Chivalry is Alive!

I am now back in Costa Rica after traveling for two weeks in Guatemala visiting family and seeing what Guatemala has to offer in the tourism sector. It was a beautiful trip and I could not have been happier sharing it with my brother and friend Farhat. There are so many little anecdotes from that trip that will stay with me for a long time but there is one that I would like to share that after today I know that there are chivalrous men still out there!

On December 23, 2009, about a week into the trip, we (Daniel, Farhat, and I) woke up at 5:40am in Flores, Guatemala which is located in the northern half of the country. Our bus was scheduled to leave at 6:00 for Rio Dulce so we were running a little behind. We very quickly packed our bags and jumped in a taxi to make it to the bus. We made it on time and we were on our way. In order to avoid the nausea that long bus rides are known for we each took a pill to alleviate any urge to hurl which also made us easily fall asleep.

There were a few surprises along the way. The bus continued to stop every few kilometers picking people up. At one point the aisles were full of older women, their kids, and some women even breast feeding their babies. Meanwhile the men were still comfortably sitting in their seats enjoying the scenery. Towards the end of the trip the ride was so bad that there was a baby sitting on Farhat´s lap and a little girl sleeping on my lap while her brother was on the lap of a stranger and the mom had been shifted almost to the back of the bus. So not only were we out of it from the pills and a startled wake up but we were not part of a baby sitting service.

Now, I ask...What ever happened to men getting up to give a lady his seat? My machista brother was on the side of the men and simply stated that he paid for his seat and he was going to sit in it. I use lots of public transportation in Costa Rica and never have I witnessed such a scene. Farhat and I were both taken aback and after the venting session to my bother it was clear that he did not agree with us. Perhaps, it is the generation and devalue of chivalry in the new times.

Needless to say I am back in Costa Rica where machismo in this case works in in the favor of the woman. Meaning that a man is going to feel more like a man because he is strong enough to stand up for the bus ride that that a child bearing woman can rest her body during the bus ride. My brother was a witness to this and just maybe it will change just a little bit of his thinking and whichever woman is the woman for him will not have to stand on a bus.

I do believe in equal rights for all genders but it is also nice to be treated like a lady sometimes.

Giving Back

I have not written for a long time so I will try to make this one a good read!

Yes, I am still alive. Last week I spent the week in my In Service Training (IST). This is a training that all volunteers receive after being in their sites for three months mostly to get everyone on the same page and moving in the same direction. It was a time to share with the group little anecdotes of how the first few months were going, how much gallo pinto we are eating, and in a nutshell just catch up on our adventures.

I had such a feeling of pride to share with my group-mates that I am loving my site and especially the friendships with Costa Ricans that I am forming. Sometimes it is hard for us to totally adapt to a new culture that is so different from our own that we get stuck in the idea that our culture is superior and everything that the people do here is wrong. It was hard for me when I was living in my former living situation and once in a while I found myself falling into that same attitude, but despite all of the obstacles that were bringing me down I have found my self moving forward and constantly surpassing where I previously was.

In this process I was fortunate enough to meet so many amazing people along the way that were so generous with me. One weekend I went with one of the teachers to meet her family in Grecia which is in the province of Alajuela. I was treated just like one of the family and even to this day when my friend is talking to her parents on the phone and I am around I talk to them too as if I was another one of their daughters. The acts of kindness had me thinking that the majority if not all of the people who are now a part of my Costa Rican life will most likely never see me in my own element and I will not ever be able to take them to my favorite restaurant or to meet my family and see where I am from. I want so badly to be able to give to them just as much if not more what they are giving to me.

I never thought that this job would entail so much receiving and I am really taken aback by the generosity of this culture. It is clearly nothing to complain about and it makes the difficulties of this job just a little less difficult.

