A few weeks after getting back to Costa Rica and coming to terms with what had happened, I received a facebook message from a man whose location said San Juan del Sur. My stomach turned; there were only two ways he could know to message me. Either he was the one who stole my stuff, or he found (some of) it. He said he was working in construction and remodelling near the Iguana Bar and found my passport and 6 of my cards. We tried to work out returning my stuff to me in Costa Rica (by mail or a possible meetup, an idea which everyone I know was against) in San José, but it fell through. Before leaving Costa Rica I emailed all of his contact information and his facebook link to the Nicaraguan police to contact him, not that I had much faith in them. I don't know if that is why he ended up bringing my stuff to the police or because I asked him to do that on the phone when he called me, but anyway, he returned the things he found and said the police would mail them to my family in Canada. I almost don't want to see them because I know the filthy people who robbed me had their hands on it.
Anyway, in a short amount of time I learned a lot of lessons very quickly, out of neccessity. The German and English tourists I met on the TicaBus from Rivas, Nicaragua to San José, Costa Rica commended me for how chill and happy I looked in spite of that whole ordeal. I tell you, there are a hellllll of a lot of things I will never complain about again.
If you plan on visiting Nicaragua and would like some travel trips, drop me a line. I'm now quite well-versed in the local goings-on..
- Location:Québec, Qc
- Music:El Poeta ~ Chino y Nacho
I will start with the cologne (because I don't have accompanying photos). When I was in Atenas, the "World's Best Climate" "according to National Geographic" (claims the alleged article article from the 1970s or 1980s which I was never able to locate. I'm just saying, if I can sweat without moving a muscle, it's not perfect), the daily temperature was a consistent 30-31ºC and sunny. It was haaaatt. I always had shorts and a tanktop on (which provided complications with my mild sun allergy in the beginning). I was able to stay cool *enough* more or less, by staying indoors, where the houses are basically open on all sides and have air going through all day. When I switched to a school with a dress code of no shorts above the knee, no tattoos (which meant super overheated, closed shoes for me) and a blurry line between what kind of tank tops were ok, the heat was a lot harder to deal with. That being said, showers are all well and good in the morning but no matter what you do, you're harvesting some ripe ol' pit stains by midday. The cologne shower is like a preemptive strike against your own body odor which doesn't care if you've just freshly showered.
The HAIRGEL. I saw this thing at the grocery store and was laughing so hard, until my 21 year old Spanish teacher told me she had the same at home.
It measures as a thousand grams. When I was at Las fiestas de Palmares (en donde conocí a mi novio), they had a dance group on stage at one of the make shift night clubs, and they were not throwing tshirts out to the crowd but these giant buckets of hairgel.
Now, as for my theory on why the fijador market in is a state of permanent boom in Latin America is more or less the same as the reason for the cologne showers. It's HOT. You sweat. Your hair frizzes and you get angry if your bangs so much as THINK about touching your forehead. I straightened my hair all of two times in Costa Rica. The second time it was poofed out within hours, due to going to watch Roberth's soccer (er, excuse me, fútbol) game in Palmares, which is in the mountains and the clouds come in at night to bring in an insanely cold, humid air (remember Costa Rica's geography, being as fault-lined and mountainy as it is, doesn't allow for accurate weather forecasts and is rather made up of many micro climates) Good bye straight hair, hello hideous frizzy poofy shapeless hair. I always wondered what I'd have to do to look less like a foreigner down there, and I think the answer (aside from high heels EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME and knee-length peddle pushers with a tanktop with exposed bra straps) would be to slick back my hair completely and ponytail it far and away from my glowing forehead.
And this gel I bought out of sheer novelty, since I hate hairgel and am a devout fan of mousse for curly hair. It is called gorilla snot (Moco de gorila means Gorilla Snot, not "snott gorila gel" as the translation would have you believe...)
Sooo there you have it. My proposed origin of two big latino stereotypes (oh that thing about latin men being super romantic is also true... wink)
- Location:Québec, Qc
- Music:Pasado Pisado ~ Comando Tiburon & Mach Daddy
This challenging 550km journey will take place from the 20th to the 26th of May and will take the participants on a journey that will begin in Portsmouth, England at the foot of Admiral Nelson’s ship HMS Victory and continue on to the Historic Battlefields of France, including a highlight ceremony at Vimy Ridge accompanied by 250 riders from the British forces. This ride with stops in Caen, Dieppe, Amiens, Arras, Ypres and Dunkirk ends in Dover has been identified for its potential to have great therapeutic value for the soldiers involved and help remove the stigma that still lingers around Operational Stress Injuries and related mental health issues.
