Random Life Thoughts

Life is picking up here as I get to know the people better and start doing more things in the community. I taught my first class of English yesterday to a group of about 10 high school students, and tomorrow I will teach another class. They are graduating in December (the school year here begins in February and ends in December, and their summer vacation is December through February) so we are trying to squeeze in a few weeks of English for them, although in reality it takes years to learn English. But—little by little, right?

What to say? I´m trying to balance taking care of myself by resting and reading and doing what I enjoy with running around the high school and a couple elementary schools (and also trying to write the analysis of the community).

I learned in training how in general, Costa Ricans (“Ticos”) are very indirect with their talk (not everyone—it´s a generalization!). I learned that first hand this week. The local health clinic (that´s free! Costa Rica´s system of health makes it free for everyone. It has lots of positives and negatives compared to the U.S.) in San Jose de Upala has tons of statistics (supposedly) on the community. Things like health, diseases, population, type of work, number of students, unemployment, number of dropouts, etc. are kept at the health clinic and updated every year. So my goal was to take a look at them because they are a big part of my analysis of the community.

One day last week I walked up there and spoke with a worker from the clinic who said, face to face, that he´d meet me Monday to show me the statistics (I guess they aren´t in a way I can read them so he has to help me). On Monday, I was waiting for him over 2 hours when he finally showed up, to do something else. He said “tomorrow we are meeting, right?”. I said that would be fine, although it was supposed to be today, I told him.

Tuesday rolled around, and he never showed. What I learned in training is that indirectness means they would rather disappoint you by not showing up than by telling you they can´t come to your face. That sucks! So, apparently, he would rather tell me to my face we will meet (twice) rather than tell me to my face he´s too busy. I´m working on what to do about that, but I have to remember that I am the one in their culture, not the other way around. It´s in the little things.

My host family is good. I play with the little 5 year old a lot, and she loves the new hammock I bought and put up outside my room on the porch. Livin the pura vida! One thing about family life that is hard to get used to is that they eat dinner between 7:30 and 8:30 every night. The earliest is 7:30 and the latest we start, like last night, is 8:30. I´m sort of getting used to it, but at home in Nebraska we ate around 5 and also with my family in training we ate about 5, so it´s an adjustment. EVERY lunch and dinner has rice and black beans. Included with that is a variety, depending on the day, of salad, some sort of meat, or soup, or potatoes. I don´t know there is a lot. I actually like the rice and beans and I´m not getting sick of them, surprisingly. Maybe ask me how I feel in a couple months.

Speaking of a couple of months, some people know and some people don´t that I will be coming home for Christmas and New Years! I fly into Omaha December 23 and leave again for Costa Rica January 2. Crazy!

I´ve been reading a ton about life, God, purpose, spirituality, poverty, war, and lots of other things. It´s kind of crazy how one minute I could be in a great mood and another the weight of being away from what I´ve known my whole life pushes down on me and my mood changes. I think of people back home often but something, I´m not sure what, is keeping me here. The prayers and encouragement have been amazing! Anyways, my thoughts are starting to get too random even for me so I will peace out. I was talking to Kara today and she was letting me know a little about what she might like to read about in my blog, stuff maybe I don´t think about because I´m here within it everyday. Let me know if there´s anything I´m leaving out or you´re interested in.