Another day, another colone.

This past week, I fell into a kind of rhythm. After returning from Samara, I jumped into my schedule of class in the mornings and my project with the kids in the afternoons. Looking back on the week, I am so amazed at how much my Spanish has improved. Somehow the sentences have begun to flow more easily from my mouth without hesitation, and my nerves have dissipated considerably. The kids at my project have seemed to notice the change. I’ve been able to get to know them better now that my vocabulary is coming back to me, bit by bit, from the forgotten dregs of my brain. My accent is also a tad less atrocious. Yesterday I was congratulated, by two seven-year-old girls on the swing, for my ability to properly say the name of a boy nearby. I found myself feeling so grateful to them and proud of myself. Then I snapped out of it and proceeded to fling kids around and lift them up high enough to hang by their little arms from one treacherous broken piece of playground equipment or another, all the while begging them to PLEASE keep the crayons out of their mouths.
Monday was Cameron and Madi’s final day in San Pedro. They are the brother-sister construction/painting team from Washington who helped fix some of the broken equipment at the Guarderia and also painted a beautiful mural on the outside of the building. I had just begun to thoroughly enjoy their company and to appreciate them as my friends, when I realized they had to leave on Tuesday morning for the turtle conservation project on the Caribbean Coast. Katie and I were so disappointed they were leaving us, so we planned a little suaree in their honor. And by suaree I mean a bunch of us went to a bar. This was my second night going out here in San Pedro, and after some deliberation, we ended up at the same bar we’d previously gone to. I don’t know what the bar is called, but it has ridiculously large beer mugs, and one of the drinks they offer (which Katie refers to as ‘The Incredible Hulk”) is a concoction of beer, lots of lemon, and green food coloring. The rim is dusted with salt. In reality, the drink is not good. It’s actually sort of terrible. But most of us seemed to fall prey to the temptation of drinking some sort of neon green liquid, whether it was a margarita or another lime-flavored cocktail, so our table soon looked as though it was home to a St. Patrick’s Day celebration one month too early and in an entirely inappropriate country. We enjoyed an evening of chatter, occasional dancing outbursts, telling chistes, eyeing the steady stream of pizzas being delivered to the table of ten middle aged men next to us (until they finally offered us a few slices), some embarrassing stories, and one memorable argument between myself and a new volunteer from Chicago who made the mistake of telling me that Brett Favre is an overrated quarterback (No blood was spilled, but the incident renewed my belief that Bears fans really are the worst). By the time Katie and I crawled into our beds and began to debrief the happenings of the evening, it was 3:30 in the morning.
Tuesday began too early for my liking, but as tired as I was, I really have not once felt like sleeping in since my arrival in Costa Rica. I wake up each day anxious to get a move on. My host mom smiled at me upon my entering the kitchen, then asked if I was hung over, and would I like coffee? I responded no to the hangover inquiry, yet the aggressive manner with which I answered “SI POR FAVOR” to the question of coffee led to my concession that perhaps I was hung over, but only “un poquito.” I started Spanish class with a new teacher and a couple of new students, which was great, and then it was onto the bus to travel to my project.
Buses are pretty much my second home here in Costa Rica. Whether in the morning to school, in the afternoon to my project, on the way home at night, or for many hours of each weekend getting to and from a faraway destination, I’d say I spend as much time on the bus each week as I do hanging out at my house. I’ve come to realize that using a city’s public transportation system gives one great insight into its people and culture. For example, if Tico bus drivers are any indication of the ways of the general population, these are a very utilitarian people, as bus drivers allow SO many people to cram onto the busses during rush hour that it is pretty much a sick chiste. There have been a couple of instances when Katie and I have squeezed onto a bus thinking we will surely be ordered to get off and wait for the next one, only to end up standing with half of our bodies hanging out the door as the bus proceeds to move. This does not seem to be a problem here. Playing of one’s personal music loudly on a cell phone, or texting incessantly without ever once thinking to put one’s phone on vibrate or silent seems to also be a standard procedure. Seats on the bus are taken seriously and Ticos and Ticas have no problem voicing their opinions when they feel someone should be giving up their seat for another more deserving person. Laughing at strangers when they fall or hit their heads is also fully acceptable, which I know, of course, because I have been known to do both of these things. All in all, Costa Ricans and bus rides with them are loud, honest, communicative, sometimes dangerous, and for the most part pleasant and interesting experiences. On bigger buses for long trips over the weekends, men are frequently allowed on board to sell snacks up and down the aisles, which for some reason always makes me think of the Hogwarts Express (though I don’t think the witch on the Hogwarts express sold fried pig skin).
An interesting personal development that those of you who know me well may be interested in is my recent recovery from germaphobia. Some of you may recall hearing a rousing rendition of a little song Trevor and I like to call “Sanitize Me.” Well, I am proud to say that though the situations listed in that song may still gross me out a little bit, they no longer leave me paralyzed with revulsion, thanks to my time spent here in Costa Rica. San Jose is generally a pretty dirty city. Additionally the guarderia where I volunteer is filled with kids who are normally covered in filth; their own filth and the filth of the outdoors. There isn’t a day that goes by when I leave without having lifted up a child who previously wet themselves, or rolled around with booger and spit covered kids pawing at my face. I know this is a gross thing to blog about, but I see it as a triumph in my life. I’m not saying I don’t use Purell immediately upon exiting each day, but I’ve learned not to be afraid of the germs. I grab the pole on the bus and don’t think about it all day afterwards, and when a new friend asks for a sip of my beer, I say, “sure!”
Of course, today I woke up with a sore throat, a fever, and coughing up a storm. Maybe I had it right all along.
☺

Love,
X-tine.