As many of you know, my brother served an 8 month tour in Afghanistan 2 years ago. This was a difficult time for our entire family and I can't even imagine the things my brother saw or did during that time. Things he keeps to himself because there is just no way anyone else could understand what he experienced during that time. Physical injuries aren't the only health risk for Canadian soldiers, as we are starting to realise more and more.
If you have the means, and you believe that you would like to support this cause, please do. Click on this link for more information and/or to make a monetary donation. You can choose a soldier you would like to support from the drop down menu; Cpl. A. R. is my brother, and I am behind him 110%. I love him so much and I support him in everything he does. If you can afford to offer something, please do. I'm not even playing Sarah McLaughlin music or showing pictures of sad soldiers.
If nothing else, please pass along the link to those who you think may identify with the cause.
- Location:Québec, Qc
This warm floral bouquet conveys the free spirit of today's sexy, modern girl - she is playful, cool, and flirtatious. The long-lasting, day-and-night scent opens with pink peppercorn, pear, and ruby red grapefruit. Blooming midnotes of rose, fuschia peony, and geranium make a feminine statement. Layers of vanilla, warm tonka bean, and creamy musk create a sensuous drydown. (source)
In short, it smells good.
Also, it's somewhat pleasing to hear that the Advertising Standards Authority has banned a provocative image of the model featured with the new scent, 17 year old famous child actor Dakota Fanning, on the grounds that it over-sexualizes someone who is or looks like a child.
- Location:Bowmanville, On
The ingredients I used were:
- A pack of cherry tomatoes, chopped (we didn't have a normal tomato on hand)
- One red pepper, chopped (might be nice to try with some different colours too)
- About a third of an onion, chopped
- Half a handful of cilantro, chopped
- Three cloves of garlic, minced
- Salt to taste
- The juice of half a lemon
Other variations I saw on the internet included adding vinegar, sugar, pepper, parsley, celery and others. It was delicious, my mum and I couldn't stop picking at it before the rest of the BBQ was even ready. And I was worried I had made too much, ha.
- Location:Bowmanville, On
I walked right on set with no problems at all, I sat in on the weightlifting scene (at the basketball court that you see at about 1m25s).
there is one comment on this video as of the time I am posting this. it's worth a read haha.
- Location:Bowmanville, On
- Music:Sexy en la playa ~ Canal 13 Nicaragua
There are 3 main radio stations I liked while I was there and quite fortunately they all have internet radio counterparts so you can listen for free as well, no matter where in the world you are:
Using these stations I would listen for lyrics and then Google the songs I really liked so I could make a Costa Rica mix CD back in Canada (that is not easy when they sing fast in your 3rd language, but it's doable). My favourite of all the songs is Pasado Pisado which I had linked in one of the earlier Costa Rica entries.. the title likens to the English expression "water under the bridge"; forgetting about the past etc.
Anyway as I have a special talent for mix CDs, I made a copy for 2 friends (that's when I ran out of CD-Rs) and went all out making my own album art from photos I took on my trip (more of which will be posted here in subsequent entries, I am just so backlogged... as you know I am back in Canada, I have a week at my parents house to get a lot of paperwork and errands done before I move back to Quebec City, hopefully for good this time).
Front cover (from top left, unprocessed coffee cherries, Arenal volcano,
the only toucan I saw in 3.5 months, Jacó beach, a traditional Costa Rican
oxcart and a boat at sunset at Herradura [horseshoe] beach)
Track listing, Costa Rican flag as the border up top with the country's crest as the watermark.
Words cannot BEGIN to describe how much I missed my Photoshop while I was gone (nor how happy I am that I left my computer and my DSLR in Canada where it's safe [I feel like a spoiled brat to even have that to be thankful for]).
- Location:Bowmanville, On
Seen (and smelled) yesterday in the environs of Yonge & Dundas Square, Toronto (celebrating 420):
Hint: guess which is the real Canadian flag
Although I do not partake in this form of diversion, it doesn't bother me and I am actually quite proud that in Canada we have such a liberal and accepting society (you should have SEEN the outrage when I told people in Costa Rica abortion is legal in Canada and your first one is free*).
