He Sings: I've got no time that I've got to give for where I don't need to be, well...

The best stuff I write now goes onto a private page because I'm afraid to share it or it gushes out into emails which find their way to that same page. This is not what I had in mind, not at all. It's hard enough trying to manage one life, yet now I've taken on two of my own.

What a self-fulfilling prophecy, what a harbinger this page has become. I wonder if I wrote about this entry back in May?

the start of many entries about marathons

I felt so good today as I watched the 37,000 runners, walkers, and rollers of today's New York Marathon traverse 5 boroughs and 26 miles in too-good-to-be-true weather.

Standing on 88th and 1st, I was at mile marker 17. When you see one of these athletes, and you are standing 17 miles into their course, you know that their arrival at this point is due to much more than the superior mental toughness or gifted physical capacity that can lead one to call a particular occurence a "fluke." No no. I know this, because yesterday I tried to run my own New York mini-Marathon. I wanted a taste of the energy, a bite of the big boys' cake, so I set off in the afternoon to run the entire 6-mile inner loop in Central Park. This from a guy who has been reduced to running once a week, 20 minutes a pop. Mostly I wanted a taste of the energy that was mounting in Central Park. Isn't it crazy how the moments leading up to a spectacular gathering of people, or in the hours after a heroic performance, a place can give off such an intense energy that the ordinary suddenly feels mystical?

Anyway, I ran 6 miles and was beat. I knew that there was nothing flukish about making it 17 miles. If someone passed before my eyes today, I was seeing so much more than who they were in that present moment. I saw all the way back to the moment they told themselves "I'm going to do this!" I saw that first day of training, I saw the days when they were close to quitting, I saw the family and friends swooping in and refusing to let them back down, I saw it all packed into one fantastic image of a man, or a woman, an American or an Italian, a human, gliding down first avenue - or more likely - surging and straining and forging ahead. I saw goals manifested into reality, and honestly, when else do you ever get to see something like that happen? This goes for the elite runners, as well as the everyday men and women who one day said to themselves, "I'm going to force my legs to go forward nonstop for 26 miles, and I'm going to do this all within the time it would take to watch 1/3 of the Lord of the Rings trilogy." This is where the real awesomeness is at. These people are the reason I couldn't stop grinning all day.

The race was a joyous event at so many levels. As a spectator, it hit me that every one of the 37,000 people who ran by me today had different motivations, circumstances, fears, goals, challenges, and obstacles that led up to this day. Every runner had a unique story. If I could simply ask each and every one of them, "Why are you doing this today?", I don't think I would ever be lonely again.

At one point early in the morning, I saw something that I would see repeated over and over throughout the day. Amidst a pack of swift moving, sweaty men, 3 individuals in red shirts moved at a moderate pace down the middle of 1st ave. On the left and right, two middle aged and decently conditioned folks jogged rather slowly. In the middle, a man in his mid 20's fought his way down the avenue on one leg, the name "Eric" pinned to the back of his shirt. He was aided by four crutches - two metal, and the two aforementioned friends. As he moved along briskly, his huge smile preceeded him. As he passed by me, a fellow runner jogged up beside him and jubilantly began to clap and cheer with the utmost sincerity "C'mon Eric! That-a-boy! You're doing Great, keep it up!" He raised his arms high and clapped some more, as he passed on by and continued on down the road.

This happened every few minutes, as far as I could tell. Being there, it struck me as the only reason I really care to be alive. Think of all the levels of inspiration in that one moment. I'm watching this guy pass the 17 mile marker, and I'm thinking, Wow! he obviously must be struggling. This must mean so much to him, to be here right now. And yet, what does this man do? As he is running, sweating, and probably cramping, he turns to a fellow athlete - an amputee who has also made it 17 miles (but on crutches!!) - and says "Hey man, I'm here for you! We're all here for you. I see your effort, and it's amazing!"

I went back to Central Park around 4:30pm cause I have a thing about places that have recently received an influx of human energy. I was surprised to find the runners and walkers were still steadily flowing in! I cruised down the sidewalk on my bike, past milemarker 24, up towards marker 25. There was a curly headed girls standing on the edge of the curb with a shopping bag at her side, and she was cheering with genuine emotion. "This is the last hill! You're doing great! Good Job Ian! Alright Italia!." She perhaps was Jesus, or at least she must have seemed that way to the weary runners. "C'mon, start runnin' will ya!?" she jabbed ironically. "Having fun? she asked with a bit of a smile to a middle age woman who passed by at a walking pace. "Oh yeah...", came the response, "but I think I've had just about enough fun for today." So there she was, no obvious relation to any of the passing runners, these absolutely dedicated troopers, these fiercely comptetitive middle agers, out of shapers, do-it-at-all-costers who were still going even if they had to walk, because goddamnit, they entered a marathon and if it takes 6 hours and 28 minutes to get to milemarker 25 than you better be damned sure I'm making it!...and she was just giving every bit of honest moral support she had and pouring it on to these tired travellers.

I fell in love with that girl briefly, and with every other person standing in Central Park cheering as the sun went down. Those few who stuck around and cheered for people they'd never met, but whose actions had garnered their complete respect. The spectators didn't need to know anything individual about the runners, nor did the runners need to know a thing about the spectators. The fact that each was present at that moment spoke volumes more than words ever could about the character of the other. That alone was enough motivation. Who knows what sort of strength those last few runners may have gathered from the loving strangers on the curb.

It was real, it happened today. I saw the greatest side of humanity. I saw people feeding off each others' energy. I saw people motivating people, actions motivating actions, respecting fostering love refueling determination.

Kumi Naidoo

"I would say this to President Bush: Sir, this time on this crucial question of trade justice, we would welcome some benign unilateralism and leadership. If you think it is just to scrap US subsidies, then please do it and do not dither and wait for others to do so as well!"

http://www.civicus.org/new/content/deskofthesecretarygeneral20.htm

Feelings of a Volunteer English Teacher turned Buyer for Lord and Taylor

I have a sublime new home on the corner of 39th and 5th
and I'm fucking thrilled!
I do not feel displaced,
elitist, spoiled, or depressed.
Far from it in fact. What I've found:
I've found a quirky little truth lurking
somewhere inside of me. You see, in my body
(and maybe in yours too)
there's something (not a heart) tucked
deep behind my sternum, which at particular moments
in my life has sent Extreme rushes of adrenaline
out of me, almost uncontrolably. Exactly where this item is,
I cannot say, and while it feels farther away than the furthest
star, it throbs and it pulses as it has at various times,
identifying itself to me very tangibly
as it creaks and moans in the deepest tones, slouching
its way open and sending a rush of action! to the rest of my body.
It seems to happen when the outside world sends me
Opportunity and a chance to Compete to take it. When this occurs,
my mind responds one of two ways.

Act.
Or hope.

When it shoots into action it is really saying this:
I'm prepared to take this. In fact everything
I've ever done has prepared me to take this.
No mortal can stop me, it's far too late now.
I will take this opportunity and I will fly!

My new neighborhood is trying so hard to be a neverneverland for the popped-collar-wearing-wish-I-was-still-in-a-frat-picking-up-drunk-freshmen crowd, it's hard to see at this point just where I'll fit in. Especially when I pick up my journal and read: (Day 42) "...I want to spend the rest of my life surrounded by motivated, pensive, goal oriented, multi-talented, skilled in listening, active, articulate, soft hearted-strong skinned change makers..."Where do I find these people in New York? Shouldn't it be more obvious than it has been in my two weeks so far? Is it so rare to find someone with a conscience in a city so diverse? What in the hell was I doing tonight following peers to a bar called The Big Easy where their drink special was the Hurricane? This is funny to people? This disaster, this horrific loss of life, this lawless free-for-all of destruction, this helplessness consuming New Orleans right now is a perfect opportunity for clever and witty people to sell alcohol to New Yorkers? I'm trying to taste the city and so far it's overwhelmingly sour. Now I'm upset and dissapointed because I went to a bar with a whole lot of lame ex fraternity and sorority peoiple, right around the block from my new home - where the bar was called the Big Easy and the drink special was the hurricane, and where, apparently, this upset nobody but me, and where I left disgusted with New York and all the people I've met who are so damn obsessed with themselves and their own money and just wanting to have an innocent old good time, ignorant of everything else that's going on around them...and here I am, still not doing anything but reading about the horror stories, so what makes me any different?

I hate that I'm denying my culture shock. I walk through the New York streets with my head down. I'm hesitant and usually reluctant to smile at anyone, and when I do I feel like a stalker. I miss what I was doing only a month ago. I miss walking down a street with little to no purpose at all. I miss those unexpected invitations for frescos, which turn into cafecitos, which become dessert making sessions and eventually family dinners. There are no kids walking alone in these streets. No kids smiling shyly.

Here's one thing I swore not to be on Day 44:

2) Aggressive and accusational rather than humble and observant.

That's all I've been in New York. Can I apply the same open-mindedness to a city that moves so fast and requires quick decisions and decisive actions? I want to learn about this place like I wanted to learn about Costa Rica, but the approach that seemed appropriate there seems futile and weak up here. Here, there's no time for simply passing the time together. Time seems to have a sort of monetary value attached to it. In finding apartments, I've gotten to know nobody. I've survived on shallow and harshly judgemental business relationships, nothing more.

Day 44 - **Nothing makes me happier, having lived two more weeks, than the smile I earn from Nicole. Her eyes change, tiny little folds appear under the bottom lids, and Oh!! Like it's always waiting for me, always just below the surface waiting for sudden dispatch where the only variable is my own mood. If I want it she will share it. To see another person that happy...is the simplest thing, a pure, simple smile. **

A woman got onto the subway tonight, asking people if they could please offer up just a nickel, maybe a sandwhich, perhaps even a book - anything at all that would comfort her and her baby and help them make it through the night. My first thought was this: Liars. I examined her tone of voice: Too casual. I made sure not to make eye contact, staring alternately over her head and down at the ground. I wanted as quickly as possible to get away.

