bluemarshmallow

For all of you who don't read the Columbia Missourian regularly, my exhibit at the museum was the focus of an article yesterday.
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/01/13/museum-anthropology-exhibiting-faces-mexico-until-end-january/
Keep in mind that it was written by a non-native english speaker, who somehow managed to misquote me from the email i sent her.

Also today i was interviewed by KRCG, a local news station. I'll be talking more about my exhibit, and mexican figurines in general. You can catch it tonight at 10pm, in the Missouri Traveler segment, or a rerun on Sunday. I was told a video would be up sometime tomorrow afternoon, i'll post the link when that happens.

Also, I'M FREAKING FAMOUS.

I found out today that I can't be a triple major. I'm just a couple classes short, due to wrangling between the first two majors. I could, in theory, take 21 hours this semester and a summer course, but really... we'll see. Two majors and a minor isn't so bad... right?

Anyway, i'm really excited about my spanish capstone. The information for it finally went up, and the topic is "Film Adaptation of Spanish and Hispanic Novels". We chat in class, and then have movies on monday nights. I like movies, and books, and most especially books that someone thinks are good enough to be made into movies. The professor is a current/former hippie, so it should be a great experience.

The other spanish class i'm taking, the history of the spanish language, sounds really cool, but i see the list of required books includes a latin book and latin to romance sound charts. This could be really cool, but will probably also require an amazing amount of work. I can't really switch this to an easier class, because the spanish department offers about five classes a semester, and this looks like the best of the bunch. Spanish theater with the crazy women who donates her books to the museum? Another class on modernism with the uptight man who always wears black turtlenecks and gave me a C last semester? or...something called "stylistics" which just sounds scary. Oh well, I may learn how to read latin by the end of it!

Other than that, I'm retaking a stat class, and picking up a last humanity class in the form of "introduction to women's literature". It sounds like a pretty good last semester.

Also, go vote.
Also, make good choices.

My Latin America history professor told us today to choose our next capitalist overlord very carefully. I love this guy.

Since my return from Costa Rica (which i haven't written about yet), i've been absolutely falling apart, and it needs to stop.

-in Costa Rica, i hit my head and had a chichote the size of an egg... which then gave me a black eye
-the day after i landed, with my black eyes, my lymph nodes swelled to incredible sizes, and i had to go on some heavy antibiotics
-also upon my return, i had a bad reaction to my contacts, developed bumps on the inside of my eyelids, and had to stop wearing my contacts for months--never turned into an infection, as i was still on antibiotics from (above)
-two weeks later, i have a happy little upper respitory infection
-two weeks after that, i sprain my lower back
-a month after that, i burned the shit out of the back of my right hand (apparently ovens are hot)

anyway, my hand is almost healed. I wonder what'll be next?

Things i love about latin america:
*they advertise with speakers on top of cars, blues brothers' style
*backstreet boys songs in spanish
*the amazing array of fruits whose names i will never learn
*the rainforest
*flipping awesome telenovelas, where i learn all the slang and slowly fall in love with Nico from the argentine show, Patito Feo.
*seeing all of my favorite movies dubbed into spanish

well, i haven't been this crushed in a while.
as i spent an hour or two today planning this weekend's trip to manuel antonio, which i was really excited about.... i found out that my group went without me this weekend while i was with my family. dammit.
and no one will answer their freaking phones, and i'm feeling quite lonely. and i want to come home.

