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