Jungle Sweet Jungle

I think that I officially love my site. Or maybe I just am starting to finally feel comfortable here. I have been in Sarapiquí now for two whole months and it is finally starting to feel like my new home. I am, in this moment, very proud to say that I live in this beautiful hidden jewel of Costa Rica. Although I am still in the same house I am beginning to form a network of people that I feel comfortable enough with to start to be myself and I can also relate to their lifestyle because I too am part of the community Their problems are my problems. If there isn´t water I am also suffering just like they are. If it is nice enough to go for a swim in the river it is just as much mine as it is theirs too. We are all living together and neither one of us is better or worse than the other. I have never felt this before in my life and I cannot wait until the moment where they too see me as another addition to the community.
I think that I came to this realization today when I was at Rosa´s house. Rosa is my community counterpart who is a police officer and knows everyone and their mom! She is such a great woman and I really look up to her. Her family has taken me under their wing and it does help that her mom makes the best fried chicken that I have ever eaten! So, I was sitting on the front porch talking about things in the community and groups that I can get involved with and there was a young girl that walked by who I slightly recognized. The first week that I was here in my site, I remember this so well, I was sitting at the bus stop trying to get back to my house from Puerto (the center of town). I, being so new, did not know that the bus only passed once an hour and I was waiting like a fool at the bus stop for a very long time. I started talking to a young girl that had told me that she was pregnant and I figured that she couldn´t be more than 16 and I wished her good luck with everything and once we both got on the bus that was the last that I ever saw her...until today. The girl that had walked by was the same pregnant teenager that I had spoken with about two months ago.
So I told Rosa that I knew the girl and she told me that the girl was only sixteen and had a baby about a month and a half ago. This means that the week after I talked to the girl at the bus stop she had the baby. So I saw the baby and she was so cute like all babies are but this had me thinking of my time in this little pueblo and the time that I still have to be here. I am really part of the barrio and it was a pretty good feeling to have this sensation. Even though I have been here for so little time I think I will have moments in which this feeling reoccurs. I hope it happens a lot! I also realized that I will most likely be working with this young girl again sometime down the road because she is an adolescent mother and I hope to be able to do project with the population of adolescent mothers here in my site among many other things that I am starting to see very necessary!
After my analysis of these feelings I decided that Sundays are my favorite day of the week. Sundays always bring so much hope for a new week and the more you relax on a Sunday the more energy you will have to start the week off right. For now all the kids are on vacation and my site is pretty quiet. I am trying to take advantage of this time too to get my ideas in order so that I can have some direction for the other half of the year. My director comes this week to hopefully approve my new house and if everything goes as planned I will be in Cristo Rey ready to get to work and get to know the people with who I will be sharing a community with for the next 22 months.

So here is to the words, We, Ours, Us, and Together!!!

Happy Sunday!!!

A BAD DAY THAT TURNED OUT TO BE A GOOD DAY.....

I am really starting to get the hang of things here in the jungle and some things really don´t bother me as much as they used to. Usually I am not that upset that my host family goes out of their way to ignore me but this past Sunday they took it a little bit too far. The end result was a big birthday bash in the house that I LIVE IN and I was not invited to it nor was I told that they would even be having a party. I found this to be not only rude but a lack or respect on their part. It been hard for me in the house because there is a big lack of communication but I am not feeling like I am part of the family at all.

So here is the play by play. Earlier in the week I was told by the cleaning lady that on Sunday there would be a big party for the son of my host parents who had just turned one year old. I was pretty excited and thought that it could even be a way to connect with my host mom and help her out with the planning. I thought wrong. The whole week I waited for her to mention something to me but nothing....nothing...nothing...nothing. The weekend quickly came and I decided that I could not keep running away from my site and that I needed to stay and try to mingle with the Sarapiqueños. Saturday was not so bad but then Saturday quickly turned into Sunday and I was faced with the ¨What do I do? Do I stay? Do I ask about this party? Why haven´t they told me about??¨

The end result?? My day turned out to be pretty nice. I went to a Bingo that the school was throwing to raise some money for their classrooms and this event was not like ay other bingo that I have been to in the States. So what does a rice cooker, electric frying pan, pressure cooker, a fan, a iron, and a coffee maker have in common? Well two things...they were all prizes for the winners of bingo and they are all objects that you can find in EVERY Costa Rican home. This was kind of funny because the bingo was for the kids in the school and one would think that there would be prizes for kids but that wasn´t the case. What is a 10 year old going to do with a rice maker and an iron?! Ha!!!

In bingo luck was not on my side but it was really nice to mingle with the people in my community and to support the school. It turns out that unfortunately I came home just in time to be at the party that I tried so hard not to attend. It was nice to see the people that I had been gradually meeting since I have been here but at the same time it was VERY awkward. I left about thirty minutes in and went to my future host family´s house which turned out to be such a nice way to end my weekend. The english teacher came back the same day and he lives in the apartment behind my hopefully new house so I was finally able to speak in english with someone after only speaking in spanish the whole day. I usually don´t mind it but sometimes it is hard to express myself really well just like I would in english. The new family is very fun just like me and I think that I will finally be able to be the real fun and silly Alicia that has been locked up inside of me since I moved to my new site.

If everything goes as planned I will be moving to Cristo Rey by the end of the week just in time for the 2 week long vacation that the students receive every July. Things have been pretty good and so far I am keeping busy with little work projects and meeting people. The Peace Corps is something that I am still proud to be a part of and each day I am still finding myself having moments that tell me how happy I am to be here and Sunday was a day that was full of those moments.

