a random list of various things

• On Saturday I'll have been here a month. This is amazing to me. 
• On Saturday I am also moving to a new town and house and family where I'll be staying for the next two months. I'm not ready to leave this place that I've just started to get comfortable in. 
• I have my routine. I know where some things are in the grocery store. I've explored a little bit. I now know what my host parents are asking me when they say ¿Cómo ameneció?
• I'm no longer asking myself "What are you doing with your life?" when I think about the fact that I'm living in Central America. 
• Time zones are dumb. And I still don't really understand them. 
• I really have no concept of what snow is at this point. It's just white stuff in pictures, when I'm here in the 80s every day and have started to agree with the locals that temperatures in the 60s are "cold."
• One girl was complaining about having been here for three weeks and not having had, in her words, "big life experiences." But I disagree. I may not have climbed volcanoes or gone to the beach or traveled the whole country or partied hard or whatever else one might consider "life experiences," but I think I've done plenty. I've lived in another country. 
• Every program, every experience has issues. I'm working on finding the balance between acknowledging that and giving myself space to complain and commiserate with focusing on the good stuff that is also very present. 
• Like the fresh strawberries I have every day for lunch. 
• Or watching Disney movies in Spanish. 
• Or how exciting it was to help my host brother with his English homework and not feel completely incompetent for once. 
• Knowing the buses is such a cool concept to me. I've never lived somewhere with any legitimate public transport system. Knowing my stop and how much it will cost and feeling, just a little bit like a local is a wonderful change. 
• And finally, a joke from another student's host mother: What do you call someone who speaks three languages? A trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages? A bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks one language? A gringo. 

on spanish

Sometimes....

I stand there, in front of my host mom or my classmates, and want to bury myself into the floor. The words are stuck behind a block in my mouth. My brain can't come up with the word I want and all the other ways to explain it have vanished from the face of the earth.

My tongue won't cooperate to form itself into rr's and long and unfamiliar combinations.

I say something after having rehearsed it for the previous 10 minutes in my head.

I feel like I could almost pass for not being a foreigner.

I walk for an extra two blocks when I'm lost because that's how long it takes me to build up the courage to ask someone for directions.

I open my mouth and the person in front of me immediately switches into English.

I make stupid, idiotic mistakes that I would never have thought I would. I say "con yo" instead of "conmigo" or make "problema" feminine.

I tune out of a conversation for a few seconds and when I come back to earth, realize I have no idea what's being discussed.

I get so frustrated by all of the words and sayings unique to Costa Rica (costarriqueñismos) that I have to learn.

I nod my head and smile vaguely because I have no idea what someone just said to me. Or if it was even a question.

And sometimes, sometimes, someone asks me a question and I don't have to think through my answer, or correct myself halfway through. Sometimes the words march out of my mouth just the way they're supposed to, the way they do in my head. 

San Ramón

Today I got up early to take a different bus all the way to the center of San José, where I met the student services coordinator for my program. She walked with me through the center of the city to a different bus stop, where she got me on the correct bus to go to Alajuela. From there I had to find my way through a meat market to a children's park, where I waited for my advisor. She came and picked me up and we drove together to San Ramón. When I say all of that I think it's a bit of a miracle that I got there okay.

San Ramón is where I will be spending the months of March and April, as I conduct my research on perceptions and knowledge about the Red Cross. (In Costa Rica the Red Cross is the primary pre-hospital emergency service, as opposed to in the US where it's just for larger disasters.) I met with the director of the Red Cross branch and met the paramedic and several other workers and got a tour of their facility.

My advisor talked a lot and fast, but I caught most of it. Unfortunately, I'm not the type of person who's going to try to insert myself into a conversation in another language when I'm not being asked direct questions, so I'm not sure how much Spanish they think that I actually speak. (I'm not really sure either, but that's another matter entirely.) However, everyone seemed incredibly nice and open and so willing to have me around asking questions and spending time with them.

We had to clear up the issue of technician vs. técnico (In the US the basic level of pre-hospital certification is an Emergency Medical Technician, which is what I am. In Costa Rica, the highest level is un técnico, which is equivalent to a paramedic in the states. Paramédico in Spanish can mean either the equivalent of EMT or paramedic.) My advisor had heard technician and thought I had two years of schooling to be a paramedic. Oops.

But overall it went really well. It sounds like I'll be able to do some interviews, but won't be totally on my own for them. And best of all, I'll get to spend lots of time with the paramedic (that's what I'm going to call the técnico because it makes the most sense in my head) and on the ambulance. I have to go out and buy some heavy duty work boots!

I also got to briefly meet my new host family that I'll be staying with for the two months in San Ramón. They seem nice and it's a beautiful house with a rose garden. Only they apparently hadn't been told I'm vegetarian, and my advisor informed them of that. The mom looked slightly terrified at the prospect of trying to cook without meat, so that could be an adventure.

And then I got back home safely. At the bus station in San José I walked the wrong direction, so ended up getting a taxi to bring me back home (which I had a brief panic about because for a few minutes I thought I'd gotten in a non-legit taxi, but never fear, I was wrong). It sounds so extravagant to me, coming from the states, and even when I compare the bus fare to that of the taxi. But when I end up paying less than $8, I tell myself to chill. Not walking in circles for 20 minutes in the middle of the city was worth that. 

busy Wednesday

Coming home I was all excited to sit down and write about how I'd had such a good afternoon; after my long nap I met lots of ticos (Costa Ricans) my own age and yadda yadda. But then I got home and it dawned on me actually how much homework I have. They didn't think things through very well, in my opinion, and made a bunch of stuff due on the same day.