And here's the truth: Day 47

The 8 hours felt short in travel, and midway, reading Rich Dad Poor Dad I realized that Robert Kiyosaki is right. The ability to understand finances will be vital to my living the life I want to live, having the freedom to take a job for what I can do with it, not what it can do for me. In some way I will work with development, hopefully in the 3rd world, and along the way I'm going to be selling things one way or another. Increased financial literacy, learning to read numbers as a story and to differentiate assets from liabilities, I believe now, will prove invaluable regardless. If I want to do development, I better understand investing. All these more mature reasons considered, I'd perhaps be foolish not to at least try L&T. I'm at peace when I think of what I may learn. I'm in turmoil when I think of the industry. I'll be criticized either way, so the decision is really only mine. Anti-corporatism is beginning to appear naive. What seems mature is the more active mindset of learning how to steer the corporate to where I want it to go. The peace corps now seems selfish, and while I love my WorldTeach experience, peace corps for 27 months seems to be only a self-investment and, now, I think I'm beginning to see the enormous power of money, knowledge, and an expanded compassionate world view. I also have read in RDPD yet another compelling account, which matches my personal experience, of how the "safe" route is actually the route that will lead me to the stagnant powerless place I fear most. When have I ever EVER learned from the safe route? Safe is passive, and I've been self-preaching activism. I do not ever want to live in the suburbs. I do not want complacency. I want randomness and articulation...I must stay focused. I want to learn. I'm there to learn and practice. I want to volunteer at 826 NYC. I do not want to go to *********'s parties. I do not want to spend my nights at cool bars. I want to have my money learn to make money. I want to have lunch with people who are doing things I want to do, and when we eat I will tell them that I'm learning what I'm learning and that when I'm sufficiently charged I'm theirs. I have to have a purpose behind all of my decisions and actions, and I must continue to remind myself how valuable my time is. You become what you do and what you read and where you devote your time. I owe it to my like minded friends. I'm awfully strong right now, being built by my fears. *** - Day 49, in Costa Rica

Beige and Tall Buildings

I'm feeling bland right now in New York, so I'm retracing some steps. After 10 weeks of feeling differentiated and magnetic, noticed and observed, I've arrived in a city where I only draw attention on a one to one basis and where I pass through throbbing crowds completely ignored. In contrast to Costa Rica, the new people I've met here comment on how normal and sensible I am. I feel like a rent-a-teammate, or a life-coach perhaps. Let's do this together. What is it that you need? I'm here now and it's OK. It's going to be OK. Anyway, I'm getting off track.

A few minutes ago, I looked back on an entry I posted in May, right before I left for CR. I had asked myself a series of questions, or rather, I copied a series of questions from a WorldTeach handbook into my journal and then answered them naively. In the uncertainty of my new territory, now feels like the right time to contrast those expectations with what actually happened. I need to be doing this in a softer light. A candle light maybe. Here it goes.

"Living and working overseas requires being flexible because rarely does anything go according to plan. For Americans who are used to being "in control" of their lives there is the sudden shock of being in a country where the ethics, pace, goals, and perspective are not what they are used to. It is essentail that we try to bring our expectations to the surface ahead of time, to assess what is the "lens" through which we will evaluate daily life."

->I really just breezed over this passage when I read it in the orientation guide. I thought, Yeah, I know. Flexibility. I'm flexible. No Problem. Recognizing that there will always exist things that are out of my control, digesting that change, and seemlessly redefining the path to my goal does seem to be more difficult for me within American borders than when I'm abroad. In Costa Rica, something would happen and I would
deal with it. Here, when an adversity finds me, I still sulk a little, then I deal with it. It's really all in the mindset. It's a lot like taking a cold shower. If you get into the shower thinking that a shower is supposed to be hot, your experience is going to be miserable. Try thinking that the shower can only be cold. No hot water ever has, or ever will come out of a showerhead. That's how I figured it must have been for most of my students. They probably were unaware that you could bathe in warm water at all. If you really commit to that mindset - if it's out of your control, forget what it should be and accept it for what it is - then when you run out of hot water, you finish bathing (which is the point after all) and then you move on.

1) What images have you been building in your mind over the past months?

3 months ago I imagined homes with dirt floors and no electricity, and people who lived with much less material wealth but much greater appreciation for life, family, and community. Research has reformed the images of desititute poverty that I'd originally pictured. I expect a simpler life, but one of relative comfort. My mind is filled with images of coffee farmers, genuine smiles, intense curiousity, hospitality and community above all else, magnificent wildlife, lush green hills, grinning children, horrible roads and lunatic bus drivers, American tourists (who I hope not to meet), rice and beans, mosquito nets (I don't think I'll need one at a high elevation), embarassment as I struggle to improve my Spanish, joy as I struggle to improve my Spanish, small and minimally decorated concrete classrooms, the Miami airport (?), the possibility of getting sick or ill, the remote fear of being lost in a foreign country, loneliness, excuberating salsa lessons, and hopefully, after some time, life injected with a sense of community unparalleled by anything I've experienced here at home.

->The magnificent wildlife was not as omnipresent as I'd wished, the bus drivers were not lunatics at all (when your livelihood demands that you drive a rusting boxcar down a plinko board, you manage to put forth a surprisingly calm demeanor), and I did indeed travel through the Miami airport. As for a sense of community, I felt it, but I remember expecting to feel it like a big collective energy that would radiate equally from every home and every person I saw on the streets. I sort of imagined this land of perfect harmony where doors were always open and people were simply passing time on the front porch, waiting, smiling, and waving. The reality was that the community was large, diverse, and often ugly. There was an underground railroad of gossip. Drunks often wandered the streets in the evenings, pre-pubescent boys would REVVV their motorcycle
engines, cigarettes in between their lips, and rage carelessly across town, moms were generally bound to household chores day in and day out where they would alternate between laundry and mindnumbing telenovelas. Guys threw trash out their car windows and made sickening cat calls at everything, especially the younger women - who would say Adios to me in passing with the greatest reserve and caution, their voices empty and weak. The community was not a whole, but it was in fact a community. Where I was wrong was assuming that a community would be homogeneous. Also that all its members would be curious, hospitable, and caring. Not the case. The community I came to know was flawed, but it's greatest strengths as it turned out were not those that would be on display in the streets to the new gringo in town. The community showed its strength through it's dedication to constantly improve the telesecundaria - painting walls, building walls, adding a new roof section over the snackbar and a new blue and elegant gate in front of the gravel parking lot. I never heard rumblings that these things were about to take place - these decisions were made in someplace
more private than I knew of, but were made in the collective spirit of community improvement. Where I felt what I'd imagined I would feel was not in group settings, but in individual cafecitos, dinners, or Saturday afternoons where I unexpectedly found myself in the house of one of my students' families, being fed and questioned in a warm and curious way.

2) What do you expect your living arrangement, work situation, school, community, endurace level, and reaction to poverty will be?

I envision a modest tin house along a dirt road, 2 stories, the back of the home facing southeast over a vast and expansive valley. Green for miles around. Coffee plants along the side of the road. Men walking to work with, t-shirts permanently dirty, the smell of coffee in the morning, the smell of fresh baked cakes with a hint of cinnamon (this is totally unfounded). A cold shower, very little time alone, much time in front of the TV watching telenovelas, ideally a lot of time in the living room with the TV off speaking Spanish with my family, sitting down at the family room table with Hellen teaching her English in exchange for Spanish. Working in a four-room building off a similar dirt road, also facing southeast over an even more beautiful and luscious part of the village, perhaps only a 5-10 minute walk from home, open air windows with a warm breeze, Costa Rican kids in uniforms, an eager director (her name is Roxy, she must be eager). I expect difficulty in formulating my lesson plans, I expect creative road blocks, I expect frustration and doubt, I expect this will all pass, I expect of myself a much greater level of patience than I demonstrated with kids at DHCC both internally and externally, I expect to chastise myself for using too much Spanglish in class, I expect to sing out of key, to make up games nobody has ever heard of, to free myself of any fears or inhibitions about acting foolish or singing out of key for the sake of laughs, learning, and love - for if I share those three L's with this community, this experience will be a success.

Wow, not too bad Adam. I even nailed the character description of Roxy, even though I hadn't guessed that she would be incapacitada and then take another job.

3) What do you expect of the WorldTeach program?

Grant me independence, be there for support 24/7, visit me in my village at least once, facilitate sharing of experiences between volunteers, get me the hell out of there if there's an emergency, help generate creative ideas for lesson plans, palsmanship.

It's worth mentioning that before I left I was obsessively worried about becoming fatally ill. I almost got the rabbies vaccine for Christ sake. Ha! I hope I'm out of that stage.

4)How will you adjust if these things aren't what you expected?
A lot of pouting and even more sulking. Just kidding. I need to write, daily. I need to reflect, to refocus by coming back to these expectations, and remember that the whole idea of this life adventure, this unique opportunity that would never ever have come about for me and can never come about for most people my age, in this world, without the love, support, financial sacrifice, and trust of my family, is to put myself in a situation that is unnerving, unpredictable, uncomfortable, and foreign, so that I may better understand and one day work to solve the challenges, injustices, and preventable hardships faced by 5/6 of this world's population. Read The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs, and you'll understand why I'm doing this.

5)How do you find out what expectations others may have of you?

Guessing and assuming won't lead far. I imagine there will be various expectations placed upon me; expectations of me as the sole native English speaker in the village, and within this subsect, expectations from adults, children, students, non-students, men, women, my host-family (will they expect me to devote most of my free time to them and their activities? will they want me to meet their family and friends, and be exclusive with that group?), the school-director Roxy...There will be expectations of me from WorldTeach, expectations as an American, as a Bucknell Alum (jesus, I haven't written that before!), expectations from friends and family. The more I make myself available for questions, the more questions I ask, the more and various ways I attempt to establish communication and receive feedback, the clearer picture I will have of what expectations people have of me, which ones I can and should attempt to meet, which I cannot, and which should be given priority. What expectations do you, as a friend, family member, former professor (friend) of mine have of me?

6)What are your expectations of your free time and how you will spend it?

Reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, Learning spanish, making friends, talking, talking, talking.

A Few of The New Yorkers I Have Met So Far.

Shelley: Mid 30's, goofy non-chalant. I don't think she would have minded if I were to breed piglets in my room, so long as I didn't ask her to remove her Monet's from the living room walls. She was the first person I met who is "freelancing," which seems more like a lie one tells oneself to keep from panicking in times of unemployment.

Brian: "I had this one tenant who I sweaaar was suiciduhl. This one time he turned the stove on and just stahted cookin olive oil, tryin to smoke us out or somthin'. I was this close to cahllin' up my old Italian buddies in the neighbahood, but ya know, I'm oldah now. I wouldn't do that anyma." Cordially, he called me back yesterday to see if I was still interested.

Troy:

Adam: So, how is the neighborhood here?

Troy: Williamsburg IS the center of culture. Everyone knows this. Williamsburg. (Blank stare out the 2nd story window). Williamsburg. It all starts in Williamsburg. New York, Manhattan...they want to be Williamsburg. They'll never be Williamsburg. (Focusing his druggy wolf eyes, looking far past me into the distance). This is the cutting edge of hipness. Williamsburg. Williamsburg.

Jo, Sasha:
Nothing bad to say. Carpet from under my feet. I really wish it would have worked out. "We like to have fun, but we realize we're not in college anymore." And that refrigerator. OH GOD. That refrigerator was sexy! I've got a budding thing for stainless steel. And plants, they had green in their apartment and it was not mildew. I've got to get over this.

Dan: I had high hopes for Dan, mostly because he lived caddy-corner to a colorful brunch place. Dan bobbed his head spastically and intensely, up down up down, narrowing his eyes as he looked deeply at me. He resembled Conan O'Brien, shorter by about 7 inches and albino. The apartment rang of Journey. "The wheel in the sky keeps on turning." Dan said, "I'm not paranoid but I just need to know cause I'm straight, are you straight?" I said thanks, and headed towards the door, ducking my head so I wouldn't bump the speedbag hanging in the hallway.