7/14/08
Wow, I sure have gotten behind, writing about my time here. Really, everything has been more or less the same—I finished my internship project at ACAI with Zach, and now just need to go back for my final evaluation, and a finalized copy in Spanish.
Two weekends ago we went to InBIOparque, which was okay. We saw a sloth and chilled in the rain. Last weekend was spent in La Fortuna, a little town at the bottom of Volcan Arenal, which was a lot of fun. I repelled down waterfalls! Two of which were over 200 feet high, and straight down. I am no longer a wimp, although during the miles of hiking through river beds between the waterfalls I managed to fall and get a hell of a lump/bruise on my left shin. It’s okay though, because there were some beautiful Spanish speaking guides just ready to help me back up. J
After the grand adventure in La Fortuna, I spent the next two days finishing up the Colombia ACAI project and killing time. Wednesday was my first day at La Fundacion, so when I arrived around 9 (after being hopelessly lost a few blocks away), I killed the entire morning with Melissa, another intern. It was her last day, and I hadn’t talked to the boss yet, so we just sat around on the computer and bitched a lot. I’m rather furious that I’m only getting 3 credits from this summer, and the amount of money I paid. I don’t mind paying for Spanish classes and my homestay family. These are legitimate costs, and why I’m here. What I do understand is the two thousand dollars that went to CAPA, in order to place me in an internship… when it’s my Spanish school that has done all the work, while the capa director just hovers and hands out “Monday memos” and badgers me about signing a waiver now that I’m taking private classes. Grrrrr.
Anyway, after my first, uneventful day at new internship (where I didn’t get a chance to talk to Zobeida, the boss, until about 12:30), I was leaving early the next morning for Guanacaste, a province in the southwest, where there are beaches and ritzy houses. I was tagging along for my host family’s winter (here) vacation. They had mentioned something about renting an apartment that had been constructed but not leased yet, and I got all excited about family vacations that I take with my dad and stepmom, where we have a little suite near the beach and eat at fun restaurants and laze about for a week, having a lovely time. In this case, we ended up staying with Marleny’s parents, who have lived in the same house for the past 50 years. And it’s like a grandparent’s house—lots of pictures, and lots of cobwebs on the ceilings where they don’t think to clean anymore. We were also there at the same time as three of her other siblings, so the house was absolutely packed. I ended up staying in a little room with a double bed and lots of air mattresses with all of the girl cousins.
Ryan, I slept with someone else-- …and she’s 15, named Patricia, and doesn’t kick. Hehe. I’ve slept with enough people on band trips to know that it doesn’t matter if you like the person or not, the first question about sleeping arrangements is to find someone who’s not going to give you a black eye.
Anyway, they tell me it isn’t a real trip to guanacaste unless you get mosquito bites, sunburns, eat seafood, and visit Playa del Coco. I did all of these things, so I suppose it was a real trip. My family insisted on driving to every other big beach in the area, so I could take pictures. They wanted to drive all over guanacaste on the trip back, but it was raining, so we didn’t. The family there was interesting—everyone who spoke a word of english tried to practice with me, and I hid a lot. Not that they weren’t great, I had met most of them before-but it’s really very awkward to be on somebody else’s family vacations. They all sit around on the porch with their coffee and tell stories about the family and gossip, but when I’m out there with them I’m the center of attention. Not that it bothers me—I just want them to go about their business, and not make them or me feel weird about it. I managed to find an internet café a couple blocks away, and when entering I asked if they had microphones for calls, and no, they didn’t. I checked my email and went about my business, and on my way out (after paying) I asked if there was another one around that had headsets for skype. Oooooooh, said the teenage girl, we have those. Dammit, seriously. And of course, not a single member of my family decided to answer the phone. I talked to ryan for a couple minutes, but that was it. *sigh*
Four days of family that tried to tell me that it was a four hour drive from Missouri to Miami, and seemed continuously surprised that I didn’t want a perfectly nice costa Rican boyfriend, and laughed when I was surprised that they offered me gin at lunch—apparently here, gin means ginger ale, and ginebra is the alcoholic beverage. Grrrrr, so ready to go home.
Anyway, this morning I *didn’t* get lost on the way to my internship, but there were two people in the office I had used last Wednesday, so I was stuck down on a row of computers that are used for teaching computer skills to otherwise uneducated women. I support their cause, I do. But those computers are far too old and slow to be running xp, and I wasn’t able to open .pdfs without crashing the damn thing. As I’m supposed to be outlining a proposal to grant funding for a working women’s university, complete with childcare, by reading through similar proposals, many of which were in .pdf format, I was somewhat aggravated. I left at 11:30. Three hours of googling and restarting and then crashing and internet not working was enough. I’m going to get there superearly and get my office back tomorrow, dammit.
And of course I waited afterwards for my bus at the university, only to be eventually told that they’re on break for the next three weeks, and it’s only running every two hours. Bah. And then having to take another, and getting stuck with a chatty bus driver, and then missing my stop and having to walk in the rain in my very cute but not very comfortable shoes, and then waiting for my next bus and getting home, and instead of going grocery shopping with the fam, I got stuck at home by myself watching walker: texas ranger in Spanish. They left to enroll Rosemary in a class over her two week break, which I definitely didn’t want to attend—but they also left three hours ago, and I’m bored and lonely. And since I don’t have a house key or know the security code, I can’t leave.
Only 22 days left!!!!!

6/13/08
54 days left! I decided to count them, on a whim, just to torture myself a little. It’s not bad here—I’m really just kind of lonely. I’m used to being very social, spending most of my free time with other people, going out a couple times a week, etc, and here, when I have class by myself and don’t really have friends, it’s kind of rough. The group from MSU is pretty great, and they try to invite me to everything, but they’re also all neighbors, so it’s a lot harder for me to meet them places, since taxi prices have skyrocketed, and I live on the other side of town. My internship consists of me sitting in a tiny side room with Zach, who makes me want to throw things at his head. Our assignment for our internship is basically to write a thesis. I’ll do it, but I’d also like some practical experience working with people as well while I’m here. It’s really difficult when Zach speaks no Spanish, the ladies in the office speak so fast and so softly I can’t understand a word they’re saying, and we get shuffled out of our tiny room on a regular basis, and just sit in someone’s office while they’re at a meeting or whatever. *sigh*
Not everything is bad! I really like my Spanish profesora, Karla. Today in class, after my exam we’re watching Volver. I loooove Pedro Almodovar, and this is his most recent film, which I haven’t seen yet. It should be a good day.

