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.

Notes

First I must say I´m very proud of Drew for the poem he wrote. It´s seriously a legit poem, and shows far more sensibility and awareness than I ever had at that age. One day I´ll post it on here, because if you read it, you´d think he´d walked the streets of Orosi too.

Day 6
Amazingly gratifing experience teaching English to Pablo and Randy. I´ve never seen kids so eager to learn. Even Luz cracked and let me know she wishes she sould have learned English.

When my host family smiles, they always mean it. They get immesurable excitement just from expressing their curiousities to me.

Day 7
San Jose. Poverty without charm. As Dave Eggers described it, Office buildings of the sitxties steel and glass ercetor set sort, flimsy and forgettable. The road was 5 lanes wide and was jammed but moving. San Jose looked like LA circa 1973...(from The Only Meaning of Oil Wet Water)

Highlight. 20 minutes alone with a cabby in San Jose. We had a full, dynamic, responsive dialogue. He told me in Spanish that I speak very well. I would never have dreamed that 6 days after stepping foot in this country I would hear that. He seemed to like that I was here to teach English. Any thoughts or doubts about our purpose here, any worries about imperialism, were softened today.

The beautiful beautiful unattractive woman at the Ministry of Education.
This government building would hardly draw attention amoungst trailer homes. Simple, ugly, unkempt. But within, we heard a speech that nearly brought me to tears. In 100% Spanish, a large woman stood in front of our group, and unapologetically began to speak. She said how wonderful it is to have us here, how she hopes we love her beautiful country, its people, and its cuisine. She said the heat is good, cause we will sweat out our hamburger grease. She said the rain is good cause it allows the fruit to grow. She said the people we will be teaching are poor, very poor, but beautiful, strong of heart, honest, interminable of spirit, hard working, and that we will see how grand they smile, and we will wonder how they can smile when they have so little, but we will quickly learn that what they have through family is really all they, or anyone, needs to laugh and to smile. My heart, like those in the volunteer group around me, was beaming.

House notes.
My family plays the radio, loud, every morning around 5am. I know the time only by watching the light creep slowly down the wall of my room. I haven´t used a clock all week.

Also, I learned my first real Ticoism yesterday. Turns out, it´s ok to eat fried food such as fried chicken or french fries, on a consistent basis...so long as you eat salad, rice, and beans. They cancel each other out. Thank you, Doña Luz.

Day 8.
Hilarious, beautiful afternoon with the families at our thank you party. I don´t understand why the families don´t eat the food we provide, but instead hoard it and take it home. They don´t seem to be that much in need, and this little act is apparently a social taboo as well. There´s definitely more going on behind the secnes with these families than I´m able to observe.

Finally. Dave Eggers, in the short story mentioned above, uses Costa Rica as the plot local for a story about pretending to be that which you are not. Many tourists come to Costa Rica, daily, in real life, and continue their lives in comfort, never seeing the true heart of this country. What this place is in tourist brouchures says nothing about its true character and real problems. Kids here have such innocent and genuine, but shy smiles. Moms are quiet, proud, oak like, and humble. This is not what the tourists see in Costa Rica.

San Jose tonight, Llano Bonito tomorrow. I could do without ever seeing San Jose again.

...then she brought up CAFTA

Here in Orosi, we´re taking Spanish lessons from natives of this small village in the Central Valley. We have 3 classes in total, 3 hours per class. I´m improving for sure with each day, but my level of speaking seems to fluctuate like a bull market. It´s constantly going up, but a closer look would reveal pretty random fluctuations, and certain inconsistency. Nonetheless, I´m in a class with 2 volunteers, and Natalia, age 23, native of Orosi, darling eyes, and a 3 year old daughter who is not in the class. I was expressing to her this morning how I think its so important for N. Americans to be down here, or in other developing countries, to truly understand the human impact of the laws we blindly pass. In Spanish, she replied, ¨Kind of like CAFTA...¨