Recommendation: Apartment searching in New York

Skills Necessary to abort the occasional urge of throwing yourself in front of the F train:

1. I actually don't know. I have absolutely no idea. Here's the thing. I had the perfect place. Flawless. Great location, great roommates, an immaculate stainless steel refrigerator that made me drool, and living space galore! A back porch too. A back porch! Anyway, that all fell through last night when the girl whose room I was going to take over (non-imperialistically, of course) backed out, got cold feet, freaked out and froze, fucked up my perfect plans, shattered my hopes of wealth, opulence, and comfort; whatever you want to call it, she decided to stay put. I felt like I'd been robbed. Pickpocketed. Caught off guard. Shoved unknowingly, like a guy standing next to a pool sipping a dacquiri and just enjoying the ambiance who falls victim to that two-person gag where one person kneels down behind the unsuspecting dacquiri-drinker's knees and the third person gives a casual shove to the innocent person's chest causing him to flop awkwardly into the water before he's even quite sure what the hell has just happened. Man did I feel beat down and stepped on. I'd started to form all these expectations of what my new life would be like in this new neighborhood, and with a quick phone call, the foundation was wiped out, and I was told to start over. What lack of discipline! I just got done telling myself to build up goals, but not short term expectations. Did I learn nothing from my 10 weeks? Funny though, the first thing I thought of after hearing the news was this video with Andy Goldsworthy in which he spends hours upon hours assembling delicate pieces of natural and transient materials only to see them crumble at the slap of a stiff breeze or the curl of a wave. When these setbacks happen to him, he seems so inexplicably calm. He gives a shrug or utters a short vulgarity, then starts up all over again without lamenting what was lost. That's how I felt. At least that's how I told myself I wanted to feel.

But why is it, these days, that I almost prefer adversity to good fortune? It's a strange but wildly comforting hangover that has stayed with me from Costa Rica. My life is more exciting when there is a difficulty, a challenge, a transparent obstacle in front of a goal (they're all transparent. they blur but fail to blot out what I want)...I like the creativity that necessitates from this type of adversity. I like feeling my mind churn. I like knowing that there is still a path to my goal, but not knowing where it is or quite how to get there. I don't feel that things can't be done. I don't believe that things will work themselves out. Nothing works itself out unless you take action.

I think back to my lousy host family situation in Llano Bonito. I remember feeling so terribly uncomfortable my first night in their living room as Oscar the car-painter amused himself with my inability to understand his hillbilly Spanish, speaking faster and faster with more and more slang as the family sat there and smirked. I remember that cold feeling of unacceptance looking down at me as I got up and went away to my basement hole, realizing I would find no companionship at all in this household. I wrote in my journal - "the choice is on you; sulk or act." At school the next few days, I began to ask my students what their parents do, who their siblings are, where they live, and I told a few of them that I'd love to come by and meet their families. With a few invites on the table, I took my bad Spanish into new living rooms and was well received. I had a bad host family, but with a little initiative, I now had new families to pass the time with. Families who fed me. I had created something. I had disliked my circumstances and set out to create better ones. I loved how it felt.

I met someone today named Tarique. Tarique has been searching for an apartment for months -same price range as me, same general searching process - but somehow after months he is still searching. I got up this morning, pissed off and emotionally bruised, and set up 5 appointments. By 2pm, I was in a newly renovated 2 bedroom, awesome location near St. Mark's. I met with a stranger named Geoffry who turned out not to be a stranger at all. We almost instantly discovered that we had both grown up in the same town, same elementary school, same middle school, similar acquantances - who the hell ever would have thought?? - and now I sit here in my imperially conquered couch on the Upper East Side (thank you Lauren!!) in better spirits awaiting a phone call. This is the part that makes me pace. Makes me run my fingers through my hair too frequently. Makes me stare at things with a burning focus. This is the part where I hand it over to the jury and wait, and I realize now that this is not a strong part of my personality - this patience - this waiting. I need to act, always need to be thinking, moving, moving things, changing things, progressing and going forward.

Other Recommendations:
Book:
Birds of America, by Lorrie Moore. People unhinged, displaced. Lives misspent. Dark Laughter. I'm only 5 stories into this collection of short stories, but I'm hooked. She sees the unrest beneath the pleasantries.

Music:
Dear Catastrophe Waitress, by Belle and Sebastian. Anyone who can tastefully write a song about Mike Piazza automatically gets my vote.

In Between Settling and Shouting

I had thought it, typed it, tried to publish it, and lost it. Something today has been magical, so it comes as no surprise that a post which had been temporarily lost did in fact make it public. The blog doesn't seem to need me anymore!

What I really wanted was to find an emotion or memory from each of my 71 days. A summary of sorts. But things have moved fast, or rather, I have sped up the pace of my life since returning. I haven't given myself time to process what I just went through. While the gains have been great in the past few days (I have an amazing place now in the East Village - more on that soon!), I haven't been able to focus my thoughts and reflect before bed like I did nightly in Costa Rica. I wanted to spill out a summary onto these pages before daring to shift my mindset to stateside challenges, and that hasn't happened. I'm afraid of experiences slipping away and changes reversing. They won't. You won't let me let them go. This is good, actually. I'm using what I've learned already, unknowingly, sitting here relaxing in the Upper East Side. I came home and immediately attacked my next goal - finding a new home. It's not what I wanted to do, but it is what I needed to do, and knowing it had to be done and knowing I could do it (though I was intimidated), I stopped thinking and started acting. It's done now, and what has come to me is beautiful. Digressing, perhaps a more comfortable way to look back on the past 10 weeks is to observe how my memories come back to me, unexpectedly and randomly. I'll be on the subway, in the park, in front of a computer, in a remarkable and superfluous 10 story department store - what will I remember at what times, and why?

It may have escaped me to mention anything about my last week in Costa Rica. It may be that I'm just not ready to write about it. It was a much more private week for me, a delicate week spent with a person of great strength, spent in various situations that demanded strength in various forms - forms we didn't think we had - the least of which was determination to trek to the summit of a 12,700 foot mountain. If you could have been there - maybe you would have been standing behind my hot chocolate, or peering out from behind my tightly wrapped blankets as I was shaking and weak - if you could have been there as Rosa burst in through the hostel doors, into the hallway and towards my table with the energy of a woman who had just spoken with God - if you could have been there, dying to drink from her energy, wide-eyed and ready to know what she knew right then, you would understand why I can't quite put it all into words, not just yet.

Here in New York, well-intentioned people have commended me for making such a quick transition from rural CR to the grandiose city with questions that allude to culture shock. In reality, I've felt almost no sort of awe in being here. I notice three things: First, the incredible diversity of people - diversity of race and particularly of height. Second, the cleanliness of the city given its size and population density. GT pointed out to me that I may be the first person to ever praise New York for its cleanliness. Maybe so, but unlike San Jose, buses in New York don't force clouds of black diesel exhaust into your tear ducts and down your throats as you try to walk from your hostel to the automercado. Third, people and their accessories look silly. The massiveness of the buildings, the expansiveness, the enclosure all have caused little to no emotional response.

A short story is incubating in my head involving a man named Brian whom I met yesterday at the 'open house' he was hosting. He was open about a lot of things, I guess, which amounted to one and a half hours of remarkable storytime that no property owner should ever share with a prospective renter. Telegram for Brian: If you want someone to rent your room, don't tell them that you once thought of putting a Mafia hit out on a tenant. And definitely don't spend the next five minutes excitedly justifying it. And DEFINITELY don't end it by saying you wouldn't think that way anymore. You might also want to be a little more hush hush about the 'brake dust and tire scum' that floats into your building's open windows from the nearby highway, the La Guardia flightpath overhead, the hookers you've had as tenants (tenants!), the 16 year old girl you impregnated, your company's annual negative income, the "debate" over the origin of a black woman's pubic hair in the bathtub followed by the revelation that you're sleeping with one of your 23 year old tenants and you're 40, the old skinny Italian man next door who you pay off to "watch" the apartment and not to "break into the apartment and steal a stereo," and you know, details like that. Good luck though, renting that room out.

But for all the folks in this city who are maybe just a little too eager to share, or let's call him Troy, whose clear deep eyes grew a little too vertically wide and whose monotone voice boomed a little too nasally sharp when declaring that Williamsburg is the cultural envy of all New York these days, there are the rare few who you find on craigslist at 8:35pm, whose tones are instantly soothing and relaxed, equally relieved to hear normalcy on the other end of the line, who say "hey, if you want, why don't you just come by tonight once we get back from dinner, say around 11?" whose mere act of offering just that, whose genuine inquiry about the places you've been and unrequested honesty about the size of the room in question tell you that Yes, this is going to be right. And then you know this, even before you step foot out of Lauren's Upper East Side apt. to make your way down to meet these girls. You just sense that the needs and interests have matched up, that new friendships are about to be made. Somehow, this trust is established over the phone, and the rest becomes almost superfluous, equivalent in feeling to coming home after a long long time away, a time full of uncertainty, and that finally you will have stability and encouragement and a youthful idealism and goddamn! you are so ready to begin.

Questions, Emotions, and Events from the Journey

Day 1: Joy in Unfamiliarity. Eagerness. A crowd of nervous hosts waiting like family for a van of nervous volunteers.

Day 2: Unveiling, 5am. Orosi had been lurking behind a veil of darkness when we arrived the night before. I opened every door to every new view that morning like a kid unwrapping a present on the first night of Hannukah.

Day 3: Procession of a Christ figure through the Streets, 6:30am. Realization that Emily would be a dear friend to me, an honest confidant for the coming months. The aforementioned event did not lead to the aforementioned realization. Observed that big breakfasts with full family accompaniment make me very happy.

Day 4: First use of internet, directly coinciding with the first time I felt frustrated and wasteful in Costa Rica. Wrote in my journal that the internet is a lethal opiate given to N. American children. First appearance in my journal of a thought that would recur - that maybe I love this life and love being here because it is fleeting and has a definite end. Downplayed it's relevance at the time...Jumping in a waterfall and swinging from a vine led me to write that I should do anything that scares me. I still believe that, and the thought, though proven to be the only way I want to live, still strangely scares me.

Day 5: English teacher Natalia expresses her embarassment at not knowing all the people in Orosi. Between 3-6,000 people live there.

Day 6: Gratification. Informally taught English for the first time, and was rewarded with sincere attention from my crowd of 3, the Orosi family.

Day 7: San Jose - poverty without charm. Disregard for making repairs. I didn't even take pictures. A cab ride that showed me I could indeed communicate in Spanish. A woman spoke of the telesecundaria system and the small towns, describing the appreciation with which we would be received in our towns, of which I needed to be reassured at the time.

Day 8: Can it be this hard to say goodbye to people you've only known for 8 days? A painful longing to stay with people, to be part of a community of like minded and determined people who you know will always follow through. Wrote my Ode to Emily, which I will now make public:

...this girl blows my mind. Not once has she faltered. She is consistently strong, confident, and full of purpose. She supercedes evertyhing I'd thought a human being could handle. Without losing an ounce of charm and without displaying anything in the family tree of pride, she has conveyed and imparted in us an unshakable bravery, humility, and compassion. Handed an impossible task, she has performed with nothing short of excellence. Unwavering Excellence. She alone is responsible for litertally mothering 23 people whom she has known for one week, many of whom have never left the country, all but two of whom have never taught, a grou whose collective spanish is weak and passport stamps are few. I've never seen her adopt an innapropriate tone for any situation, whether in English or Spanish. She balances this tremendous task, of managing 46 people's children by completing every task promptly and thoroughly, then going one step futher and preparing an alternative course of action just in case. If she is stressed, which she logically must be, she never shows it. I don't even get to see the work she does behind the scenes to prepare. Who she is, I aspire to be, and it humbles me.
6-9-05

You might see this on a walk in Llano Bonito. 