I was at the Hardrock Café beside the Square yesterday seeing Andie for the first time in 4 months and we were there at about 420 when everyone was lighting up, it was SUCH an eclectic group too, gangstas, artists, white trash, "normal looking" people, and people with orange coloured hair on only one side of their head etc etc etc. Every type of person imaginable, marijuana use is not exclusive to any one class, race or culture. Citytv, amongst others, covered the story.
*As far as I know
- Location:Bowmanville, On
- Music:Somebody that I used to know ~ Gotye
But I digress.
So yeah I found this meme, and it is hilarious if you´re Canadian or have a decent connaissance of our stereotypes.
As Canadians we are renown for apologizing for what we didn´t do.
Someone runs into us, we apologize. I have done this.
5% of the population of Canada OUTSIDE of Québec speaks French.
So no, Canada is not bilingual. It is a country with two "Official Languages".
Heh heh. We are a bit bitter, yes. 50% polite about it and the other 50% passive agressive. I STILL meet Americans who don´t know we have a Prime Minister and not a president. And we are next door neighbours!! How rude. People in Canada were even driving around with Obama bumper stickers in 2008.
This is currently my Facebook profile picture. I laughed so hard when I saw it.
The band The Tragically Hip are a point of Canadian pride. I bought their CD Day for Night at the Bowmanville Mall when I was about 10 years old with my own money, when that mall still had a CD store.
This song is named for cottage country in Ontario, an area called Bobcaygeon, like the song.
This song is just amazing.
This song was written for a man from the Prairies named David Milgaard who was arrested and served 23 years for a rape and murder he didn´t commit. I use this song in my English Canadian music workshops for lyric analysis.
Check out more of the Average Canadian meme and contribute your own!
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This is a sidenote and completely unrelated, but a friend of mine named Meagan recently mentioned to me that she saw The Hunger Games and thought the female protagonist looked like me. I can´t tell REALLY because I don´t look at myself in different contexts to be able to pick it out, but if so, I am stoked to finally have a celebrity lookalike.
Aside from the blue eyes and her more slender face, I guess I kind of look like that when my hair is messy and when I am wearing my North Face windbreaker. Kind of like when I climbed that volcano a few months ago... only I´m missing some bow and arrows.
Ps let´s all take a moment to reflect on the memory of the purse in that photo which is now floating around somewhere in Nicaragua with its new owner who came by it quite illegally.
- Location:Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
- Music:Somebody I used to know - Gotye
When I started as an English teaching assistant in a local elementary school, I noticed some of the desks were a weird metallic colour but the same shape as the wooden ones and so didn´t pay much attention.
They looked like the material in this photo:
Then this morning I saw a bin containing a bunch of empty tetra paks and the label described a program called "Un pupitre para mi escuela" (A desk for my school) and so I got the idea. And this is just the coolest thing ever, the school I´m at is one of a hundred in the country to participate in this program.
As reported in this article (Spanish), according to a deal between the Ministry of Education and the Costa Rican dairy company Dos Piños, at the end of each month material is collected from the schools (since the kids always bring drinks in tetrapaks for snacks and lunch) and for each 80 kg of material a desk is made (and if I´m not mistaken, in a prison).
Sorry I don´t have a better picture but these are the exact type of desk:
The journey of a box from supermarket to sheet is an easy one: after use, the box is deposited at a recycling point, perhaps a supermarket, is collected and hauled to the giant Dos Pinos complex at El Coyol de Alajuela. There the paper portion is soaked off, the aluminum liner and plastic shredded, mixed and pressure packed, explains Stark.
There it becomes a sheet or is molded into varied shapes--the material is versatile and can be painted, nailed, screwed. Dos Pinos does not sell furniture but the home carpenter can pick up sheets for 8,000 colones ($16) or for 8,500 colones for corrugated roofing.
Source (English)
This material is actually fireproof as well and quite durable, and should last about 10 years. At the same time the company cuts about 74% of its waste, they are also saving trees.
- Location:Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
I think I almost learned more about Costa Rican culture in one day than I did in two and a half months. Also because today was a sort of national holiday type thing, for the Batalle de Santa Rosa which was a battle fought between Nicaragua and Costa Rica in 1856.