I knew this would come up. It had to. If it didn´t, at some point, with someone, it may have been my biggest dissapointment. For the past 3 months, I´d read about, talked about, argued about the fact that Central Americans understand very well the potential impact of this treaty. After 5 minutes speaking with Natalia, I can take a small amount of comfort in knowing we, students for fair trade, were right...with a somber look, and i say this not for poetic affect, but to paint a picture of reality, she told me how 3 buses leave Orosi every morning at 530am for the city of Cartago, half an hour away. The people who fill these buses have jobs in small factories, working with textiles, agriculture, the like. She knew very well, and she didn´t hesitate in telling 3 citizens of the united states directly to our faces, that these people would all be out of work if CAFTA were to go through. She reinforced that this is not what the PEOPLE want. This is what the government wants. The people certainly can express their opinions, but ultimately their voice is not the final voice. All this started because I asked if its difficult to make a living as a farmer. To hear these things from a 23 year old girl in a tiny farming village was very moving.

Other things...still playing Uno with the fam. Pablo made a scorecard for us the other day. After I saw the name he printed for me, I realized that they´d been calling my Ant for the past 4 days. It seems that Adam is a little tough for Ticos to pronounce. They´re doing better though, and now they mouth my name while we´re at the dinner table...

I find it really funny when Ticos know American idioms. For example, one of our hiking guide the other day loved duct tape. At the end of the hike, he proudly told us his motto. Ïf you can´t duct it, fuck it.¨

Last night we took salsa lessons. Costa Rican women are very proud, and very powerful when they dance. The ones that dance, that is. It would have been a pretty funny situation, had you walked in on it. The Gringos were more or less the only ones dancing, in the middle of this hostel floor, while most of our host families sat in chairs in along the walls and sort of watched us while chatting with friends. Actually, they didn´t chat much, they just sort of sat and watched. I danced once with my host mom, who pretty much showed me up, and when it became pretty obvious that I have no rythm, she gave me some command in Spanish that didn´t sound too complimentary...¨muchacho this or muchacho that.¨ Ticos are very shy, usually. They do love to gossip though. I´m eagerly awaiting the day when I get to my host town, and the rumors that will inevitable spread about who I´m dating, which will usually be the last person I was seen talking with, catch up to me...

Other funny moment, I woke up in the middle of the night the other night coughing my brains out. All it was was a post nasal drip, but since the walls in my house are basically plywood, I woke up the whole family. I knew this, and also knew that it wouldnt be mentioned the next morning. As I expected, it wasn´t mentioned, but to my surprise, my host mother called in to our orientation site and expressed concern to our director that I´d become very sick. Although I feel fine, that´s a pretty good example of the type of culture I´m living in here in Costa Rica. Very very curious, aware, sensitive to what´s going on with those around them. On the other hand, the do have some strange beliefs and customs. Though it is thought that you can´t cook barefoot, less you want to get electrocuted, they use electricity to heat their showers, and there are wires that hang above the showerhead. Not to worry, it´s safe, but it´s certainly bizarre.

Costa Rica. Day 3. Journal 1.

Hello hello. I haven´t the vaguest idea how to start this entry, other than to say, the last three days (my first 3 days in Costa Rica) have been some of the most wonderful, fulfilling, genuinely happy days I can ever remember. I can´t summarize, so instead I´m going to write about a few specific moments out of the ever increasing number that particularly stand out. Maybe. I might get carried away.

After a relatively easy plane ride, in which I got to know some of the wonderful and inspiring people who have also come here to volunteer in Costa Rica, my ears began to pop and I saw lights from my window. I remember saying to Asya, a new friend from Harvard, that these lights looked just like any other lights that you would see from the window of a plane, and that for some reason, until that moment, Central America only existed in books, and I couldn´t possibly be moments from stepping foot on Costa Rican soil.

The airport was clean, comfortable, and when I stepped out the door into the thick humidity, it was crowded with literally hoardes of young men offering taxi rides. Overwhelming, but exhilirating.