Hazel and Ronald's house 

Nicole, the Gringo, and Beatriz. 

Beatriz, Paula, and Nicole from left to right. All age 8. 

Paula, 8 years old. 

Favrisio, 3 years old. 

The trash cans in all their dirty-clothes-hamperesque glory. 

Llano Bonito from below. 

Day at the Orphanage in Moin; just after coming back from the beach. 

My favorite photo of all. That's Andrea in my arms, with Katarine on the right. 

Teaching, as usual, with a glorious white light surrounding (please don't drown in my sarcasm) 

My 5-star accomodations. 

Orosi Valley 

Telesecundaria, Llano Bonito. View from the Main Street above. 

Thinking I´d Been Cured of My Arachnophobia

Day 48 and I didn´t think spiders this enormous lived in houses. Not without paying rent. I was standing before the toilet, watching a suspiciously large centipede on the far wall, and I just had a hunch. Sure enough, I saw a fierce looking leg, then another, extend from just below my showerhead. When the 8 (or perhaps it was 16?) legger and I made eye contact, my reaction was first one of interest. That interest was soon followed by bloodthirst. I grabbed a mop from the bordering hallway, approached, but my enemy in his gargantuousness must also have had an abnormally acute sense of foreknowledge. He fled! Quickly, through a whole in the wall impossibly smaller than he. Just as he approached the entrance to what must have been his inconceivably intricate layer, I was sure I had a clean shot at his hind legs. My mop was thick and I lunged. Crack! I pulled the mop back, hurriedly flipped it over to view the results, and stared disbelieving at the clean red cloth. When I looked up, I guess I shouldn´t have been surprisded I broke a soccer ball sized hole in the double sided wall.

I returned to my room, annoyed and feeling the initial self doubts that accompany defeat. I decided that I would seek to enhance my one sure human advantage in preparation for an almost certain second encounter: My ability to acquire knowledge. A brief skim through Lonely Planet´s Staying Healthy in Central America, a small book which would be more aptly titled The Hypochondriac´s Guide to Central America, revealed that my new roommate demonstrated more or less every physical criteria of a black widow. Although I was rather confident that I hadn´t spotted the trademark red scar across the belly, my imagination assured me that of course, I had not seen the belly side of the beast. A black widow.

Thus, he was a she. The females of the species get their name from consuming the much smaller males immediately after mating. Upon branding, she had now acquired a previously unasummed potential, namely, her ability to kill me.

I slept for the next 3 days in a state of unusual paranoia, covered from forehead to toenail in a sweater, pants, and only one blanket. I had removed all other layers of bed cloth in the off chance that they could serve as a hideout for the Widow and her supporting army. I showered every morning with my eyes open, enduring the pain of of a steady and cold Head and Shoulders stream across my retinas. Having not encountered her again for four days, at dusk, around the 96th hour, I found her dead and partially consumed by little black ants, her massive and crippled black corpse lying pathetically still on the red floor below my toilet. A sad, and mysterious ending indeed, she appeared to have fallen victim of some sort of shoe swatting or perhaps a stomping. Later that night, I inquired with the host mom, and sure enough, the bruha had come through, showing once again that she stomps the life out from any creature that crosses her path.

And for one shining moment in my stay at a house where, to my relief, now lived only one widow, I loved her.

Teaching.

It´s so easy to get frustrated with my students when they show no interest in learning. But to do so offers a path with no solutions. To solve their problem of apathy, I first have to identify that the that the only person I can change is me. I´ve learned not to blame them, but rather, to ask what I can do to prepare differently, and to subsequently engage them. They can learn anything. There is always a way. My job as a teacher is to find it.

On the brevity of time remaining.

In 15 days I´ll be sleeping in my own bed, this one of my various lives in different places having gently put to an end. Sometimes it seems like the minutes crawl by, but before I know it, I´m going to be at home with a cell phone and internet and comfort and nothingness, no surprises, no unexpected challenges, no predators lurking between the doubled sided walls in my shower, feeling slightly displaced but stronger for knowing what I now know. How crazy are those slightly awkward moments when I just pop over to Lourdes´, Maximillion (yes), and Nicole´s house, hoping for companionship and maybe even food, like a Gringo dog who has walked through the rain to scratch gingerly at the front door. Isn´t the awful fear of getting into the shower with a black widow or maybe one day a tarantula (saw a dead one in the street the other day) better than the warm shower and sportscenter I know at home? Aren´t the smiles on the faces of my two little apprentices, Nicole and Paola, EXACTLY the reason I came to Costa Rica. I´m not in the least romanticizing it when I say that those girls and little Favri who you´ll have to see pictures of to believe really only have 2 or 3 outfits, are thrilled by learning simply new tricks like sticking a finger into your mouth, making a fishhook, and pulling outward to make a popping sound, and are A-tentive when I sit on the couch, NIcole on my left, angled toward me, pensive, Paola on the right with her left arm resting on my right leg and learning decidedly slower than Nicole, teaching them a word or a phrase at a time in English, smiling as they mispronounce everyword in an increasingly predictable way. Ai, Teecher/ Jess (yes)/ Geeb mee ai... kees /Eet ees...Tursdai. All pronounced by slightly altering your speech as to pronounce everything like you are simultaneously trying to say it and swallow it.

Others.

That little four year old girl with a curly black ponytail stood there in the basement singing ´tiene gripe´(in the classic playground taunting tone) and pointing at me for more than 30 seconds.

I judged a Costa Rican science fair last week. I judged a Costa Rican science fair last week, in Spanish. I didn´t know I would be judging a science fair last week, though I knew if I were to ever judge a science fair in Costa Rica, it would be in Spanish. Knowing of the possibility of judging a science fair in Spanish, but not knowing I would be judging a science fair last week, I was asked to judge a science fair last week. I did so in Spanish.

I´ve developed a subtle pride for the American Soccer team. I mean, C´mon! Did anyone else watch the Gold Cup Championships last weekend!?

I´m mid-stride in front of the churchyard, white t-shirt and jeans, chasing Costa Rican children in a game of tag.

I´m riding upright, standing in a truckbed of a vehicle that is bumping downhill, a dirtroad with switchbacks, through coffee fields and past the occasional banana tree.

I´m wondering if this úncover what culture you can´adventure of mine, this life in this town, feels full to those who live here daily? TO me it´s a passing stage whit a definite end. If permanency were to set in here, I´m sure I´d run away. I drank a turtle egg in a bar today, assuming Huevos de Tortuga was just a cute name for the spicy shooter. And why do they put ice in their beer, and moreso, mustn´t it taste awful? It´s one thing I haven´t tried and maybe I should. U.S.A culture is adapted here, but here´s how. Music loses all its conetextual and cultural significance, gone with the language barrier. Girls wear t-shirts with bratty one-liners in English, apparently only concerned about the appearance, obviously unaware of the significance of those cute and glittery letters.

Emily made another great observation, this time about the influx of Gringos to the pacific beaches in this country, and the impending American Colonization of Costa Rica (just wait), and the displacement of locals in Marbella, a town that has been purchased in its entirety by one Gringo entrepreneur. He has hired the locals to ´clear the land´for one dollar an hour. They take the jobs, and sell the land, because the price in the short run is (for them) impossible to resist. This land comes to this entrepreneur with no capital gains tax. He will one day soon sell this land to Giant American hotels, restaurants, Condo Builders, the like. The jobs that will be available in that town will be at the future Ritz Carlton, and the like. Americans will come to live and to work. Don´t think that youll find too many of Marbella´s life long citizens working in high class service jobs that require fluid english, when they´ve worked the land their whole lives. If you think this is not a probelm for Costa Rica, tell me where all the displaced citizens like those of Marbella are going to go to live and to work.

Nicaragua seems like a fair guess. Maybe theyll find some good sweatshop labor, now that CAFTA has passed. Jeffrey Sachs points out that sweatshop labor is a step in the right direction for extremely impoverished developing countries. But what for those who will (potentially, I´m speculating here), find that work to be a step down, after a comfortable but modest life in the fields?

.


To end, a quick experiment in writing.

Adam Yukelson is a volunteer English teacher standing at a crowded Catholic Mass in Central Costa Rica. He is Jewish, but at the moment, is keeping that to himself. His friend Alex stands to his left, speaking to him in broken English. Eet ees hOngree. No No No, listen Alex: I AM hungry. The 400 or so people await instruction, staring forward. One woman´s breast has flopped out into the mouth of her chubby son. Public breast feeding hardly catches his attention anymore, he sees it everywhere. He watches as the girl in the mint green pants walks with her child towards an open pew in front of the mint green walls. He wonders whether the legs or the wall or hidden by a thicker material. The Church band knows only one song, and amusingly, it is cumbia, played in the same key repeatedly during the service, except at the end when it is not played in the same key. Fascinated for 30 minutes, his mind wanders soon thereafter, and is far away, apartment shopping in Brooklyn.

Revisiting

Day 46.

So I´m in Orosi and mildly lonely. I saw Natalia sitting in a hammock out front of Montana Linda. Natalia was my spanish teacher during orientation, shy but very bright (she spoke to me about CAFTA that first week). She smiled to me from her hammock atop the small but steep hill, smiling for a long ten seconds before I recognized who she was. Her smile was really what I needed, a small reassurance that I make an impact. Up I went, kissed her on her right cheek as is custom here and ought to be everywhere, and began to excidedly tell her how I´d ran into another N. American in Puerto Viejo who had been to Montana Linda for Spanish classes and had been a student of hers for the week. Having no memory of him, she shrugged her shoulders, which indirectly made me feel better than maybe it should have. We talked about my town, my spanish, and I asked her about her daughter, reassuring her that I will vote for her when she runs for President in 40 years, if I so happen to be an expat by then. What a quiet but bad ass smile she has. Its a smile that forces you to ask. I love Orosi but it´s full of ghosts today, like going back to Bath would be for me, I can no longer view it simply as it is. Memories walk the streets with me, like I´m living in a double exposed photo. I have expectations and emotions attached to people and to OTIAC from Orientation and so on. I feel too quiet here, and even if all the volunteers were here I´d feel the same but suddenly right this instant I´m having rushes and flashes, snapshots shooting across my mind of the open OTIAC windows and the fog laced mountains and Emily and all of us just trying to hold each other up and that crutch we mutually supported and shared that was utopian and is now gone. Its gone for me and I wonder if it was by my own choosing. This experience these 10 weeks, all of it, emphasized by my current location and unwillingness to sleep again in the bottom bunk where I slept the first week seems anything but fluid or linear. I remember vivid images but where has the specific day to day gone? Have I gone too Macro, looking for moral lessons in all? Maybe now, in Orosi, I´ll have my reorientation, meaning that I must simply keep a keener portion of my eye focused on details.

