Parque, Pizotes, y People

This weekend we visited el Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio. The fuzzy animals in the terrible video above (apologies for the cinematography) are called pizotes, and I actually didn't see them at the park--this is at the restaurant of the hotel we stayed at. As you can see, they love people food--a little girl fed them until they came all the way into the restaurant.

On Saturday night, we went on a night hike and saw tarantulas, a coral snake, poisonous centipedes, a scorpion, and a huge hill of ants. Very intense!

I think the highlight of the trip for me, though, was a stop at the touristy strip of beach outside the park, where dozens of vendors were peddling postcards, sundresses, jewelry, and other souvenir trinkets. Most vendors shouted at me in English: "Hello, my pretty! Look, my friend! Good price! Very nice!" I mostly just smiled and walked past, but one booth caught my eye. As I knelt down to look at the jewelry, the woman behind the table said, "Hola. Usted habla espanol?" When I said yes, she started to tell me quietly about the jewelry in Spanish. She asked me where I was from and how long I had been in Costa Rica, and she told me she was from Uruguay and had been here 8 months. I talked to her for about 15 minutes, and it was one of the most satisfying conversations I've had in Spanish. Mostly, I appreciated her respect for me as a human being (rather than a potential buyer/naive tourist) and the opportunity she gave me to prove and improve my skills.

First Kiss, First Poem

In Costa Rica, as in many other Hispanic cultures, the customary greeting (and goodbye) is a kiss on the cheek. It varies from country to country in terms of how many cheeks you kiss and what kind of noises you make, but in Costa Rica, it's just one on the left.

Although I've used this greeting both in the United States and now with Costa Ricans, this week was the first time I employed it with someone my own age and, more specifically, with a male. Coming from a culture where male 20-somethings wouldn't be caught dead kissing each other on the cheek, the sight is still a bit strange to me. In addition, kissing a girl on the cheek is an everyday occurrence, not an advance of any kind...

I didn't think much about the experience of this "first kiss" until I went to a poetry reading in San Jose on Tuesday night. Even though I didn't understand many of the poems being read, the atmosphere encouraged me to shuffle and rebirth the Costa Rican panorama lying dormant in my brain.

And so, I give you my first Costa Rican poem!



Beso

Tiny pebbles blow past my cheek,
the delicate friction
of a five o’clock shadow, lifted

like rough beaches on a wave.
Two maps meet—
a ten-second tutorial

on cultural topography.
My birthplace burns
in the equatorial sun,

while he shakes the dust
from his silver-buckle shoes
and walks away

toward home.

Barrack and God

Today is (obviamente) a new era. Everyone hear is excited about the new president. My "mom" watched it on the news, and her sister was talking to her about the inauguration this morning. I stopped by Matt's house and talked to his mom while he was eating lunch. She told me that el Espiritu Santo (the Holy Spirit) rests on Obama! Wow.

A Series of Misfortunate Events...

Our weekend adventure started with a seven-hour journey by bus and ferry to a resort at Playa Tambor. It was pretty relaxing, once I found a quiet spot on the beach where I could read away from the bars and and pools and cheesy DJ music.

On Sunday after lunch, we headed back to Santa Ana, planning on returning in time to eat with our families. But when we got to the ferry, it was full. The next one wasn't coming until 7pm. So we drove our microbus north to another beach (Playa Naranjo) where another ferry with a different schedule arrives. Unfortunately, the bus driver got lost, so we turned around and headed back towards Playa Tambor for the 7pm ferry. Right after we passed our hotel (4 hours after leaving it), one of the tires exploded. The bus driver, Gerardo, changed the tire in the blazing sun...and then we headed out again. Two hours later, we were waiting in line for the ferry--car #122 out of the 140 that can fit on the boat. Hooray!

At 12:30am we reached our little white house. We had keys to get in, but our housemate from New York had put down the extra bar to secure the house for the night, and we couldn't open the door. So, after timidly yelling "Upe!" a couple times (the customary greeting used to see if someone is home, rather than knocking), we rang the doorbell. Waited. And then rang it again. Finally our host mom straggled to the door in her nightgown. We felt so awful! But, por dicha (luckily), we didn't have to sleep on the patio last night. Wow!

Today I don't have any classes, so I'm catching up on mi tarea de casa (HW!). In other news, we had my (so-far) favorite food for lunch, potatoes and spinach in this milky sauce... Eliet's washer is broken, so she is washing the clothes of five people by hand... And a Red Cross ambulance delivered a phone book into my hands this afternoon complete with siren and loudspeaker (freaked me out at first)! Hope everyone is doing well. Hasta luego!

Finalmente!

We're here! It's the third day and things are already getting easier. My Spanish is far from perfect, but it's passable, and I can mostly get the message across with awkward gestures. My host mom Eliet does EVERYTHING for us... Here's my new room, which has a nice window looking out to the mountains...
And St. Catherine's new perch...

and my calendar, which Eliet hung up for me...under the angel. Maybe that way Julian and Zane actually look like angels? I don't know.

But everything is very fun, although tiring. They're really keeping us moving. I have my first dance class today...hooray. (Estoy tan emocianada, can you tell?) And then we're off to the beach for the weekend at a fancy hotel with everything included. Falling off the side of a mountain is more my style (we did that yesterday), but I'm sure it will be beautiful, as is all of Costa Rica.

Hasta luego!

I'm (not) ready, I'm (not) ready!

St. Catherine of Siena is packing...still.