At the end of a 1.5 hour bus ride from San Jose, southeast to Orosi, we began to slow down as we came into this small central village. I told Asya (girl´s name, if you were wondering, originally from Belarus, goes to Harvard...which reminds me, most people on my program are incoming sophomores in college...that means nothing down here, we´re all likeminded...) that I loved the mysteriousness of arriving in a foreign place in the dark, especially this one, which I knew would be nestled against the base of a mountain, in a valley if you will, knowing that in the morning this place would reveal itself to be something spectacular. When the bus crawled to a stop outside the ÓTAIC here in Orosi, all the host families, their children, and their dogs, perhaps 40 Ticos (costa ricans) and 4 dogs, were standing with eager eyes, backlit by the hostel type building that we would soon enter, patiently awaiting our arrival. When I walked off that bus, through that crowd, past those unbelievably soft and curious eyes, it was infinitely more gratifying, comforting, and exhilirating than walking to the podium 13 days ago to recieve my diploma.

My host family here in Orosi consists of a mother in her late 50´s, and three boys, Luis age 20 who works 6 days a week at a local grocery store and is hardly ever home, Randy age 17 but looks 12, and Pablo age 15 but looks 10. I don´t know why that is, but trust me when I say, it is. They live in a very modest house (many houses consist of tin roofs, and stucco esque walls, while some are more impoverished and are fashioned from tin, wood, and other scraps), while mine is comfortable, with a green exterior and caballos in the window curtains, red tile floor on the inside that reminds me of a souther california mexican restaurant, 3 bedrooms with thin plywood walls, a small living room with a tv, radio, so forth...we spend a lot of time talking at the living room table, my portions at meals are always 2 or 3 times larger than theirs, not because I ask for it, but Ticos are non confrontational, and tend to make assumptions...if i were to tell her that she gives me too much, i may end up with too little...I laugh to myself everytime i look at my portions compared to theirs...one meal a few of my plates ( yes i get more than 1) were actually on the other side of randy´s plate...i had to ask ¿para mi?...

I have had conversations with my family that have lasted up to 3 hours. In spanish. They know no English. Except Pablo. He knows some colors, some days of the week, some fruits, and Thank You. Doña Luz, my host mom, knows none, but I think she may have said Tuesday this morning. There have actually been two nights where we´ve talked for that long. Both nights began by all of us playing Uno. I guess it was a commonality. It helps though, I learn some new words, commands, joking phrases...we get to poke fun at each other, and last night, after dropping 4 draw 4´s on my host mom, she jokingly said No puede cenar con nosotros...something like that...whatever it actually was, it meant no dinner for you....of course, I did eventually get dinner, and once again my portion was enormous. Last night though, we watched the US beat Costa Rica in soccer...for some reason I kept saying sorry, probably cause I could care less, and all the ticos were hanging on the edge of their seats as we won 3 to 0. Nonetheless, after the game we got to talking about Costa Ricas economic situation...Luz´s husband died 10 years ago (a picture of him looking 16 or 17 hangs above the kitchen table), and the only one who works is Luis. It seems that Luz spends her days cleaning an already immaculately clean home, and preparing food. I asked her about this last night, and she said that without a college education, women over 40 can´t work...she can´t afford to send her 2 youngest kids to school, cause uniforms and books cost too much, and food apparently costs her 170 dollars per week ( I have my doubts about that, rice and beans can´t cost that much). Nonetheless, I was very touched when she expressed, and I understood in Spanish, that although she doesn´t have much, and the family doesn´t have much, the only thing in her life is the happiness of her family...and after 3 days, I have no doubts about this.

By the way, these kids...the first morning I asked Pablo, Tiene discos? y...puedo buscar sus discos? He brought out his CD and popped in Pink Floyd, another brick in the wall...I was, how do you say...shocked? I asked him if he knew what the words meant, and he said no, so I went off to my first day of orientation, and with the help of our field director Emily (who is wonderful...one of the most self aware people I´ve met, she started Dance Marathon at UCLA and is going back to school soon, with the goal of devoting her life to international development and specifically, with a medical background, fighting AIDS)...as I was saying, Emily helped me transcribe the song into spanish. Pablo loved it when I brought it back, though I don´t think he picked up on the metaphor.

I love our orientation town, orosi. People walk everywhere, houses are next to restaurants which are next to pulperias which are next to supermarkets which are next to hostels, all of which is built around the center of town...a plaza, which is...you guessed it, a soccer field. There are towering mountains that surround the town and a winding river that runs through it. The hills are COVERED in coffee plants. This is what a community should be. Kids play in streets, throw rocks at bottles, run around...you know, things kids in the US used to do... People stop and talk with each other, nobody ever seems to be in a hurry.