At Grinnell, study abroad is  regarded as an awesome experience, but generally the academics are not seen as being as strong. Which honestly sounded awesome to me. I was ready to have my brain full of lots of language and people and culture and slightly less homework. But, here I am. Stressed about work. Which I know is natural and that it'll pass and that I should just chill, but that's where I'm at.

The first draft of our proposal for our project is due tomorrow. Part of the reason it's so hard is because there's so much that's still up in the air. I just don't know the answer to a lot of the questions they have for me.

But, it really was a good afternoon. After I got another hour of sleep under my belt, I felt much, much more like a human again. And so the "speed dating" between us, the gringos, and them, the University of Costa Rica students, was actually really fun. The highlight for me was meeting a tico who's going to be in Grinnell next year! We spoke a fun mix of Spanish and English, he taught me some swear words (that I swear I wanted to know not to use, but for my linguistic knowledge), and we exchanged numbers and emails so so we can see each other and hang out again. Friends! I apparently still know how to make them!

And now I must go and re-watch a video about the Red Cross in Costa Rica so that I can present it to my Spanish conversation class tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!

week two

I've been here a little over a week. It feels like much, much longer. Which I suppose is understandable, given the dramatic changes my life has undertaken in that amount of time. I am still having moments where I look around and ask myself "What am I doing with my life?" The concept of up and moving to another country for four months is very strange in some ways.

The good news about this week is that we only have four days of classes. Early (early early) Friday morning we leave for a quick field-trip to I'm-not-sure-where. But it apparently involves a chocolate farm, consumption of large quantities of chocolate, sloths, and some type of forest-walk. So I'm excited.

Most of my program is built around the completion of an independent resarch project that each students designs, carries out, and writes up with the help of an advisor on a topic of their choosing. The first draft of our proposal is due Thursday, which I was fine with, until I looked at the example one and saw that it's 14 pages. ack. Little confused about how we're supposed to go from our first five sources due tomorrow to a draft two days later, but whatever.

It's raining. Which is apparently very strange because it's summer here and never rains this early. I'm just hoping I won't get too wet this week on my walks to and from school.

Spanish is harder than it was the first week. The first week was mostly me being super excited that my Spanish was actually passable. That I could communicate with people. But now that we've talked about the easy, simple things, it's harder. Even in English, I am generally a pretty quiet person except with the people I know really well. In Spanish, I struggle to come up with things to say, and then simplify them back to tenses and constructions that will be comprehensible outside of my brain. It's hard to have a censor on myself like that.

But then I come here and I talk to friends and family and the wonderful world of the internet. Which is helping to keep me sane, but I can also feel how it disrupts my Spanish. Once I'm thinking in English, it takes my brain a little bit to transition back into Spanish. I'm not going to give it up, but the balance between the two is definitely on my mind. 

musings.

Comparisons between here and India are inevitable. I'm doing my best to not let them overwhelm me and to be present here. But, for kicks, here's what I've noticed.

--Being able to speak even a little bit of the language makes such a huge difference in my experience. Being able to respond in kind when someone greets me on the street feels huge.

--A lot of the students were initially overwhelmed by the traffic, but for me it was so tame in comparison to India. There are lanes! People stay in them! I don't fear for my limbs when trying to cross the street. And I'm mostly grateful that they drive on the right here. I still haven't shaken the habit of looking right twice, so now I just look both ways an excessive number of times, which probably isn't the worst thing in the world.

--I stand out here so much less. White skin is not the norm, but it's definitely not the rarity like it was in India. And since I'm living here, I'm getting to know my way around and definitely am starting to feel, and hopefully look, a lot less like a clueless tourist.

--I have not been asked for my picture once. It is fabulous. Of course, as I was walking home today thinking about all this, I got catcalled, but I just smiled. That's something I get in the US and while it's definitely not my favorite, it feels manageable.

--I am definitely out of the Grinnell bubble. As small and limiting as it can feel sometimes, it's a wonderful place to be and I miss it and the people.

--I don't know how to end this. I've settled in here way faster than I thought was possible. Things are generally quite good. And my family has a cat, so it will all be okay.

day one

It began at a few minutes before six, so that I would have enough time to eat breakfast and get ready before heading out the door to reach my institute's office by 7:30.

We had a morning full of listening to thrilling information about emergencies, policies, and expectations. Then we headed out for lunch, before a (long, long) tour of the University of Costa Rica campus.

My favorite part of the day was when my host mom arrived to pick me up. It was such a relief to see a familiar, kind face who was going to take me back to what is rapidly becoming my home.

There are 14 total students on my program, some who already knew each other, but most not. We started the day speaking to each other in our halting Spanish, but by the end had mostly devolved back into the easier English. In these first few days of orientation, it's not a big deal, but soon it will become an expectation to speak only in Spanish.

They all seem very nice, most of us eager for our Spanish to improve and to begin our research projects. I'm not sure how well I'm going to be able to get to know them, with the limiting factor of language from both ends. We shall see. Definitely different from my long, easy conversations with friends back home.

Tomorrow there's more orientation, plus the Spanish tests. I was so anxioius about these tests before arriving, but now that I'm here, and can say that I've survived multiple days with a family that only speaks Spanish, a test seems very small in comparison.

To get to school I walk through the neighborhood for about 10 minutes, catch a bus (my host mama originally told me that any bus would work, but she keeps qualifying this, so here's hoping I don't end up on the wrong side of town), hope the traffic isn't too terrible, hopefully remember the correct stop, and then walk a few blocks to the office. The money is a whole other challenge, so my grand plan is to just hand the driver the smallest bill I have and hope he gives me the correct change.

That's my not-so-thrilling news.

It already feels like it's been going to fast in some ways, but sometimes I can't believe that I signed myself up for four months (129 days, but who's counting) here.