When I arrived, at this small school of about 100 students, everyone was curious about who I was and there were lots of whispers amongst them which made me somewhat nervous. But for the most part every time I looked at a new kid they all had a big smile on their face with a welcoming "Hola!" and a wave. Two students were trying to guess my nationality and they guessed Brasilian haha. I must be so tanned now. That was of course before I opened my mouth. The kids are young, only like grades 1 through 4 so they don´t really know where Canada is. But on Thursday I´ve been asked to bring in some pictures of my country to do a small presentation to expose them to a different culture. In the second classroom we moved to (since I am working as a teaching assistant to the English teacher), the kids were grade 1 or 2, and they gave me and the teacher like a milllllllllion stickers to put on my shirt. It was so cute (when I left the school at noon, I was covered in leftover stickers and chalk. It was perfect :p ). I even got a note from a student that had a picture of a heart and "T.Q.M." on it which is short for Te Quiero Mucho which means I like you a lot. It´s a sweet thing to get from a student.
It´s interesting because the students don´t call the teachers "Señora" or "Mrs" they call her "niña" which actually means little girl (niños are children, niño is a boy child and niña is a girl child) because historically teachers were not supposed to be married, so they were addressed as Niña. Which was something I didn´t understand at first obviously, why a niña was calling ME a niña when I am like a million years older haha. And when they did guess my age they started asking if I had kids and such... abuuuhhh
Hm yea so there was this ceremony to celebrate the Battle of Santa Rosa, like a mass with skits and stuff (I was trying to think of an equivalent in Canada, or if we just take the day off and not bother to think about it.. but I guess any battles we have are all lumped into Remembrance Day, which is more sombre than this happy event I got to see today) in the gym which was like a paved surface under a roof with walls that went halfway up to the roof. It was open air and during the ceremony birds were just flying around in there tweeting and whatnot. A lot of things are open air in Costa Rica which was a super difficult concept for me to grasp for like the first two months because I kept wondering what they do when the snow comes. *Facepalm*
The ceremony included prayers, an anthem for the flag (I think) and the National Anthem of Costa Rica (what if we rewrote every country´s national anthem to be more contemporary? That´s what I was thinking during theirs anyway, Canada´s isnt much better except that is has meaning for me, obviously). And then a skit with kids dressed as the Nicaraguans and some as Costa Ricans and they reenacted the battle and had wooden guns and stuff haha. Then they had a skit by the 4 year old group where one dressed up as the teacher and asked questions to his "students" to give information about the holiday. It was sooo cute. Then two age groups of girls did what I assume was a traditional Costa Rican dance in a traditional Costa Rican dress.
The little boys in the play were dressed like this below. The girls had the dresses and braids like below as well. I would have taken photos myself except that my camera was among the things I had stolen in Nicaragua. Google Images for the rest of my Costa Rican entries (except the photos I took up to 3 weeks ago, which I have backed up on a key. Wooo).
Anyyyyyway that´s about that. I have more to write about but less attention span sooo. That´s that for today.
- Location:Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
These ones are only to serve an overview function, aka the ones I didn´t feel the urge to photoshop before ever showing them to the public. Once I am back in Canada I will write each CR entry with a particular theme in mind.
The colourfully-painted oxcart wheel is Costa Rica´s most famous craft. They were originally used on the oxcarts that transported coffee beans from one coast to the other (Pacific and Carribean) which was something like a 12 day journey. Some types of designs were indicative of what region a person was coming from.
I have been keeping my eye open for different insect species here since I am not a big fan and had heard that there were lots of big ones here, but so far this is the biggest spider I have seen. And including this dead one on the street, I have seen only 3 in a month. Not baaddd. And they are fast and good at making themselves scarce so I don´t mind them a whole lot. The insects here, apart from the purrujas (no-see-ums), generally stay away from humans, not like the wasps, flies and mosquitos in Canada with built-in homing devices for human flesh.
This I saw the first day I arrived here and was so shocked. I went with some friends a few weeks later and it was weird and interesting. They had beer on sale haha.
The parking lot was manned by armed guards, and they give you this little pass (see below) that you carry with you in the store, which must be handed to the guard in order to leave the lot. It´s because the rate of car theft is extremely extremely high in many places here (and the car alarms are set to go off if you even try to open the door).