This time, the plywood in this room seems shiny and I´ve only really noticed spaces in the house. I wondered for a minute about the sky blue ceiling and why they pointed it out to me the first time and if I´d failed to understand just how remarkable it may be to them to have a celing in place of vaulted ruffled tin. I feel numb in my return to Orosi, severely more numb than I would like, but I´ve also been tired all day and was out till 3am with Mikey and Cindy and Karol. There is a level of certainty that was not here before, which has rendered me more businesslike in my visit.

...that was my journal entry last night, laying on my side and writing on a bunk bed made of wooden planks.

I´ve written so little about teaching in the Telesecundarias that rereading some of my entries, it actually seems more like I´m here on an anthropology fellowship than a volunteer teaching program officially aligned with the Costa Rican Ministry of Education.

Thus. Revisiting.

My class rules, introduced on my first day:
1. In class, we only speak English.
2. ¡Errores so tranquiles! (mistakes are OK!)

I´ve since severely broken one of those rules, but I absolutely embrace and encourage mistakes as THE most effective form of learning.

7th Grade.
Huge class! Upwards of 40 kids. It´s been a tough class to work with because of the dual nature of the relationship I´ve developed with them. Out of class I´m their friend, and almost always and anywhere a walking audience for their travelling talent shows. The difficulty has been reconciling this necessary part of my knowing them with the need to be a stronger disciplinarian in class. I have 10 or so students that pay absolute attention at all times during that class and I want to always teleport them to a place far off in the woods where we can sit around a small campfire and they can take perfect notes while I teach with the heightened focus they deserve. Class moves slowly out of necessity, and I never stand still. I once brought pictures from magazines to teach possession, and handed them out for keeps and for in class use to my quietest students. I skip and roll around the room, crouching down in front of desks and tables, allowing the shy ones to whisper in my ear, ´this is a watch´, or ´that is a shoe´, then springing up and amplifying the answer, shouting and when I´m feeling funky, singing! We occasionally use the telesecundaria videos that are mandated for use by the governemnt, but the sound is muffled and the general experience is much like I imagine it would be were I to hold class for 40 children in a stretch of grass, 10 feet from the main runway at an international airport. I write a lot on the white board, pick kids up and use them as living props, and we always always play games such as memory (using root forms of verbs and progressives as matches), telephone (which I hold to be the single most effective TEFL game of all time, encouraging teamwork and cooperation, self initiated learning, student to student instruction, patience and persistance, and would you know it a few minutes of tranquility!). I do not yell in class. It is a reactionary and powerless form of discipline. OK, I yelled once, but I might as well have been yelling in English to Costa Rican children. Instead I stand in silence. Quickly, the students who want to learn are up and out of their seats, yelling at their peers to ¡callense! I love leaving problem solving up to the kids. 7th grade I would say has the highest relative level of English of all my grades.

8th grade.
The hallmark of this class is boys who make absolutely no effort to even try to understand what I say in English, and thus do anything they can to create diversions, and girls who sit in groups and paint their nails. There are a few who sit their looking somewhere between interested and completely lost, and then there is Ana, who sits directly in the back of the horizontally rectangular room, wears a dark blue sweater over her light blue uniform with her hair in a perfectly attended ponytail, leans forward ever so slightly and hangs on every single word I say, absorbing everything. I get into zones sometimes where for a minute or two, I only teach to her. She´s the model of attentiveness, and I want to give her a pedastal to sit on and force everyone to watch her methods. Not to be outdone, theres also a group of really energetic and intelligent girls that sit next to her and thrive on competition, always trying trying guessing and sometimes knowing the answers to my sometimes difficult grammar questions. Through the use of excessive competition and Total Physical Response (body language, acting) I´ve been able to capture and engage this diverse group. We recently covered comparatives, a week in which I had different embarassed students join me in front of the class of 35 to compare and contrast who has the biggest legs, fattest neck, and longest tongue. Leo´s tongue is abnormally long, and in what is perhaps the upset of the year, proved to have a tongue ridiculously longer than my own. It was a bit of a set back, emotionally, to be honest. I just didn´t see it coming. I mean, I can stick my tongue in my nostril! Who in North, South, or Central America would have thought that could be beat?

9th Grade.

Started out so so good, and are currently testing my patience with their inexplicable level of apathy. I say inexplicable, because they have English tests in October which they must pass, or else they repeat 9th grade. The tests are not easy to say the least, and test reading comprehension, knowledge of past, present, and future tenses, synonyms, antonyms, and thats only the start of it. There´s a broom that sits near the door, and I want to occasionally smack about half of them with it. You have a native English speaker in your classroom! Use me! I will buy you an extra year of your life if you only let me! That being said, I´m simpathetic to their circumstances...actually, no I´m not. Not when Ivan gets and up walks to the back of the room to lie on his back mid class, eyes open staring at the ceiling. My cure for that fun little game is to let him doze off a little, then put my finger to my lips while the good students in the class watch, tip toe to the back of the class, and curl up next to him on the same desk for a cute little siesta.

Subject wise, we were supposed to be covering actions that began in the past and have continued to the present, using ´have been...´ I found this to be more than a little difficult, as most of the kids, except Jean, Andrea, Susanna, Jason, occasionally Pamela (accent on e), and when she wants to, Daniela, who seem to understand everything and are truly bright kids, can´t even verbalize a sentence in past, present, or future. I was able to get a few of them talking one day, by drawing a picture consisting of Costa Rica, the US, and an airplane in the middle. I told them that if they ever visit, some good looking guy or girl is going to want to talk to them, and the first thing he or she is going to ask is ´so for how long have you been here?´ That sparked a little interest, especially in my two girls Arrelis and Yarrelis, who now can repeat the sentence, ´I have been here for 10 days´, upon being prompted, 3 weeks later.

I have 10th and 11th graders as well, but they´ll have to await description for another day.

Things in Costa Rica that Make the Heart Race

Two entries in one day! With this kind of craziness, I may soon be telling you that it hasnt rained here in the last 45 minutes.

The List (incomplete)

1. Two 8 year old girls sharing an umbrella, white uniforms, walking gingerly up a road on the way to school
2. The nationwide habit to shake your hands near the sides of your head in a way that looks like youre trying to detach them during a situation involving inappropriate humor or tension.
3. Eating mangos, nisperos, sugar cane, huacates, and more fruit straight from the tree.
4. Kids with dirty clothes and spotless eyes.
5. Chunky cotton pillows
6. Invites galore to pass the day talking, eating, and drinking pure coffee with a family.
7. Children who clean without being asked.
8. Chickens walking through kitchens, which, it should be noted, may be the only sentence that translates perfectly, and rhymes, in both English and Spanish. Check it out. Chicken in the Kitchen. Gallina en la cocina. That rocks.
9. Everytime I cough, someone telling me I have Gripe (the flu)
10. Playing cards in candlelight.
11. Smaller fruits than we have at home.
12. Where are you going: arriba
When are you going: ahorita
13. Hitting my head in doorways and on low wooden beams.
14. Being fed everywhere, always, and sometimes twice.

Ok. A couple other things I need to either get out, or reiterate. Sorry for perhaps being repetitive, but I cant remember what I wrote 2 weeks ago. First thing. Im training myself to drop this hostility Ive developed towards backpackers and fat white tourists in pastel polos. I will never see the point of their traveling many miles to arrive in a similar place with similar comforts, however, see, the issue for me seems to be my unwillingness to be lumped into the same category as those who prefer that sort of travel. Its especially poignant when we are all in the same place, such as hostels, or San Jose. I want to wear a sign or a bright t shirt denoting my intention in living here, my intention to know them and to understand how they live (knowing that to observe is to kill, or at least to alter). But enough. Rather than fight that impossible fight, punching air, Id like to simply remember that Ive had personal and meaningful contact wtih the kids here, who are the lifeblood of Costa Rica, and even if I see and talk to a thousand tourists, that experience can never be diminished.

Sorry.

You should know about the orphanange. For one day in Moin, 100 meters from the Dole shipping port where barcos (holy hell, I cant remember the english word!) huge aircraft carrier looking ocean liners sit waiting to transport bananas abroad...at this location, the kids came forth from their temporary houses just to be with us. Mikey, Emily, Myself. Food was made, mangos were sliced, shy smiles were exchanged, and spanish was spoken by the mouthful. You should have seen us, jumping into ocean waves, holding these costa rican children tight to our chest, knowing that they mostly couldnt swim and were we to let go or turn an eye just for a moment...You should have seen us, oceanliners resting towards the near horizon. I held hands with Erika, then Maria, then Carlos, Marcos, Johnanna, and Erika once again. I held their waists as waves beat them backwards, pushing with the consistency of nature. They never stopped surging forward into the waves these kids, in our arms, doggy paddling into the waves, waves which seemed to grow larger and larger the longer we waded through the water. These kids never complained or experssed fear. The only emotion experssed was desire, and that desire was only fo a hand, my hand, to help them catch their breath and dig a foot into the sand when the successive pounding of the waves became a little too intense for their little bodies to handle.

Just the other day, back in Llano Bonito, I spoke with a farmer named Carlos who wore his button down dirty and open. He showed me his calloused hands and explained to me how, when you start working in coffee fields (he had been to school up to 3rd grade, started workinging with coffee at age 11) that your hands bleed and blister, but after 30 days, God gives you the gift of stronger hands. Oh, the miracle of callouses. He told me how said callouses come from using the machete and explained to me the great demand for adult English classes in Llano Bonito. In 2 years, Llano Bonito will change forever as tourists flood in to view the new man made lake. Carlos says this will be good for him because he can sell his fruit directly, but band for the general ambiance and environment. As such, he explained the need for adult English classes, and told me what a help it would be if he knew how to describe his fruits in English. The woman across the dirt road sitting on her front porch had apparently been listening in. She brought us 8 beautiful and fresh small bananas that melted in my mouth like ice cream.

Placing Trash Cans in Their Place. Just a few days ago.

Curiousity abounded. People watched, stared, and inquired. Townspeople literally asked if they could have one! One woman who we ended up giving one to said What Discrimination! when we nearly passed by her store. Zeneida, my devil of a host mom, actually tied hers to the front gates! Rosa, the pulperia owner, mimicked her! In case I hadnt mentioned it, I designed a community project in LLano Bonito, Dubbed Ya Mo Bonito, to clean the trash ridden streets and buy trash cans for the fronts of stores and certain houses. Thank you especially to John Hunter, who Ive been told helped contribute financially to making this project possible. Amazingly, before Thursday, there had not been a single trash can along my densely populated main street. I was truly surprised by the community response. Deni plans to use hers as a laundry basket inside her home, classic costa rican for you, a dream I am quickly trying to stomp out for her. I told her Id buy her a laundry basket if she just leaves the damn thing in the front yard. What I wonder is whether these people want these bright baskets because they want to responsibly help, because they want it for personal use, or if they simply want any thing thats freee. It was actually very rewarding to walk down the streets and see these bright hallmakrsk physically articulating my own project idea. A step beyond, it was awesome to see people actually make use of them, knowing that otherwise the garbage would have landed in the streets.

Mikey had a bright idea. Maybe I should spend the rest of my life travelling the world, going to poor countries, and swinging children. By their arms and legs. It draws unparalleled laughter and jubilant screams. You know. One person holds one leg and one arm, the other grabs hold of the opposite side, then back, and forth, back and forth.