The town is full of stray dogs. I was shy at first, but now I pet most all of them. 4 joined us on a hike today in the hills above orosi, past banana trees, coffee plants, cilantro bushes, over rivers, up hills, to a waterfall where I stripped down and jumped in with my fellow volunteers, water cascading over my head. I have pictures to prove it. We had a guide, Nano, who took us to his house. The walls are tin, the beds are wood bungalows, there are cows, coffee plants, horses, dogs, everything...grandparents, kids, all in this little fort where he lives. I swung from vines, ate coffee berries (they´re sweet on the inside...two white coffee beans are surrounded by a thin skin...green if they´re not ripe, red if they are...and it does taste a bit like coffee, though it doesn´t compare at all to the final product, which, here in orosi, comes right from the hills, and is smoother than any I´ve ever had).

I hope this gives you a feel for things as they´ve been so far. I feel safe, energetic, thrilled. It all feels so right. THIS is the real world. THIS is how most people in the world live, like the people in this town. Thanks for reading, I miss you all.

I've been saying it was Felt for years!

Leaving home in 7 hours...

First order of business, read this: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/books/peopleofpaper.excerpt.html
I think I had an existential experience while doing so last night. Also, if you have yet to hear of McSweeney's, or its creator, Dave Eggers, I strongly urge you to make it a priority.

Secondly: Thank you to Evelyn, who has more common sense than I, for suggesting that I post my Costa Rica address/ phone number here:

Adam Yukelson
c/o WorldTeach
Apdo. 8-5020
Correo Central, San Jose, Costa Rica

Host Family Phone: 011- 506 - 546 - 2641

...Mail will take about 2 weeks to reach me (as implied by the address, all mail goes through the WT offices)...Phone calls, hopefully not as long...

As for me, slouched in the corner of my white-walled room, completely comfortable on my full size mattress, I'm staring at my ceiling fan, admiring its silence, and sort of indifferently wondering whether this will be the last time for 10 weeks that my bedroom light won't be attracting flocks of winged creatures. I don't understand travel. There's some degree of meaning, or reality, lost in jet travel. Tomorrow night I'll be sleeping in Costa Rica. How? Shouldn't there be a challenging right of passage, a trial, a discomfort involved in this type of trip? I'm not talking Lost; not even Oregon Trail; I just want that long period of reflection that comes between preparation and action - like the time you'd spend with your Dad in the car, driving cross country.

I can't stop thinking about fatalism. I don't think this experience is pre-determined - not by any means - but isn't it crazy that there are 24 other people, at various locations around this country, anywhere, right now, waiting just as I am, to converge on "room E" in the Miami International Hotel at 4pm tomorrow, to meet, to interact, to begin frienships and establish collaborative crutches, to begin, and all this will happen, must happen, has perhaps happened a few times in my mind already, but has yet to occur. I will share experiences, pehaps intense, emotional ones, with persons I don't yet know. I guess that's life though. But wait. Add onto that the host family in Llano Bonito who is expecting a native English speaker from the United States (not America) to live in their house for 10 weeks. What are they thinking right now? Who do they expect? Has their daily routine changed yet? Have they waited years for this opportunity? Do they even see it as an opportunity? Do they even give a shit who I am or why I'm coming or how their lives will be different once I'm there and after I leave? And then there are the 60+ kids who are going to wake up tomorrow morning, as they've done a number of times in their 14-24 years on Earth, and are going to walk to school or take the bus or do whatever it is that Costa Rican kids do to transport themselves to school, and they're going to sit in class, or maybe they're going to stand, or maybe they're going to pace the room, and school will go on, tomorrow, June 2nd, as it always has, but as I'm making my way closer to them, are they looking forward to my arrival? Is this a big deal for them? Is this an intrusion? An Interruption? A blessing? Do they, outside of class, discuss the pending arrival of a North American? Does their current teacher talk to them about this native English speaker? Do they work towards my arrival every day? Has their been disproportionate preparation, I more than they, they more than I? Or maybe the teacher has yet to inform them...the fusing of our worlds will happen - this I know, and can accept - what boggles my mind is the structure, the overall structure that is already in place, with me, some sort of catalyst, and the people I will meet, whose diversity humbles me already, collectively waiting to be released upon the labrynth so we may etch in the spectacular details.