It was only a week or two into my time here but now that I think back on it I really should have picked up some "American" food as a treat to myself (the lack of fast food combined with an hour of walking each day to and from and to and from again work means I´ve lost some weight without keeping up my 4km runs every 2 days, which is nice), just things that are harder to come by in Costa Rica for obvious reasons. Like that the whole world isn´t America. Which reminds me... the other day I met another American who thought Canada has a president and had never seen our currency before. And people wonder why Canadians feel the way they do about Americans.... but I digress.
One of my students, a 5 year old girl brought me a mandarina one day, which I thought was so sweet (many since then have brought me little candies or bags of candy, it´s kind of awesome, teacher´s workplace benefits). It probably came right from her orchard. Despite the peel being green, it was so ripe the peel nearly fell off the fruit. I´m not sure but I think maybe oranges going to Canada have their colour altered to appear more appetizing to a North American clientele. Am I stating the obvious? I know they do something similar with tomatoes.. Oh and the watermelons here still have seeds, and taste way better. I remember reading somewhere that one day children will live in a world where seeds in watermelon are completely foreign, so this slice of watermelon was comforting in more ways than one.
Arenal volcano was a sight to see for sure, you can still see the the lava paths coming down the sides and it was active until about 10 years ago. The trees in this photo make me think of the trees in that one scene (you know the one) from Jurassic Park, which incidentally was filmed here. There have actually been a few times here where I was waiting for a pterodactyl to fly over or something.
This is the beach called Jacó which a lot of people here don´t like because it´s "ugly". I thought it wasn´t half bad because all I have to compare it to is Lake Ontario haha. But I have to say I much prefer to get a faceful of fresh water than salt water . . .
After Jacó we went to a neighbouring beach called Herradura which I think means horseshoe... it was more like a cove, no dangerous waves (those things are HEAVY! and I am not a great swimmer, one wave hit me so hard I scraped my ribs along the sand at the bottom where the water was like 5 feet deep). It was a nice place to watch the sunset, which I did, with a group of tico friends from Palmares. There were lots of pelicans feeding there it was really cool.
This is a picture of a page from Lonely Planet´s Costa Rican Spanish (which I would link here normally but I´ve already CTRL+ALT+DLT´d on this entry twice and had the connection dropped for a period of 2 hours mid-writing and again right before hitting "publish" so if you´re really interested hit CTRL+N and find it yourself ;) )
This book belongs to my Spanish teacher but I did order my own copy. We will see how well I do getting that in the mail with no street addresses.
Anyway more later! Pura vida!
Oh by the way - I discovered how I can bypass my 90 day visa-free limit to stay here so if I stay longer than March I won´t be detained, deported and banned from the country for 10 years. I just have to leave the country for a period of 3 days and make sure I get my passport stamped. So maybe I´ll take a little trip over to Panama or Nicaragua for a couple days ;)
- Location:Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Speaking of food, I was reading something today that mentioned the use of tortillas here in replacing utensils, like that many people in Latin America use tortillas to fold around meat to pick up and eat, in the place of utensils. And that is actually true. When I first saw that on my plate I was like, wow that´s a really strange hotdog concept, just a tortilla around a piece of meat. Hum. But now I understand it´s functional moreso than a dish of its own. Knives aren´t used often here aside from food preparation. I also stopped putting milk in my coffee and I should stop with the sugar as well. It´s almost sacrilegious here to damage your Costa Rican coffee like that.
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I don´t remember if I mentioned this or not already, but there are no street names here. There are no numbers on houses. For someone with my poor sense of direction, this is a BAD. THING. And without GPS I have no idea how tourists navigate here. People give directions by saying "two blocks this way, turn left, in the middle of the block on the other side of the road" etc. Getting MAIL is ridiculous. In the sense that, if you Fedex or UPS me something, the Fedex or UPS employees from San José, the capital, who do not know this town well will give up and not deliver your mail. If you send it through regular post, the mailman recognises the house and the name of the neighbourhood and gets it delivered. And to mail something to the community centre for example, you write in the address line "in front of the gas station Coopeatenas, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica" haha. It´s something else.
Everyone knows when you´re learning a language, avoid high numbers. Numbers like 10,432 are complicated and difficult to remember, and take awhile to spit out. The general opinion is to avoid these sorts of numbers altogether. HOWEVER. The Costa Rican colón, as of today´s date, is worth 0.002 Canadian dollars, and all of a sudden I need to understand when someone is asking me for 11,900 colones for the sandals I treated myself to for my birthday (pictures later on, but they are cuuuute, with the whole orange, brown, turquoise and white colour scheme, made in Brasil, but I digress...). Good practise I suppose.