6/12/08
It’s good experience to write a thesis for one’s summer internship, right?
Also, I dislike that when I am on my computer, I keep having to look at the keys to find the symbols, as I’m getting used to the Spanish keyboard.
I’ve survived three weeks of Costa Rica!
Last night we went and saw Sexo en la Ciudad, because theaters are half price on Wednesday nights. It was two and a half hours long, and could have ended much sooner. I think it was basically an entire extra season of the show, which was probably the point. Hmm. Everything ended happily ever after.

6/10/08
Before leaving the states, I transferred a couple movies to my computer, and now whenever I really have nothing to do and everyone in the house is either doing homework/work or watching tv, I’ll come chill in my room and watch a movie while writing in this thing. My movie of last week was High Fidelity, with John Cusack, who is one of my favorite actors. Anyway, throughout the movie they make top five lists of breakups, favorite albums, etc, and after watching the movie three or four times since I’ve been here I’ve found myself making little top five lists in my head. It’s a great hobby, I think everyone should make some.

6/9/08
The Caribbean coast was… interesting, to say the least. We stayed at a place called Rockin J’s. J(ay?) himself is a 40something former hippie, who smokes a lot of pot. At the place, which wasn’t quite a hotel, there were three choices for habitation – hammocks, tents, or cabins. The cabins, which were just big rooms with bunk beds, were all full, so we got to decide between a tent for $6 dollars a night or a hammock for $5 dollars. I splurged on a tent—I don’t/didn’t think I could sleep in a hammock all night. There was a big open second floor which was full of rows of little Coleman tents, and covered patios of rows of hammocks. Everyone got a locker to put their stuff in, because there really isn’t a way to lock a tent or hammock. The floors and pillars were covered in mosaics made by guests, and we were told they were re-doing part of the floor by the south showers, so if we wanted to do one, feel free.
On Saturday morning we got up with the sun—at about 5:30 am. We bummed around on the beach a bit, then walked into town for breakfast. After breakfast we found a pretty nice beach, but with black sand! It was really cool. Yay volcanic discharge!
On Saturday afternoon we did make mosaics. There’s a big pile of different tiles, hammers, and cement mix behind one of the cabins, so we got our stuff and went to town. Michigan State decided to make a bigger and better one. I amused myself by making a little M-I-Z along the sidewalk in black and gold, so hopefully in the future some Mizzou student will see it and do a little dance, and everyone else will wonder what the hell that means. I managed to slice my hand open on one of the tiles while breaking them into pieces, so my more ambitiously planned mosaic turned into three letters. Those fuckers are sharp! When I went to the reception desk for first aid, they swabbed my hand off with clean water and put a big waterproof bandaid on it. Not all that sanitary, but it was also made by glass, so it was pretty deep, but a clean cut. I’ll survive. I also managed to get a lot of mosquito bites on my ankles, enough so that I’m thinking about picking up some malaria pills. Or drinking a lot of gin and tonics.
On Sunday before we left we went to a different beach, with enormous waves and a really strong riptide… but of course we went swimming anyway. I managed to get a pretty good sunburn on my upper back and shoulders. I reapplied sunscreen to my face about four times, but apparently neglected the other area that burns. Oh well. The bus ride on the way home took absolutely forever, because it was raining and we had to come to practically a complete stop at every curve in the road… and in the mountains, there’s a lot of curves. Blah.

6/5/08
Huzzah! This morning Zach and I were given an assignment for ACAI, to put together a report of refugees from one area of Colombia for the past year or so. We’re to study the situation there, why they left, what assistance they needed when they arrived, and how they’re doing now. There’s been a huge influx from that area over the past year, and it’s showing no sign of stopping, so they want a written report to help them assist the refugees in an efficient manner. I’m excited to have something to do other than essentially job shadow, and Zach is a fellow polisci major, so we’ve done research like this many times.
This weekend we’re off to Puerto Viejo in Limon, which is on the Caribbean coast. I’m pretty excited to go! We leave Friday afternoon, and will get back Sunday night. Until then, I’ll be out of town.

