¡Pura Vida!
¡Pura Vida! Means all things positive. It can mean: hello, I'm doing good, I'm happy, see you later, and anything else you want!
I can't believe that I have only ten days left in my adventure. It feels like I just arrived at the airport yesterday. I'm going to soak the last few days in. This post is quite lengthy, but I promise it will be very insightful!
I can't believe that I have only ten days left in my adventure. It feels like I just arrived at the airport yesterday. I'm going to soak the last few days in. This post is quite lengthy, but I promise it will be very insightful!
This is a picture of my home here in Costa Rica.
The picture of my home is hard to see the surroundings so I have attached pictures of what other houses look like as well. You might notice a few differences between homes here and homes in the US. One of the first things you may notice is how close homes are. Many homes are touching or sometimes sharing a wall. This is mostly related to the fact that Costa Rica is a small amount of land and is home to many residents, meaning that homes must be close to have space for everyone. Next you might notice that my home is basically gated in. Almost every single house in Costa Rica has a gate before you enter the front yard and even the driveway. My home specifically has only one car that my papa Tica takes to work. Sometimes he drives my mama Tica to where she needs to go or she will walk or take public transportation. The car is also locked in such as everybody else. Once you get into the first gate to the front yard, there is another gate before the actual front door. It is hard to see but there are bars matching the front gate guarding the windows. This is very common in Costa Rica. Very different than homes in the United States. Additionally, most homes are only one story, but it is made up for. There are about three “hallways” in my home that creates many rooms. There is a kitchen, kitchen table next to the cooking spaces, family room, dining room, dining room table space, laundry room, master bedroom, two bathrooms, and three more bedrooms! There is no backyard at all. But there is a small green room in the back of the house where our clothing hangs “outside” to dry (there's no drying machines in Costa Rica.) I say “outside” because the area is still covered to protect from rain but my host family has many plants growing out there as well!
The picture of my home is hard to see the surroundings so I have attached pictures of what other houses look like as well. You might notice a few differences between homes here and homes in the US. One of the first things you may notice is how close homes are. Many homes are touching or sometimes sharing a wall. This is mostly related to the fact that Costa Rica is a small amount of land and is home to many residents, meaning that homes must be close to have space for everyone. Next you might notice that my home is basically gated in. Almost every single house in Costa Rica has a gate before you enter the front yard and even the driveway. My home specifically has only one car that my papa Tica takes to work. Sometimes he drives my mama Tica to where she needs to go or she will walk or take public transportation. The car is also locked in such as everybody else. Once you get into the first gate to the front yard, there is another gate before the actual front door. It is hard to see but there are bars matching the front gate guarding the windows. This is very common in Costa Rica. Very different than homes in the United States. Additionally, most homes are only one story, but it is made up for. There are about three “hallways” in my home that creates many rooms. There is a kitchen, kitchen table next to the cooking spaces, family room, dining room, dining room table space, laundry room, master bedroom, two bathrooms, and three more bedrooms! There is no backyard at all. But there is a small green room in the back of the house where our clothing hangs “outside” to dry (there's no drying machines in Costa Rica.) I say “outside” because the area is still covered to protect from rain but my host family has many plants growing out there as well!
Lets talk bathroom...
Relax, I am not going to talk about what you think. Rather I want to tell you about how different the actual bathing rooms are here in Costa Rica. Do you like warm showers? Yeah I do too. But I will probably have to wait until I am home to take a nice warm shower. Heated water tanks are not a thing here in Costa Rica. Rather they have electric water heaters. So if I want to have any warm water I have to turn the water so it is barely on and it only gets about luke-warm, not even actually warm. It has definitely been a struggle to get used too but I have taken the fastest showers of my life. Because of this shower heads and the structure themselves look very different. I placed a googled image in of what my shower looks like in order to be polite to my wonderful host family. The image is very similar to what my shower looks like.
How used to throwing toilet paper in the toilet are you? Yeah it is pretty much a habit for all Americans but in Costa Rica you CANNOT flush toilet paper. Pipelines are old and narrow and therefore easily blocked. This has also been a hard adjustment to get used to throwing toilet paper in the garbage.
How used to throwing toilet paper in the toilet are you? Yeah it is pretty much a habit for all Americans but in Costa Rica you CANNOT flush toilet paper. Pipelines are old and narrow and therefore easily blocked. This has also been a hard adjustment to get used to throwing toilet paper in the garbage.