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I don´t know if it´s regional or what but in this town there are a bunch of little places called "sodas", it turns out these are sort of like little fast food places. And the supermercado (grocery store) is often shortened to "super", so you would go to the soda for lunch and to the super afterward to buy some groceries. I went to a gringo soda a few weeks ago, actually called "Kay´s Gringo Postres" and it was the most difficult food I´ve had to digest since being here actually. I ordered what I thought was a breakfast BLT and it arrived as a huge sandwich with not only the requisite B, L and T but ham on there, cheese, a whole EGG... and it was just dripping grease (to be fair, oil is used fairly excessively in the cooking here in general). So after that I took an Immodium and decided to stick to the local fare which has been much kinder on my stomach.
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Also can´t remember if I mentioned this but gas here costs about 1.60 or 1.70 a litre, so a lot of people don´t own cars. It is EXPENSIVE. In Canada we freak out at 1.25! Somehow the taxis are still super cheap though.
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I´m having trouble with my Spanish because I am used to reading it and not hearing it so I don´t have the ear to put the spelled words together with the spoken words. For example the B and V sounds being so similar, ou pas mal la meme chose, I ask what a "glass" is in spanish, and I am told "basso", but when I see the word spelled "vaso" I have no idea what is going on. But the proper spelling is vaso and the word I hear is basso. I know I just need to listen to Spanish songs while reading the lyrics to understand but that´s easier at home with my own computer and headphones, I don´t have the time here. Also it´s weird because in Spanish classes we learn that the person "tu" (the singular "you", for example "you are...") is informal and used for friends and people you know well. And just the same, "usted" is the formal singular "you", reserved for people you´ve just met, educated people, your elders, etc. HOWEVER. In Costa Rica, this is the inverse. So on the one hand, it´s great, because it cuts out a lot of verb conjugations I no longer need to remember, but now if I speak Spanish with anyone else, I will be addressing them informally when I mean to address them formally. Unless I start calling everybody "mae" at the end of every sentence.
Also it´s somewhat worrisome that when I try to think in French, I blank and Spanish words fill those gaps. Like in writing I´ll start replacing "mais" (French for "but") with "pero" (Spanish) without even thinking.
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OH MY GOD THE LATINOS. I do not know if it is because I am foreign or a young(looking) female, but I get beeped at or cat called at so often it´s ridiculous. I think I fill my daily quota for giving the stinkeye like eight days a week. I have to laugh though because as much as I ignore them, they just start calling in English. "aye baby, how youuuu doin??" or "hey wanna ride?" just like of all POSSIBLE English phrases they could learn, those were the absolute most important. Haha.
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This morning the garbage men came by and they were singing in Spanish as they worked. They weren´t even wearing gloves, and the garbage truck was just a pickup truck with a cab extended upwards using wooden boards nailed together. Garbage men in Canada NEVER sing. Must be that whole pura vida thing I guess.
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Marcela made me a new set of keys, one for the outside gate and one for the door to the house. I made it in the gate but the one for the house didn´t work, so I called her cellphone and she got on the phone to a neighbour and the next thing I know a boy of about 9 years old comes from two doors down with a giant knife in his hand and jimmies the lock. I got in, with a laugh of disbelief, as the boy trotted off home with the giant knife in his hand.
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Summer shoes mean blisters and each time I get blisters it means change shoes to get blisters in new places until the old ones heal. My new birthday sandals, mentioned above, gave me a big ol´ blister between my toes, and it opened partially and when I went to play volleyball at the park last night a bunch of sand got stuck in the pocket of skin. I noticed it this morning when the big dark circle between my toes caught my eyes. It was frightening at first and then fascinating. Super disgusting as well. I washed it out before I thought to take a picture though, ¡mierda!