Showertime

I didnt realize how severely my online journal is lagging behind my actual journal, which is now upwards of 80 pages long. Lost in all the mix, I havent even written about my shower routine! This needs to be noted.

First, imagine the most paralyzingly cold water youve ever known. Think water, with just a few ice crystals left in the glass. Youre watching those ice crystals melt. Theyve melted. Good. Now dump the water down the back of your neck. Thats right. Now take that sensation, and imagine that youre no longer standing in the comfort of your home, but in a large waterfall. A waterfall in Greenland.

So heres what I do.

Face first to wake up. I first wet my hair but refuse to let that dryicechilled water drip down my back. Then my right hand goes in. Then left. Next, right arm up to the shoulder. Then left. Then I cup then hands and rub dryicechilled water down my chest. Then the legs, letting water hit mid thigh, but only on the sides. The outsides. Finally, the worst part (use your imagination) and then I jump back, yelp, and apply soap. Soap is on, and im IN! Wheeewwwww!!! My breath implodes and a paralyzing stiffness takes hold of my neck. Then warmth. From my head on down. A little. Then Im done. With the body that is. I have no sink, so as Im naked and shaking, I hurriedly brush my teeth. You should try it some time. I guarantee youll never feel more awake.

I teach here as well

Back from tourist land! Back to the place that wants me for what I can share, not for what I can pay.

Last week, the director of my school left to take a job closer to San Jose. This is interesting but more or less wont affect my teaching since she was only really around for a week and a half to begin with. Nonetheless, my 7th graders said goodbye to her, to Roxy, two Fridays ago with a party that was more excuisitely planned than any lesson plan Ive been able to throw together. I had no idea they had been planning anything, but mid morning, they began preparing drinks, ice cream, and crackers. Emily, who had arrived like the messiah the day before, bringing a mountain of vegetables and brown rice to cook for my family along with garlic and other things with flavor which I had began to think I would never eat again...sorry, at school that Friday, Emily and I received a formal invite mid day to the Goodbye party that was being organized for Roxy. School ended, or rather, sort of lost its seriousness and became disorganized as it does, and two 7th graders were shuffling their feet excitedly by the door, jittery and eager, hands grasping wads of shredded paper that they had torn to create confetti. They hurried Emily and I into the classroom and seated us at an elegantly set school bench that the kids had fashioned into a head table, complete with a white table cloth which I think was just a long sheet of white paper. The desks and the kids who belong to them were seated in a flawless half moon, facing us. My setting was neatly arranged with cookies, juice, and an ice cream slash Jello combo that is gross but inexplicably popular. Roxy entered, her smile showing off her braces and pin point sharp dimples, and was instantly showered in the makeshift confetti. If you had tried to teach these 40 kids in class and if you knew as I do that nothing in the world can get them to simultaneously say GREEN PANTS you would begin to understand how floored I was when this party began to evolve. There was an opening speech set to sad graduation music. There was a banana eating contest. No I am not joking. There was musical chairs, a thank you Roxy two page letter read aloud, a bobbing for hard candy in a cereal bowl of water contest, and then the kids threw egges and flour at each others faces.

At 5pm that same day, day 29 or my trip (today is day 39) Emily and I went to dinner at the house of Nicole who is 8 and precious, like all 8 year olds in this country. Her Mom had invited us for dinner, and when we arrived, I sat on the edge of the street and joke with Nicoles cousin Paulo, also 8, and Nicole for 30 minutes. They wore dirt stained clothes and dog slippers. They laughed at everything and always meant it. No people have eyes like the children here. My excitement at dinner was comparable to my excitement on Yom Kippur when we break the fast. We ate rice with cilantro, peppers, and garlic, beans and cilantro, cauliflower cooked in eggs, salad, brocolli, potatoes and cheese, and sugarcane for dessert. I loooved the food and felt wanted by the family, I want to spend most of my days here in other homes.

Im wearing a new bracelet these days, given to me by Erika, an 8 year old dark skinned Orphan in Moin whose hand I held tight in the Ocean for hours on Saturday. She gave me her necklace, which is now my bracelet, wrapped twice around my wrist, and locked into place and it is not coming off, ever.

More soon...

Emily, Mikey, and I took a bus from San Jose to Limon, out here on the Caribbean coast. Ever since the drive Ive been feeling funny, excited, lost, alone, confused, comforted. 10 minutes out of San Jose I saw a crowd of people huddled around the side of the road, most holding one arm across their chest with their left hand supported by the other arm´s inside elbow, right hand covering their mouths. I saw the red cross huddled around a broken man, who lay in a ditch, head bleeding. From that moment I´ve felt weak and vulnerable, and haven´t been able to completely shake it. The ride continued and the terrain changed to Rain Forrest and the roadside homes changed to Adventorous Rainforest ranches with groups of tourists standing waiting for direction. Then came banana farms, for miles and miles. Humidity. Then Limon.

The random and decrepid architecture of the city is saddening, but simultanesouly you can´t help but think that the city was built with one purpose in mind, abandoned, then reinhabited using the previous life´s buildings for completely foreign purposes. Emily had volunteered three years ago at an Orphanage 10 minutes North of town, so we set our bags in something that was currently serving as a hotel, 3 dollars a night for each of us, and hopped in a cab up north. I´d never been too an orphanage, and the kids who snuck out from behind trees and hills and small buildings to meet us were humble and very shy. There is nothing where they are, they live in groups of 8 with one of a rotating set of house-aunts. Many kids remembered Emily and I was happy for that. We stayed for an hour, planning to return this Friday to share a meal and take the kids to the beach. That night, I was even more upset, wondering why in the hell anyone would build an orphanage on a hill with a glimpse of the Ocean, in something of a town that is not even a rest stop, on a stupid hill that no kid could play on, with only a basketball court, ugly, and way out of the center of town where there would perhaps be entertainment. Its fucking boring and it hurts my head and why would you put Orphans in isolation? Their type of hope is the wrong kind, and then you tranquilize them with boredom. Really, that´s what I see in this country. It´s not that people can´t eat and are struggling. For the most part, the biggest challenge for the majority of those who "need help" is boredom.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we´re spending the week in Puerto Viejo. The life here is a far cry from what I´ve seen in my first four weeks. It´s a carribean beach town, with a hippie bamboo strong flavor food relaxing surf vibe, where the locals surf impressive breaks and play soccer, and the tourists relax in authentic cofee jives and awesome restaurants. There is no boredom, but theres a strange sort of dissonance for the hippie backbacker tourists that this place attracts. The locals smile because they´re taking your money, and that´s that. We are, however, staying at something I never though truly existed in the world, and that is a hostel with exclusively hammocks and tents and mosaics made by those who stay there not to mention the most original and weed inspired chairs you could think of and a tree house. You can stay, for 60 dollars a night in a tree house. We did tents last night, and I think hammocks tonight, for 5 bucks a night. The place needs to be seen in photographs to be believed, with palm and coconut trees shading the beach, and in this the greatest hangout you could ever day dream, the gold and blue colors are strong and refreshing but totally appropriate. The owner has built a studio apartment in the back of an 18 wheeler, that opens up on the side right into the blue front desk, right below the giant map of the earth. And seriously more hammocks than youve ever seen.

I dont particularly feel at home here in hippie land, but its better than greasy gringos. Besides, the body surfing is out of this world.

In Puerto Viejo, nobody seems to think its at all special that Im teaching English down here. At least its not perceived as difficult and certainly not noble. Of course not. Costa Rica is fantasy land when seen through the security of food friends pot beer and waves. The locals have absolutley no interest in speaking to us in Spanish. They think we are silly. Theres an unacknowledged selfishness in hippieland, and ill be happy to leave. I dont feel any challenge here, and for the time being, it leaves me feeling suspended.

There is no pool

Back again for round two.

Today was our midservice conference here in San Jose. All our volunteers are here, and mainly we shared our trials frustrations and accomplishments at our 23 starkly different locations around the country. Some of us are living in touristy beachside havens, others in dense rainforest, others with subsistence farmers, and one on and island. My initial response to hearing everyones experiences with families, schools, and culture was surprise. There is no one general experience being had here in Costa Rica. Families have different customs. Students have varying levels of interest, study habits, and levels of respect for us. Particularly strong was Karas account of the unrelenting sexual harassment she endures on a daily basis from her 10th graders. Her four years of teaching preparation at Ohio State would never be enough to prepare her for the crude brutality of her students. Her director, honest to God makes out with 7th grade students in his office and obviously is only fuel to the fire, and Kara, stong as she is, came to Costa Rica having never studied spanish and thus is left with little to no self defense.

Others live in bug infested quarters. One volunteer, Matt, was given a machete by his host dad, taught how to cut coconuts, and was given a painting of a costa rican landscape by a neighbor who had once been to the United States and was feeling wholly generous. Still others have been forced to follow the impossible and unrealistic curriculum set forth by the ministry of education. They somehow expect that these kids can learn about microorganisms in English, while in reality, most of them cant conjugate the verb To Be.

We also were fortunate to have to representatives from the Rainforest Alliance give a presentation this afternoon. Turns out that ALL of this country, except for the coastlines, was once covered in dense rainforest. Coffee, bananas, pineapples, grass, and everything else I see on a relatively daily basis was not native to this region. The mountains where I live are mostly barren or covered in coffee. Landslides occur frequently, especially after earthquakes, of which weve now had 4. A 5.5 the other day! The land is fragile because it is being ill used. Deforrrestation is a huge issue here, and thanks to these folks at RA, I have a much better understanding of the unnatural history that has shaped this country as I have come to know it. I left the presentation inspired. Many of our volunteers, myself included, have met families who make a living from coffee and cow farms. According to RA, these activities are relatively unsustainable in their present form. My question to them was this. These families make so little on a daily basis, how can they be expected to take the time and make the investment in a more sustaibable form of farming? How and who adivses them on this? Why would they have the motive to make such a move, when it would surely temporarily paralyze their income and devastate their ability to feed themselves and their families?

Anyway, the experiences in LLano Bonito mount at a rate that makes it impossible to transcribe, though I want deeply to share all of it. I love the story I started yesterday. That family took me in and seriously turned the experience in my town on its head. I played guitar for them. Without pressuring me, they somehow expected that I knew and could sing any song so long as it is or was written in the English language. Thus, after dinner that Friday night I found myself strumming the guitar and belting out all I knew or could improvise... (I could and can always in any situation say whatever I want in English, nobody ever knows. I vent in class sometimes by cursing, but not too often) ...the lyrics to Nirvanas Smells Like Teen Spirit. Why they think I can sing, Im not sure, but I always do and am rarely embarassed. Leonela, my 11th grader who is 18 and attractive and no way am I going there but god do I get pressure from the guys in her class and thank the lord they didnt find out that her parents invited me to stay the night at her house and that I did and that that is all that I did because they are a loving family and they have interest in me and my life and they ask me why and theyre curious and the family I live with is only in it for the money (For Heavens sake WorldTeach gives them a check for my food and no no no way are they spending more than a quarter of it on feeding me) and Leonela, she wants to learn guitar. She also doesnt know how to swim. I wonder if this is true for most of my town? Why would they? Theres no pool. I taught her 3 chords, A, Em, and G. Man did she smile when, for the first time since she had owned this guitar (it was a gift) she was able to make a recognizable sound flow from it.