We All Have a Voice

My first week in my new site had a few ups and downs. More ups than downs but I am feeling all of the feelings that I have been told I would feel. I would say that overwhelmed sums it up but there has been loneliness, happiness, surprise, gratitude, any many others. I know that it has only been a week and these feelings are going to change into other feelings as I find myself in new parts of my life and new experiences during this large experience. I look forward to these new things that are going to happen to me and I am even more cautious to the absorption of them and I will try to analyze them as opposed to just living in the moment and not realizing that the changes are happening.

For once I am in a part of the world where I am not really given a second glance and until I start speaking in spanish nobody really wonders that I would be from somewhere else. Whereas in the States I am usually always asked ¨Where are you from?¨ or ¨What is your nationality?¨ Hello?!?! I am from the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA...the last time I checked the USA is a Nation all its own. I am not sure how I feel about this. It has been a little bit of a challenge because a typical volunteer feels a lot of unwanted attention and I am not receiving any attention at all weather I want it or not. I am very proud to be Latina and I know that I am setting an incredible example for the young women here to show them that there are lots of successful young Latinas all over the world. Also, its been kind of nice to be only approached in spanish and for people to think that I am one of the locals. However, this is going to be a part of the integration process that I will have to work on.

The day that this ´blending in effect´ proved to be the most challenging was last Wednesday when I went to the school for the first time. I hadn´t been able to go during my site visit so I hadn´t met any of the students or staff. The day that I arrived at the school I just kind of blended in and nobody really understood why I was there. In the most professional manner possible I had to continuously explain the goals of my program and the reason why I was there. The majority of the teaching staff just nodded their heads and made funny faces when I told them that I was going to be in the school for the next two years.

Luckily, the students were my gateway to a day that proved to be full of such a positive rush that gave me energy and the excitement for the work I will be doing in the next two years. The population of the school is around 500 students and the grade levels are from preschool to sixth grade. During that week, the student elections were taking place. I guess that is what gave me the sensation that despite the lack of resources there still is an instillment of fundamental values that are of importance to the advancement of the youth of the world. In my opinion the freedom to vote and the freedom of speech is a right that every person should have and I am proud to be volunteering in a place that sees eye to eye. That same day that I blended in so well I was also helping the different political parties of the school make their propaganda to campaign for the party and promote their platforms etc. Isn´t this freedom such a beautiful thing. Although these kids might not realize the power that they have in this time in their lives it is something that they are learning from a young age that will be a part of their future and the values that they will hopefully teach the following generations.

I guess this made me think of the elections that are going on in the US and maybe these politicians need to put the innocence back into the election system and give back the legit idea of democracy back to the people. Maybe they just need to come to the school in my site and take a few lessons from the kids here. No matter how little resources and tangible goods there are in the barrio, the most important is that the youth is learning how to speak for themselves and as citizens and youth of their country they have an important role.

As for now I am in the second week in my site and I think that I am slowly but surely building relationships and am showing the members of the community that I am not from here but I am living here now and that means that I am just as much part of the community as they are. My voice is just as important and has just as much power as theirs does. Thus, I am looking forward to working with the people of the community to make our community even better.

I Live in a Pink Room

I Live in a Pink Room

Yes, I live in a pink room. I am officially in my site now and lately all I can think about is how long and how short two years can really be. As soon as I unpacked ALL of my clothes I realized as I was dripping sweat all over the floor because of the heat how long and how short two years might be. It is long enough to read a lot of books, eat my fair share of patacones, and short enough that as soon as I become really comfortable in my site it might be almost time to leave.

I am living in a very nice house with a real family. (Yea...as opposed to a fake family....) The parents are in their mid thirties and they are both school teachers. They have two little boys, one that is three years old and one that is eleven months old. I was here for a visit about 3 weeks ago and it is nice to come back and see how things have changed. I arrived at the house and the eleven month old is walking now and that is when I discovered that there was something different about my future bedroom. It was now pink! It was most definitely better than the white walls from before. It is homier and now that I am settled in, I really feel like I live here.

This time I don´t feel as alone. Already, walking in the street I saw people that I had recognized from my site visit and it was a comforting feeling. Also, I am in the main center that a few other RCD (Rural Community Development) Volunteers come to meet with their counterparts, so I will be seeing them a least once a week. Both of my host parents, (its so weird referring to someone as a ¨parent¨ that is only about thirteen years older than I am, however, unfortunately I have also learned that something like that is not impossible) have large families that I will hopefully become a part of as my time here progresses.

For now I am looking forward to my bucket baths, sweating, and just enjoying learning about the dynamic of my site and getting to know the people in the community. There is a lot for me to take in at first but as long as I just keep my mind nice and open it will all be valuable for my future work and will make my stay here very successful and full of wonderful experiences.

By the way....I like my pink room:)