In the next entry I´ll write about how my birthday weekend turned out; first January birthday in 25 years that wasn´t in the winter, which I think I should make a tradition going forward ;)
- Location:Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
- Music:Father Figure = George Michael
- Location:Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
I LOVE my host family. Beyond words, they are awesome. I can talk to Marcela, my "mother" about anything. The two older girls Daniela (18) and Diana (17), are really nice and crazy as well but the language barrier is still a bit of a thing. Diana knows I´m jumpy so she just randomly screams when I am around to scare me lol. And Fabiola is the coolest 6 year old ever. I taught her the dance move of "brushing the dirt off your shoulder" and now occasionally walks by me, taps me on the shoulder without saying anything and does the dance move with a very serious demeanor and then smiles at me haha. Some things about the house are difficult to get used to, like septic toilets and the requirement of putting your used toilet paper in the GARBAGE and not the toilet. And other... waste... sometimes (re: more often than not) blocks the toilet. Luckily I´ve already adapted and developed a pro strategy to combat that haha (with no oven, stove, pots, pans or kettles, I brew an empty batch of coffee for the hot water and pour it into the toilet and wait and plunge. Thanks, Google). The ants are also problematic... it´s "normal" for this time of year but there are at least 4 difference species of ants in the house at any given time and at least 3 nests or habitats or infestations if you will... one of them being under the sink where the dishes are stored. And food gets left out on the counter often, not even covered, so they have no incentive to leave. I am going around trying to put everything in containers and the fridge and whatnot, but I´m not always home. I can deal with it to an extent but not when I get home and there are two veal patties left out on a plate with ants ALL OVER THEM, or a meal left in the microwave with ants all over it in there too. But, I do absolutely love living with this family.
At work (and this is the primary reason I was considering cutting my time here short, I would never leave only because of the above), I guess I was naive to expect it would be something like a vacation here, but I have basically 9 hours a day where I have to be available (9am to 6pm) and not only do I not have a salary, but I PAID $2,500 to be here (when you go through a company, a lot of money goes to the company, and most of what they did was email the lady who actually does all the work on the ground). And the portion of that money my host family gets is smaller than it should be. I do have a 2 hour lunch break on most days (in theory), but half of that is spent walking to and from my host family´s house to get the lunch they provide. And I knew coming into it that the resources were limited (no internet for class use) but it would be really nice to have more media resources, like a cd player, tv or computer with internet access (for songs, audio and video clips for practise and visuals) and an overhead projector. Right now we have some games, old, stale smelling books, and old textbooks that I don´t know by heart (to be able to use them to their best potential). Some of the students I am just not prepared to give them the sufficiently structured lessons they need or are looking for, so I feel like they are wasting their money with me. Conversation courses I do just fine, and with beginners as well, because it´s always the same; alphabet, numbers, days of the week, months, seasons, etc etc. I don´t like to complain but it´s not what I had thought I guess. It costs money to change projects but I don´t really want to do anything but work with kids. In the next two weeks we will have an English course for children before they go back to school in mid february, and maybe after that I will switch to daycare or a school hopefully, if the option exists. Not to mention until Monday I am the only volunteer here anyway, so it will be nice when new ones come and I can start making friends and going to see other places on weekends (Atenas is a nice town, but after the heat and palm trees, it´s still just a small town where I have no friends and can´t communicate with the population, wah wah cue sad violin). At least I FINALLY found a place for "to go" coffee (in someone´s house converted into a restaurant), since unlike Canada or the states, they actually don´t have coffeeshops at every block (I know, wtf right it´s latin america, they don´t even let you import coffee here because they have so much of it). Oh and my 12 oz (for Starbucks customers, Mezzo or Tall) filter coffee (Café Britt, the good/expensive stuff here) cost me about 80 cents Canadian. 400 colones.
And while I´m on a roll, I´m having trouble with my sun allergy, my chest and shoulders are ALL small itchy red bumps right now, which is starting on my foot as well, and if I don´t walk facing down then it gets bad on my lips too (I tried putting sunscreen on my lips like the other places the allergy is affecting, but it´s not 100% natural so it reacts worse, and my 100% natural chapstick doesn´t have sunscreen). I guess I am just made for winter anyway :p
So all of these things were on my mind all day today, if I should maybe bail early on my project, but the biggest thing telling me to wait it out til the end of the month (aside from losing $2,500) is the fact that there are a few situations right now which will be changing, like more volunteers arriving soon, and the kids going back to school so my boss won´t need to be taking care of hers in the day (if they complain and don´t want to hang out in the community centre, which is understandable, but if there are no classes at the centre, they leave and I´m the one holding down the fort). Hopefully after these changes I won´t have so many courses per day (2 or 3, plus my own Spanish course) and things will settle down. I HOPE. (Regular) teachers in Canada only have classes from like 8am to 3pm, which I would prefer.