Today (June 14th) and a week ago today I was able to participate in service learning. In other words, I volunteered 8 hours for an orphanage in San Jose, Costa Rica. The orphanage is called Hospicio De Huerfanos Vista De Mar. It is a non-profit organization that receives funding from the Municipality of San Jose and private donors to provide for orphans and abandoned children. There are approximately 80 children in this orphanage that live in 5 “casitas” which means small house. Children are watched by women who they call “tias” meaning aunt, and most of which are volunteers. What an experience. During our time at the orphanage, our group sanded and painted a playground, spent time with children from 8 months to 12 years old, and lastly counted and moved over 400 packages of diapers. I got a pretty good workout in after three hours doing the diaper job. But after the long, tiring hours, it was so nice to see how much of a difference we made for these children and the staff. Whether it be allowing the volunteer “tias” to take a small break from being bombarded by 10 children, or hearing the kids running around yelling “new playground” as we gave the existing one a fresh coat of paint, our impact was deeply felt.
I was surprised at the conditions of the orphanage upon our first arrival. I had never been to an orphanage before this one, but movies and stereotypes do a bad job of portraying them. The one "casita" I was inside of was home to two year olds and younger. Each child had their own crib, there was over 10 height chairs for feeding, plenty of space to play inside and outside, and an abundance of bottles. I think this made being there and leaving in the end a little easier. The children were also in clean clothes and many went to school during the day. It's very important that these children have a life outside the orphanage so they can have a somewhat normal life and not only feel like they were abandoned. Our group has been welcomed back anytime we choose and I might take them up on that one day. You can visit their website here if you would like to support them in anyway:
http://hhsj.or.cr/
I was surprised at the conditions of the orphanage upon our first arrival. I had never been to an orphanage before this one, but movies and stereotypes do a bad job of portraying them. The one "casita" I was inside of was home to two year olds and younger. Each child had their own crib, there was over 10 height chairs for feeding, plenty of space to play inside and outside, and an abundance of bottles. I think this made being there and leaving in the end a little easier. The children were also in clean clothes and many went to school during the day. It's very important that these children have a life outside the orphanage so they can have a somewhat normal life and not only feel like they were abandoned. Our group has been welcomed back anytime we choose and I might take them up on that one day. You can visit their website here if you would like to support them in anyway:
http://hhsj.or.cr/
Manuel Antonio
24 hours at this beautiful place was simply not enough. Our first day we were able to just hangout on the beach and at our resort and have a nice dinner. While we were at the pool we got a few visitors. By this I mean we had about 15 monkeys, some carrying babies, come check us out and walk about a foot away from us. See the picture.
I decided to wake up early on Friday with one of my friends to go walk the beach in search of shells. Having been to Florida many times in my life, I expected there to be so many shells that I couldn't carry them all back to the resort. I was way wrong. On the shores of the beach, there was about one shell for every 100 rocks! I did find a few very cool shells that i will have to sneak back home, and in addition I found some very unique colored and shaped rocks. Friday we went to the National Park down the street from where we stayed. It was here that we saw one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. As I mentioned earlier, one day was not long enough! We were warned of the monkeys taking our stuff while we went swimming at the beach, but nobody warned us about the racoons. As I was sitting with mine and my friends belongings, two racoons ran right up to me and tried to steal my stuff! I had to literally yank my items from their little paws. We then kept a long stick by us to scare them away from then on. It was almost comical to watch them try and steal from everybody on the beach and see the reactions they got. After a few hours at the beach it was time to pack up and leave. Fear not, I will be back one day
I decided to wake up early on Friday with one of my friends to go walk the beach in search of shells. Having been to Florida many times in my life, I expected there to be so many shells that I couldn't carry them all back to the resort. I was way wrong. On the shores of the beach, there was about one shell for every 100 rocks! I did find a few very cool shells that i will have to sneak back home, and in addition I found some very unique colored and shaped rocks. Friday we went to the National Park down the street from where we stayed. It was here that we saw one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. As I mentioned earlier, one day was not long enough! We were warned of the monkeys taking our stuff while we went swimming at the beach, but nobody warned us about the racoons. As I was sitting with mine and my friends belongings, two racoons ran right up to me and tried to steal my stuff! I had to literally yank my items from their little paws. We then kept a long stick by us to scare them away from then on. It was almost comical to watch them try and steal from everybody on the beach and see the reactions they got. After a few hours at the beach it was time to pack up and leave. Fear not, I will be back one day
Bananas do not grow on trees
The day after we returned to San Jose from Manuel Antonio, we visited a banana plantation. Specifically, we visited a Dole plantation. It was very interesting to see the fields where bananas grow, the way they are removed from the plant, and then the packaging process. Not only that but we learned a lot about the history of how bananas were introduced to Costa Rica. Did you know that it takes about 18 days from when bananas are harvested to get to your kitchen table? Learn something new everyday
my favorite meal- ensalada con pollo
I have many places to choose from in the area or at the mall a block down the street when it comes time for our lunch break. Lunch is also served daily at my school, CRLA. They offer a plate of the day, salads, burritos, and empanadas every day. My very favorite lunch is pictured and it is a salad with shredded chicken on top. The salad costs me 2900 colones which is a little more than $5.