Recommendations:

Chloroquine. I'd been warned that this anti-malarial pill, in addition to serving as a "suppressive cure" for a potentially fatal disease, occasionally serves as a catalyst for recurrant and unusually vivid nightmares. Not so fast, naysayers! Consider this high-definition bone-rattler from last night: To our chagrin, my (former) gatewaymates and I were invited back to Hilton Head, SC to re-unite one more time at the second instillation of senior week. Upon arriving, we discovered two unexpected differences from the original trip. First, our house had been relocated and slightly redesigned, so that it was now a beach-front 'cribs'-style abode. Second, upon entering said house, the four of us, Myself, Fleisch, Baumer, and J, were respectively transformed into the legendary rockers, Jimmy Page, John Bonham, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones. Indeed, we, now existing as the four original members of Led Zeppelin, had been re-united to perform one final send-off for our peers, Bucknell University's graduating class of 2005. After drinking bottles upon bottles of red wine, we rehearsed for a few solid hours in the upstairs bedroom, with Fleischer just RIPPING the HELL out of the drums, Baumer leaning full-throttle into the mic-stand and wailing away with perfect pitch, and so on, and so on, until finally my alarm went off, and I awoke, hoping that for the next 15 weeks, I continue to be plagued by similar recurrent side effects.

Sunday, 4 minutes after my first dose of Chloroquine

My Site Info came 2 nights ago! For the next 10 weeks (9 weeks, the first week of Orientation is held in a small valley outside of San Jose called Orosi) I'll be living with a family of 4 in the mountains southeast of San Jose, right in the heart of coffee territory. The village (town?) is called Llano Bonito, population 2600, and is spread out across the ridge of a mountain. My family consists of a single mother named Zeneida, and 3 children (hers, I'm assuming): Christian - 26, Hellen - 18, and Asley - 12. Allegedly, I'll have a room to myself with a cold shower all my own. WorldTeach sent me two pages of information regarding the town, the bus schedule (or lack of), local resources (scarce), ideas for community projects, my host family, and details about the school where I'll be teaching (which they tell me is a new building with 4 classrooms, overlooking a "beautiful valley." I had been holding out remote hopes for a beach-side placement, but all expectations aside I couldn't be happier.

Important: While my host family does have a phone, my town has no internet access! I'm hoping to make it into San Marcos once a week to check email, update this site, and check the news. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether or not that's a realistic expectation. Nonetheless, it would sure be nice to have a few notes from friends and family waiting for me when I do make it into town :-)

Expectations: I'm generally weary of pre-departure orientation materials (they're the densest source of cliche's per capita), but given the uncertainty of my upcoming experience, I figured I'd give the WorldTeach materials due diligence. Low and behold, they've proven useful beyond my most rudimentary expectations!

In the spirit of the following paragraph, from pg. 26 of my volunteer handbook, I'm going to flesh out some expectations for myself, for you, and for us. This promises to be the post I re-read most often in the coming weeks.

"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."

Fair enough.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This Date in History

May 25, 1996: My crackling soprano voice and I became a man in the eyes of the Jewish community. That's right - I gave my first and only acapella concert, in Hebrew. I wonder if anyone has ever hosted a Bar Mitzvah reunion?

God said to Abraham, Kill me a son, Abe said Man you must be puttin' me on...

...Dylan unexpectedly became the focus of my time in England. Wouldn't you expect that a British Professor at Oxford would teach a 1-1 creative writing course to an amateur American writer by syllabizing Bob Dylan? Dylan has since been inescapable. Bucknell Commencement ended with the Rabbi reading a verse from 'Forever Young,' so why not establish here and now the interconnectedness of all stages in my life. Muchas Gracias Roberto. Costa Rica en solamente un semana.