The turn of all these events was my 5 to 6 student today, which was my boss´s student which she gave to me when my student was a no show, who really made me feel like the work I was doing was incredibly appreciated. He is very very very beginner in English, and mostly just wants to be able to converse with clients at his work at a pool store. He didn´t go to school (even I can see some of his spelling errors in Spanish) and he is very very poor (according to my boss, who says she knows the neighbourhood he is in is notorious for poverty, so much so that she offers his courses for free, but he still insisted to pay today, which made me feel bad and overwhelmed by his... I guess I can´t even explain it). He was so nice, and so thankful and so open to learning. In poverty, and this is an assumption of mine, it can go either way, and he is choosing to educate himself to improve his means. I think he is about my age. I am happy to help him, and it makes me less frustrated with having classes straight from 1 to 6pm after a morning class as well. Not that my other students aren´t appreciative but his case is just more... touching? I don´t think I am expressing myself as well as I´d like to but this entry is long enough so I think that´s fair haha.
Anyway, listen to this song it´s on the radio very often here;
The ennnddddd muchachos.
- Location:Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Flying over either the Florida Keys or Cuba. The water looked so gorgeous, when only hours earlier I was looking at ice and snow in Toronto.
I was so excited when I found the map option. If I hadn´t found it so late I probably would have watched it for the full 5.5hrs haha. Instead I slept for 2 hours and watched The Lincoln Lawyer, which is an AWESOME movie. I only knew that because I had seen it before though.
The first image I had of Costa Rica; not even out of the airport yet. A huge contrast in the weather, the architecture, the greenness, everything. I LOVE the Costa Rican flag, it´s so beautiful (It really looks like the Thai flag but inverted, and there are two versions)
This orange house is where I am living. There´s a park beside which includes palm trees and cacti. You can see that the houses are very open.. they are like the opposite of insulated; I couldn´t close my bedroom window if I wanted to (and yes, it does go down to like 20C at night). The front patio is protected by bars kind of like a jail cell. Everybody here has that. The flooring out there is the same as the kitchen for example, it´s like the house keeps going and the walls don´t. Yes bugs get in the house, like 3 different sizes of ants, moths, mini flies... but the geckos sneak around eating them all. I think there´s an ants nest above my bedroom door, and they all come out at night, and they are the big ants, so I kill them and sweep their corpses behind the door with my foot, so to me they are out of sight, but still there to remind their comrades what´s up. Anyway I killed a bunch last night, and this morning I woke up and they were all gone, and between then and this morning I didn´t open the door once. Stealthy geckos.
This is the view down my street, with the house on the right there, and mountains in the background but covered by clouds... we are in the middle of a cold front. It goes down to like 20 or 22C. Bah. (heh heh hehhhh). I think it looks so picturesque. There are a LOT of things I won´t complain about when I get home (weather not included).
There´s a valley behind our house where lemons, limes, oranges and mandarins grow. And beyond that, up on the hill live all the rich Americans and Canadians with their winter homes :p (Actually I met a man from Mississauga who has been spending his Canadian winters here, which is Costa Rican summer, and Costa Rica´s rainy season in Canada for summer there. About 20 years ago he bought a large piece of land with a hill and waterfall for 100K, and it was recently evaluated at about 3 million dollars, because Costa Rica is so trendy. He has a farm there but he wants to build a resort and open it up for ecotourism purposes. And sell off some bits to developers. He has a wife and kids here, so he leaves them here for half a year and doesn´t bother having his Costa Rican citizenship. When his 90 visa=free [I can´t find the dash on this keyboard] days are almost up, he skips off to Panama for 3 days and returns.)
Costa Rican License plates. I love checking out the license plates everywhere I go. The cars here are mostly really old, lots of beater cars, some foreign models. I see some new Toyotas and stuff sometimes too though. Lots of motor bikes. Most people drive manual here because off allllll the hills, the cars just don´t switch gears fast enough.
I know it´s not much for now HOWEVER this took a painfully long time to write and upload photos for.
¡Hasta luego chicos!
- Location:Atenas, Costa Rica
- Music:If You Wanna Be My Lover = Spice Girls (itçs on the radio... seriously..)
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