Other events from the house that I wish were my home: I washed my hair in some leaf, egg, honey compbination that the 20 year old sister Alejandra had made. It looked like snaught, and I thought a few laughs might come out of it (you look for laughs in alternative ways when you cant elicit them through words) and sure enough, in the spirit of obligating myself to say yes to any choice so long as nobody stands to be hurt, I soaked my scalp in this disgusting looking goo, alongside a giggling Alejandra. Despite the language gaps, it seems that rubbing mucus looking gunk in someone elses hair serves as a universal sign for friendship.

I have a lot of thoughts when Im alone in my room and I havent spoke English in days on the phone and weeks to a warm body. Here are some of those thoughts. How different of a person am I to those who only know me through my Spanish? Am I Jeckyll and Hyde to Leonela and my other students who see me in their homes and in class, where I can be more thoroughly expressive and am comfortable in my language? Am I a celebrity in my town? How do kids Ive never met know to call me Teascher? Is there a secret gossip network (likely) in town, or do they just hear other people say it and assume thats my name? The little ones know so much more English than the big ones. I want everything for the kids. They are sooo excited to tell me all they know in English. I get days, colors, parts of the alphabet, animals, greetings, and sometimes food from everyone of them I meet. Why do some people lose that smile that so many of these kids have? Why do we keep things to ourselves? Why doesnt everyone in my town approach each other with beaming teeth and shiny eyes wanting only to share their knowledge of something difficult? Nela has family whom I met last Sunday down by the river at a family gathering. Nicole and Paulo are 8 years old and wear dirty clothes and have those shiny eyes... I rode with them on the front of my bike handles down a rocky dirt road, in front of the hollow riverside home where I was invited to a picnic with 20 some Costa Ricans whom Id never met and who served me unrecognizable vegetable and pig fat. Nicole and Paulo want to know so many words in English, and when I speak to them, they watch me as if there really wasnt anything else in the world they could possibly choose to look at, and even if there were, they wouldnt dare. I taught them how to make a popping sound by puffing out your cheeks, inserting their pointer finger, and making a quick scooping motion. PWOP!

Here, there is also the unquestioning use-what-we-have resourcefulness of the moderately poor. Old mattresses in truck beds, thrown on a dirt road for padding during a picnic. Kids drink from sprouts in water pipes, and wash their hands aftereards. On day 25 of my trip, I did not communicate with my host family. I slept somewhere else, ate well, accepted invite upon invite to be part of another familys life, rode stand up in the back of a pickup truck and pulled leaves from tree and watched as mango and avocado trees drifted by, watched until one of the two Costa Rican girls who are now my friends and who stood on either side of me in the back of their fathers pickup truck laughing yanked a leaf from a passing tree and stuffed it down the back of my shirt or until the pure joy of being here would demand that I lean forward onto the cab of the truck as we rolled down a bumpy hill and let my feet fly up in the air superman style until the girls yanked me back and shook their right hands at their shoulders and smiled. Thats what they do, ALL costa ricans, when they are nervously excited. Its hilarious. Imagine a person trying to shake a prosthetic hand free of their arm.

Mikey K is coming tonight to join my adventure. It feels so good to have company from home.

Hello Hello! Wow! I have a short time with a computer, so I'm going to spit out just one or two parts of one or two trains of thought.

It wouldn't be entirely true to say that everytime I'm feeling down, something comes along to change my mood. No, it's got a lot more to do with personal initiative. Rarely can I call it a great day when it is spent alone. Leonela is one of my 11th graders, and her house is charming, with a remarkably clean and perfectly appropriate black tile floor. Her dad is very quiet, small with strong features and well defined forearms. He's got eyes that have never passed judgement. I wanted to express more to him than my Spanish would allow. I wanted to know about his life and his work in the coffee fields. He makes 4000 colones a day. That's 8 dollars. Nobody else in the family works, but their house is warm and comfortable. I wanted a conversation with twists and turn, but he wouldn't do it on his own and I just couldn't pull the words out quick enough to keep it flowing. He chopped down a sugar cane for me, and we ate slices as he gently chisled away at the dense arm of the plant. Curiously both he and his wife told me that the sugar cane is good for your teeth. One of us has been getting bad information. They prepared a grand meal, both for lunck and dinner, as I ended up staying at this afternoon "cafecito" for 9 hours. Mom puts cilantro in her rice, and it makes all the difference in the world. I ate eggs from their personal chickens. Leonela made me a glass of milk with salt. As milk, it was awful, but as with all foods here, I found that byt dropping my expectations of what it should taste like and simply accepting whatever flavor enters my mouth as either tasty of despicable, I can find pleasure in almost anything...(more to come in the next few days)...

My biggest lesson in the first half of this trip is to seriously drop all expectations at all times. I need to lose my expectations of how my spanish should be in 5 weeks. It will be better. It already is, if sometimes I would just relax and not feel I should have mastered it already. There have been days when my students have been absolutely uncontrollable, and days when I haven't been able to do anything in the way of discipline to counteract it. As far as discipline goes, the problem is I have a short time here and I want to know my students, not to be their dictator. Is there a balance? Can there be, in this situation? I'm SO underqualified to do every aspect of what I'm doing , yet the amazing thing is I'm doing it and for all intents and purposes, I'm kicking ass at it. I'm occasionally tired of speaking and receiving blank stares back. Some days are better than others. Know that when I'm sad, it's the happiest sadness imaginable. Turns out, I can either pout and listen to the snickering (people don't usually help, they snicker at the Gringo) ( Why do people snicker? Why don't they help?) or I can laugh along with them, because frnakly the fact that I'm here at all is hilarious and wonderful. Pura Vida. Pura Vida. I think it just means calm the **** down.

So sorry, but I've got to run. More soon, I promise!

Up the Mountain

Im so excited right now I could burst. I want to tell you all everything. Im still reading short stories by Dave Eggers, and he always has a way of saying more vividly the things Im trying to say. I want there to be one amazing sound I could make, one loud yelp, that could encompass the the last week, my first week in Llano Bonito.

The ride from San Jose to San Pablo is breathtaking, except in a way that once you regain your breath, it is stolen from you once more by vicious mountains, coffee plants and banana trees, and children scraping words in the dirt along the side of the road. Dogs chase buses. Everybody honks at everybody, as if they want to say hello to everyone, and have replaced their voices with horns.

A week ago today, I arrived in San Pablo, which is the stop I must visit before boarding another bus to Llano Bonito. I spoke Spanish with Marcos, the mid 30s bus station attendent, and heard for the first time the puzzling phrase that I have since heard from almost everyone in town: Ya No Bonito. People relentlessly tell me how ugly they think their mountain top collections of homes and small stores is. Let me instead tell you of its remarkable beauty:

The bus ride from San Pablo to Llano Bonito not for the weak of heart or stomach. The switchbacks would be difficult for an alpine skiier, yet are managed 3 times a day in a 30 year old bus, by a 30 year old man, who proudly plays soft 80s hits on the radio, and displays a small poster above his seat saying God Is My Pilot. As we descended the guard rail less mountains, I realized that if the brakes would fail, there would be absolutely nothing to keep us from tumbling off the side of the mountain. I hoped, for the duration of that 45 minute ride, that he would kindly take the reigns of the bus back from God.

Seriously though, its not that bad. I took the 6am bus back here this morning to San Marcos to write this post.

Llano Bonito, pronounced John O Bonito with your Costa Rican accent, is a series of houses, similar in size, and differing vastly in economic quality, scattered down the embankments of various mountains. Nearly everyone in the community farms coffee for a living. Most people live on either side of the main street. Were you to walk into anyones backyards, you would tumble directly down the side of the mountain. The view from almost anywhere in town is marvelous. The mountains are rigid, and in the mornings, the air is usually crystal clear for miles. The actual street is scattered with litter and humble buildings. The center of town consists of two bars that look like warehouses, a small place to eat, and a church. People dont go to church every sunday, because there is only one Father for the 4 or 7 towns around here, so they go to church whenever he comes. I live on the main street in town, directly across from the general store and the soccer field. I live in a comfortable home with a nice tile floor and solid furniture, furniture made by my new 23 year old friend Alex and his brothers company near San Jose. Alex and I have funny conversations. He knows a lot of English words but cant understand a lick when I speak normally. Therefore, when we hang out, I speak my ever improving spanish dialect, and he responds in broken English. What some would call weaknesses, we consider achievements.

I have a room in the basement of the house, with my own door and key, and a small room, a cold shower, and a toilet with a disconnected toilet seat. In Costa Rica, you cant flush toilet paper down the toilet, so all used sheets go in the garbage can. This takes a little getting used to. To get to my room from the main street, you have to walk through the high black gates, turn left past the palm leaves, and then right, with the mountains standing guard in the distance. Then you go right, into my basement hallway via the door. My room is probably 15 by 8, with a ruffled tin roof, two paralllel railroad esque red bars running parallel to my bed along the ceiling, and one running perpendicular and straight up from where my knees lay when Im sleeping. None of these red tracks appear to be suupporting any weight. My floor is made of red clay. My bed is a double, and where the bed in Orosi had no give, this one has no support. It is old, loose, and endlessly comfortable, like a yardsale hammock. Theres a wooden concoction in the left corner that serves as my shelf, a white lawn chair on the right as a medicine cabinet, and a inverted cardboard box next to my bed that houses my books and cds. The walls are nut house white. I hated them, so I became resourcefull. All I had in the way of decoration were a few SI for Kids magazines Id brought for class. Liking Sacramento Kings guard Peja Stojakavic more than white walls, a centerfold of him now hangs next to my pillow, along with various other pictures and pages from my spanish language book. I have a wooden window. It is 7 or 8 feet off the ground. I sleep with it closed to keep the creatures out, but every morning the roosters approach it and sing to me. This happens around 430am. I unlock the window, and pull it open to welcome the morning and the mountains.

The first day was lonely and difficult. Why is every other 22 year old here married with kids? I wanted to hide away for most of my first day. Completely alone. The further up the mountain that bus took me, the further I felt from ever being able to return. I felt cut off from the world. My host mom seemed afraid of me. I thought she didnt want me in her house. She didnt ask me a question for the first 24 hours I was in her house. When I arrived, her two daughters crept out slowly from their rooms. Hellen, 18 and pretty in the way that only Latin American women can be, came out first. She smiled shyly, with little to say. Asley, 12, spelled correctly, came out next, and immediately grabbed Hellens shoulders from behind and hid from my. I felt strange and different, though the feeling did not come as a surprise.

First thing I learned upon arriving in town was that the amazing director of my school, Roxy, fluent in English, former head of the Telesecundaria program at the ministry of education, was incapacitada. Unsure if this meant sick, on vacation, or beheaded, I probed for more information. I learned that she had basically found a man and split for San Jose, not to return. So, no director at school. The second thing I learned, from Hellen, was that there were 130 kids in 5 classes at her school, and I would be teaching all of them. By myself. And so it began. Lost and insecure, unsure of everything, I went to bed early.

