Back to school

The first week of school has come and gone. It was fun, much more fun than it was last year when I had absolutely no idea what was going on. The students, strangely, all acted like little angelitos, and the director was surprisingly pleasant to me. My first graders all now know to say “I am fine, thank you,” when asked, “How are you?” although if you ask them what it means in Spanish, they look at you with a blank stare. We’ll keep working on it.

Yesterday, I sat through a two-hour staff meeting. Staff meetings are never fun, but staff meetings in a different language are even more tortuous. The part I did enjoy, however, was the presentation of brooms. I’ve mentioned before how important brooms and sweeping are in this country, right? Well, each teacher got a new broom and a new dust pan yesterday, just to start the year out right. All of the brooms had turquoise broomsticks, and all but one had pink brooms. One had a blue broom. The janitor (also my host mom) had the honor (for obvious reasons) of handing out the brooms. Everyone was excited and began immediately to write their names on the broomsticks. But then someone noticed that Felix, the lone male teacher, had gotten a pink broom. How funny! A man with a pink broom! The director suggested he change with someone so as not to be stuck with the ever-feminine pink broom, but it was too late. He’d already written his name on it! But there’s a reason she is the director; she quickly solved the problem by unscrewing the broomstick and screwing it back onto a blue broom. Now Felix can keep his classroom floors clean and keep his manhood intact.

Along these same lines – the lines of floor-cleaning obsession – Andreina, the baby of the house, recently got her very first T-shirt mop. Remember when she got the little baby broom? Well, now she has a tot-sized mop made of her very own unwanted T-Shirts. That little Tica really is growing up.

Life goes on in the campo

Where to start? It's been cooler than usual in the mornings around here. I had to wear a jacket to school three days in a row. I checked my thermometer to find that it was 70 degrees. And I was downright cold! Strange how our perceptions can change so quickly.

Host family life as been going well. Greivin (boyfriend of host sister, pronounced Gray Bean) has been clearing the yard to make way for an addition to the house. He and Liliana and the baby are moving into a room on the back of the house, but they need a kitchen.

The first step in the project was to cut down a palm tree. Here’s how that works here: A guy (in this case Gray Bean) shimmies up the trunk of the tree. He has a machete tied around his waste with a piece of string. He holds on tight to the trunk with one hand and swings the machete with the other. He chops and chops until all the palm leaves, stems, stalks and coconuts are in a big pile on the ground and nothing is left of the tree but a long, skinny trunk. Then he ties one end of a long rope around the top of the trunk and loops the other end around a couple of trees nearer to the ground. Then he scoots down the tree a bit and begins chopping away at the trunk until he is just too tired to chop anymore or until a swarm of bees begins to sting him. Then he comes down to help a few guys on the ground pull the rope until the top part of the trunk falls. As it falls, they all scream and make the sign of the cross. Then the guy cuts away the palm stalks lying on the ground and takes them inside to the woman of the house so she can cook them for supper. Then everyone else in the house (including myself) yells to the guy to cut open some coconuts for drinking, and he does so with just a few quick swings of the machete. Then he comes back the next day and repeats the last few steps of the routine until the entire tree is down and the bellies of the household are happily full of hearts of palm and coconut juice.

I was thinking of moving into a little apartment myself, but I think I’ll just stick it out in the house for now. I am afraid I might miss something if I move away. As long as they keep cutting down palm trees and passing out coconuts, I’m fine right where I am. Besides, I have decided to for sure come back home in July, look for a job (god help me) or maybe go to graduate school. I am not really ready to come back just yet, but that’s what the next four months are for – to prepare.

Let me know if you see any job openings for people with my unique set of skills: I can make pizza, write newspaper stories, teach English to people who don’t speak English, build a house with nothing more than a bit of wood, a hammer, nails, and a length of plastic tubing, and if really put the test, I could cut down a palm tree with nothing more than a big knife and piece of rope.

I'm still here

A few days ago a whole gaggle of gringos came marching by the pulperia, all sweaty and utterly exhausted from hiking up and down the mountains that form the horizon of my town. The trek leader stopped to chat and said she is always surprised when she haps upon a lone gringo living out in the middle of nowhere. “I always want to just snatch them – you – up and say, ‘Come with me,’” she said, clearly appalled that I would live in such hot, remote, dirty little place.

But I am happy to be here, as always. I am more accustomed to the heat this year than I was last year, so while it is still hot, it’s not quite so miserable as before. My host family is doing well, the baby is starting to talk, and the living room recently got a much-needed fresh coat of paint (tree-frog green and soft lavender).

Last week I endured one of the most difficult experiences of my life when I volunteered for Un Techo Para Mi Pais (A Roof For My County). One hundred and eighteen of us (20 gringos, the rest Costa Rican college students), built 26 small wooden shelters for families living in extreme poverty (mud floors and no running water) in the province of Limon. Some highlights included washing my face with sewer water, bathing in a men’s urinal and working four days straight in constant rain and mud. On the second morning, I cried and was just about to walk out on the project when my friend Dan gave the whole group of soggy gringos a pep talk.

“We are Americans from the United States,” he said. “We don’t quit. It’s in our blood to stay longer than is really necessary. Take the Vietnam War. Or the Iraq War. Or The Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy.”

With that we all felt a surge of pride and headed out into the rain and mud to prove we don’t quit. But ultimately all but three of us did quit. I left on the morning of the last day when the blisters on the bottoms of my feet had finally gotten the best of me. Oh what sweet pain I felt limping my way to the bus stop! I have photos to post, but the Internet is running so slowly today, I think I will wait to post them later.

Thankfully, I am back in the relative luxury of my own town and room. School starts Monday, which will surely provide me with more stories to keep this blog more regularly updated.

In the meantime, I know have a cell phone, which is connected and working here in Costa Rica, thanks to my generous and smart older brother. If you don’t mind paying the long-distance fees, call me anytime at 011-506-8892-6624. I’m always in the mood to speak English!

And last but not least, FELIZ DIA DE SAN VALENTIN Y MES DEL AMOR Y AMISTAD!