Costa Rica vs. trinidad y tobago
Let's be real, I am a big sports fan, but not necessarily a soccer fan. I first have to give major credit to our wonderful directors and professors who were about to gather all our money and purchase the tickets for us, it was very kind of them to do that. But last night I attended a very important match for the Costa Rica soccer team. The stadium was huge and it was a surreal experience. Ticos (Costa Ricans) take their futbol very seriously! It's by far the largest and most popular sport in this country. This excursion was not originally planned but I'm excited we were able to find out about it in time to buy tickets. This was a game that was part of the World Cup Qualifying series, which made it even more exciting when Costa Rica won 2-1!
Repetitive? We all need to be a little more nice...
I want to be VERY clear: I am not bashing any country our culture. I am simply stating observations I have made and creating comparisons. My observations have been made off MULTIPLE occurrences that have happened to not just me but others in my group here and not just one situation. I am not trying to offend anybody but rather talk about the unspoken.
After almost a month here, there's a few things I am sure of how we treat other races that simply needs to stop. All of the following I have experienced first hand here in Costa Rica and have witnessed happen to others in the United States. First of all is the staring. Nobody likes to be stared in the first place but especially when you know your skin color makes you different than others around you. Every day, at least twice a day I find myself sitting at the bus stop with my head down just so I do not have to see everybody staring at me, and it sucks. Sorry mom, I know you hate that word but there's no other way to describe it. So my number one thing to stop, is staring at people of other races. Following along with the staring is looking at someone then making a comment about them to the person next to you. Another thing that has happened to me here and let me tell you it made me feel like absolute garbage. I did not have to hear what they were saying, it made me feel awful anyways. My number two thing to stop doing is talking about people of other races right in front of them, regardless if they can hear or not. I want to extend that also to not just someone of another race but about about someone that's just different than yourself. If you absolutely positively have to say something about someone, it can wait till later. My third thing can also be considered part of number two, and that is making your comment to your friend and laughing. I was on the bus one day and two Costa Rican girls, high school age, sitting in front of me clearly said something about me after they looked at me and then started laughing. I wanted to cry. So my third, and at this time, final point is to stop making others feel bad for being a different race or having a different hair color and so on. All anybody and everybody wants to do is live their life at peace. We have a funny way of ruining that for many.
Why do we as humanity feel okay to silently humiliate someone?
Not okay. Let's be the generation to end this nonsense.
After almost a month here, there's a few things I am sure of how we treat other races that simply needs to stop. All of the following I have experienced first hand here in Costa Rica and have witnessed happen to others in the United States. First of all is the staring. Nobody likes to be stared in the first place but especially when you know your skin color makes you different than others around you. Every day, at least twice a day I find myself sitting at the bus stop with my head down just so I do not have to see everybody staring at me, and it sucks. Sorry mom, I know you hate that word but there's no other way to describe it. So my number one thing to stop, is staring at people of other races. Following along with the staring is looking at someone then making a comment about them to the person next to you. Another thing that has happened to me here and let me tell you it made me feel like absolute garbage. I did not have to hear what they were saying, it made me feel awful anyways. My number two thing to stop doing is talking about people of other races right in front of them, regardless if they can hear or not. I want to extend that also to not just someone of another race but about about someone that's just different than yourself. If you absolutely positively have to say something about someone, it can wait till later. My third thing can also be considered part of number two, and that is making your comment to your friend and laughing. I was on the bus one day and two Costa Rican girls, high school age, sitting in front of me clearly said something about me after they looked at me and then started laughing. I wanted to cry. So my third, and at this time, final point is to stop making others feel bad for being a different race or having a different hair color and so on. All anybody and everybody wants to do is live their life at peace. We have a funny way of ruining that for many.
Why do we as humanity feel okay to silently humiliate someone?
Not okay. Let's be the generation to end this nonsense.
¡PURA VIDA!
Wow, I'm glad you are still with me after reading through all of that. I hope you found something interesting.
My final exam for my Spanish class will be Wednesday June 21st, keep me in your prayers!
For now, I am getting ready to relax on the beaches at Puerto Viejo on our last weekend, this Friday through Sunday.
My final exam for my Spanish class will be Wednesday June 21st, keep me in your prayers!
For now, I am getting ready to relax on the beaches at Puerto Viejo on our last weekend, this Friday through Sunday.