First Day of Class.
The school is very new, only two years of so. It might be the coolest school ever, considering it is situated on the very edge of a dramatic mountain slope. In the morning, before the clouds roll in as they do every day after 12, the view is tall, grand, and wide. Coffee plants creep towards the concrete schoolhouse, and there is a small dirt and grass and rock field that surrounds the school, forming a circular plateau before the steep dropoff. This first morning, I had the mental shit kicked out of me. Up at 5am with indigestion, I went to school at 615am, knowingly 45 minutes early, but eager nonethelss. Not a SOUL arrived till 7 on the dot, teachers included, the time the first class was said to start. Once the crowd rolled in, I found the spanish teacher, who talked my ear off. I understood little to nothing. Next, I learned that I dont teach on Mondays, but that I would have 5 to 7 classes all other days. The 4 other teachers who make up the entire faculty hastily introcuded me to their classes. They said a word or two, and then left me hanging, standing with 80 eyes staring, expecting me to speak to the kids. I managed to butcher everything. One teacher even told me I speak very bad Spanish.

I hung my head and sulked home. I called Emily at 740am, again on the verge of helpless tears. How many times in 24 hours can you literally feel like the joke of the entire town, and not crack just a little? Emily is wise and calm. Emily is experienced. She asked what I was going to do for the remainder of the day. I wanted to sit in my room and study Spanish, but she suggested that I go back and hang out at school. How right she always is. It may have turned my entire summer around.

At school the second time, I let loose and talked in Spanish to whoever was around. I drew crowds. Packs. Schools of students, wanting to talk, wanting to listen, simply wanting and competing for my attention. The girls crowded shyly around, full of nervous laughter. The boys play fought with each other, eager to show my their talents and their budding muscles. Kids walked out of the middle of class to talk with me. They ignored their other professors. They really did call me Teacher, though it sounds more like a mix between Ticher and Teasher. Its the most precious, delicate, and fleeting thing imaginable. I was so exzuberant I wanted to run wild and yell from mountain tops. The 7th graders demanded that I talk with them during their free period. They argued over where I should sit. They hurriedly cleared space for me wherever I wanted to go, and hearded me
to a toddler sized chair in the front left corner of the classroom. They crowded around me like cold campers around a fire. They all wanted a turn to try English. They helped each other, yelled at each other. I was loud, then quiet, then gentle, then encouraging. But I was getting hungry, and at lunch, I had no plate. The only requirement to eat a free lunch at school is to bring your own plate. A girl yelled Teascher when she saw me wandering aimlessly, and pulled a pack of plastic plates and fors from her bag. Her generosity in that moment made me feel like I was truly wanted there. As I ate, the kids did tricks, cheeleading style. The danced, fought, anything to make me smile. After lunch, the boys and I played baseball on the edge of the coffee mountain using my now infamous stuffed apple, a wooden plank, and cardboard boxes for bases. The girls filled movie roles and watched contraposts from doorways. I hit homeruns with my apple, far and straight. I rounded the bases to cheers, chants, and eager laughter.

My first real day teaching. You must read this.

I felt like I was floating above my own body, watching this all take place. I was loose, authoratative, but loving all at once. I spoke loud and confidently. I am a fun teacher. Fun fun. My voice resonated perfectly with the acoustics. Teascher Teascher Ticher has become my new name. I pace the classrooms. I crawl on the floors. I get the kids up, I get the kids moving. I crack their shells and yank them out. I hope I hope I hope Im getting through to them.

During this first day of teaching came this. Finishing class with the 7th graders who had been asking all day When Are We Having Class Profe Teascher Profe. I made them tell me their names and favorite animals. I made them act out their favorite animals. We made nametags, bright and colorful. I finished class by bringing them into a huddle, basketball team style, all 40 of them, putting our hands in the middle, and on the count of three, 1, 2, 3 Setimo!! Setimo being spanish for 7th grade. I was packing up, walking toward my backpack, when one of the girls tapped me on the arm and handed me her nametag. I gave her a curious look, and in Spanish, she asked my for firma y fecha: my autograph, and the date. With concealed glee, I signed and dated her nametag. Well, when you have 40 twelve to 14 year olds in a small room, not a lot can go unnoticed. Before I knew it, 2 more, than 2 more, than 15, than every one of the 40 kids were crowded around me, literally jockeying for position, slapping each others hand out of the way, shouting, shoving their nametags directly in my line of sight, asking for my autograph!! It was more or less how I imagine the tunnel to heaven to be. I would sign the name tags, and they would let out this yelp of glee, kind of like yhhaaaaaaaa! At last, when I thought I had signed them all, one girl approached me and handed me a nametage I had already signed. Confused, I pointed to my signature. She took the card from my hand, flipped it over, pressed it against the desk, and asked for one more on the other side. This happened 9 more times. After all the little munchkins had left, I packed up my backpack and floated home.

My hand is seriously cramping right now. Is it possible to develop carpel tunnels in one sitting? Nonetheless, there is one more story that refuses to wait for 2 more weeks.

Yesterday, after school, around 2pm.

Uniforms hide a lot, and most importantly, they hide social status. They hide the background, the wealth, and the history that has brought a student to the present moment. Esteban, 23, former crack addict, charming and outgoing in a former crack addict sort of way, but seriously genuine and friendly, showed up at my house yesterday while I was eating lunch. I had been given his number by a year long volunteer, Emily, who on a side note, had two hilarious slip ups in her spanish so far this year. She has studied spanish for 8 years, but lots of words are of different significance here in costa rica than in other spanish speaking countries. Poor Emily, who tells these stories in a very Shit Happens kind of way, was making rice crispy treats with her family one day, and she tried telling them they needed to put more butter in the pan. Unfortunately, the word that means pan in spain, for some reason, means asshole in Costa Rica. Oops. She also told the same family, one afternoon, that she had fucked a bee on the kitchen floor, again, innocently unaware that the word that means to step on, in other countries, has different connotations here. Anyway, Emily gave me Estebans number, and told me he was starting some sort of organic farm, and that he thinks he speaks English really well, but actually is quite clumsy with his words. Esteban wanted to show me his house and farm, so I agreed to walk with him. Half way down the mountain, two of my students, Hazel and Ronald (pronounced with spanish accents) came dashing out the front hole of one of the poorest looking shacks of a shelter I have ever seen yelling Teasch Teascher! Hazel is 14 and beautiful beautiful beautiful. Id have thought she came from royalty, and as I was saying, when kids wear uniforms to school, any assumption is possibly legit. They nervously asked me to come closer to their house, and with a little hinting by myself, invited me in the front space where Mom and Sister were stitting watching TV. I had to duck to step onto the font porch, avoiding the rusted tin roof that was supported by muscular tree brances. The house was dark, and stuffed animals were pegged to one of the central walls that stopped several feet short of the mysterious tin ceiling. A small blurry TV offered background niose from teh corner of the front section, where we all were. Hazel is very shy, and watches me with the most intent and approving eyes. Alone with Esteban and this family, Hazel, Ronald, Mother, Sister, and youngest little boy Joyner who wore a heartbreakingly dirty blue addidas, but whose wide and curious brown eyes provided a striking juxtaposition to his filthy clothes, I had trouble pronouncing things in a way they could understand. Luckily Esteban could translate a bit. I asked to see their bedrooms, and Hazel and Ronald were tremendously shy and kept shaking their heads and running away. Nonetheless, as I stayed and accepted an offer for a cup of artificial coconut juice, they finally warmed to the idea. Ronalds room has no door, but like all other parts of the house, had a stretched our Tshirt or a dress across the doorway. The house floor was made of wood planks. The kitchen was dark and everything was slated. The house was deceptively big, but looked like it had arrived at its present location via landslide. The boards in Hazels floor had wide spaces between them through which I could see the ground two feet below, and which had the give of a small trampoline. Everything was very dark, midday. I think the most important thing I said to her was how jealous I was of her beautiful possessions, her stuffed animals, the comfort of her room, and the moutnainous view from her window. Ronald showed me how he could dive from the doorway to Hazels bed.

Their Mom was so quiet, but complimentary and trying not to act as shy as it sheemed she naturally way. Esteban and I saw the family again on our way back up the mountain. Ronald showed me how to catch and lift a chicken, as they had many in the front dirt yard. The roosters were pissed. Really really angry. We played for a minute in the street, and I smiled at the beautiful family as we walked on. Having walked 100 meters further up the street, I turned back, and they were all still standing, same positions as a minute before, watching us. Hazel and her Mom and up walking with us to back Llano Bonito. I told her mom how much I wanted to come back and spend more time with them. She still seemed shy about her house. Her parting words, muttered nearly inaudible: Small House, Big Heart.

What stands out to me is their happiness. It seemed to me like the most wonderful house in all the world. I could count on one hand the people I know who would find joy living in this house, but I felt fully content and loved while I was there, sitting on the floor drinking artifical cocnut juice, watching Ronald and little Joyner chase chickens, seeing how little they have and therefore how little they need to be entertained. I think what stood out most is that Hazel comes to school so perfectly dressed and prepared, clean at all times, and that it has never occurred to me how little her family might have. I never would have known had I not seen it first hand. Her Dad, like seemingly all other Dads around here, is working in New Jersey. Has been for 3 months now. He can earn more money for his family there. He is a bus boy at a restaurant. Its terribly sad to me how far away so many husbands and brothers here must go to find good work. The statisctical standard of living in this country is not bad, but that says nothing about the status of these families and the sacrifice required to provide a living for loved ones. The Mom expressed how happy she would be if her kids could learn to speak English. Perhaps she knows that they could all stay close to home, or closer. With knowledge of English, there are more jobs in this country available to the young generation. Of course, this implies that most of the work in this country is coming from abroad. Of course, I am here to teach English because there is a demand. Perhaps English will keep Hazel, who is so full of energy and so ful of life, from settling for an early marriage and a life that seems only to lead to laundry, cleaning, and cooking. Then again, the older women, the moms in this society, all seem to do these things in the rural areas, but seem fully happy knowing that their life to caring for loved ones. In this way, their daily chores may be directly fulfilling that very urge that brings them joy. On the other hand, its still difficult for me to imagine all these young girls that are my students, who danced fervently the other night in our schools talent show, so full of zest, joy, and gusto, ever becoming as quiet and humble as their mothers. Seems John was right. Our generation truly is facing an absolutely different set of circumstances than any generation in the past. This is obvious by the fact that cultures in places such as Costa Rica are changing, and suddenly, unlike their parents, this generation absolutely must learn a second language in order to retain a good quality of life. You could say, how sad. But on one hand, how absolutely thrilling that there are programs like WorldTeach that allow people that have the knowledge and ability to help to do so. Yes, the introduction of English in to this custom rich culture inevitably changes way of living, and the customs that have lived for generations, but without acces to English, many of these kids and their future generations may not be able to reach that first rung on the ladder to increased wealth. Im seeing first hand theat these truly are critical days for many people in lesser developed countries. We who can help must help, are obligated to help other people, people who, had we been born elsewhere, could have been our neighbors. We need to help them achieve the skills and tools necessary to live a life of comfort.