6/3/08
Hey, it’s the third of june already! I spent this weekend being quite ill. On Saturday morning, we went to the feria (fair, but it’s a huuuge farmer’s market here) and bought the fruits and vegetables for the week. Afterwards, we had breakfast their. My family insisted that I try a “papusa”, which is meat and beans and chiles inside of a fried tortilla. It was delicious, but it haunts me to this day. My mama tica has surmised that the new country/city, different water, food, stress from my classes and internship, with the papusa on top made my digestive system very angry. I spent Saturday afternoon slightly queasy, but Sunday was awful. I was nauseated, with a fever and shaky hands for a couple hours until I was finally able to puke my guts out. Pleasant imagery, I know. Anyway, Sunday was miserable, and on Monday I had my individual Spanish class in the morning, with my interview for my internship in the afternoon.
So far, my internship has consisted solely of listening to information, and sitting around with my co-intern from Michigan State, whose Spanish is awful. We read successful (and some unsuccessful) cases that have been compiled… completely in Spanish. There’s a lot of jargon for social work that I’m now learning in Spanish, which is semi-useful. Basically, I don’t think they quite know what to do with us. The head director of the program is out of the country for another month, and her next in command doesn’t really have time for us, so we read cases and sit in on meetings. After this week we decide which area we want to work in. There’s social work, microcredit, and a legal area, which advises refugees of their rights.

5/28/08
After classes today, I went on a tour of San Jose, compliments of the money I paid to CAPA. I was by myself, and didn’t really want to go. It was pretty awful, won’t lie. It was full of other tourists, mostly elderly Americans, and our guide was kind of slimey. But… I won a free Mayan “fertility frog” pendant at a jewelry store we stopped at. Which is the last thing I need/want, fertility. Whatever.

5/27/08

Another day, another dollar. Or however the saying goes. Anyway, second day of classes went well, we learned body parts (but not the easy ones). I like words in spanish, they sound much more fancy to me than easy words in english. For example, eyelashes are pestanas, with a ~ over the n… I don’t know how to do that on my American keyboard. After classes, which consisted of acting out different pains and illnesses, Teresita (the CAPA director) and I went to San Jose so I could learn my bus stops. Apparently there was a strike with the taxi drivers in front of the presidential offices, so traffic was totally stopped, and the bus didn’t come for about half an hour, and there weren’t any taxies around. The official taxis, which are controlled by a union and the government were striking because unofficial taxi drivers (taxistas piratas) are becoming more common, taking their business and giving them a bad name because they often rip people off, aside from them not belonging to the union and having the same rules. I think it’s very interesting, but I digress.

Anyway, we went to my internship place, ACAI, and learned the two buses I need to take between there and COSI, my school, for the next two weeks. After this week, I have two more weeks of classes in the mornings, but I’ll have my internship in the afternoons. After our short tour, we went to lunch at a really cute little restaurant called Spoon (la cuchilla de sabor), which was great, if a little expensive. I had a pita (pan de arabe) filled with turkey and avocado with a side salad, and ended up taking half of the sandwich home with me. After lunch we walked around Avenida Central, which is pedestrian only and has lots of shops. We went into Universal, which is a really cool department store, with a big book section. I bought Un Mundo Feliz (Brave New World) and Tradiciones Costarricenses (Costa Rican Traditions) which is a book of short stories. Books are pretty expensive here, especially translated ones, but I picked both of these up for under ten dollars, (si no mal recuerdo, costo 4.400). Indulge my slips into espanol, por favor. We poked into another couple of tiny bookstores, which were cute but rather expensive. I really want to buy the books I read as a child in Spanish, like The Chronicles of Narnia and maybe a couple Harry Potters. I wasn’t able to find Narnia en espanol, and harry potter was in hardcover in all of the stores. I keep worrying about going over my suitcases’ weight limit.

Hmm… what more. Oh, I’m currently reading Lolita, and I’m not sure if I like it or not. I’m about halfway through, and … I don’t know. I’ve read some of Nabokov’s other novels, and I loved Pnin, but this is just…weird. I’m surprised that I don’t like it, because normally I love books about crazy people. Oh well.

Oh, on Thursday I’m giving a presentation  about the transition between pulperias, or little convenience stores, and the big supermarkets, and leading a debate on whether or not it’s a result of globalization. Honestly, I don’t think so, because things are much cheaper in the supermarkets, and because the city is larger and the transit system is much better, people are obviously going to shop at the supermarket, because there’s many more items, and at lower prices. Las puplerias are smaller and more expensive, with less variety, but it’s much more personal, because each neighborhood has one. I tried to ask if people shopped at pulperias for the sole purpose of keeping them open, and I got a really confused response. I’m not sure if it was due to my bad Spanish or of the foreign concept. Oh, and I learned that Wal-Mart recently bought the central American company MasXMenos (more for less). Whether or not primate cities and public transportation systems are considered consequences of globalization, I’m not sure, but I’m positive that wal-mart owning a big company in MY country isn’t good.

5/26/08

 This morning I had my first real day of classes, and it went very well. The six of us are all pretty friendly, talkative, and generally good in Spanish, and our teacher, Karla, is really good. She realizes that we know the basics, so we cover concepts really fast, and then use them a lot while learning new phrases. It’s a pretty efficient system, as far as I can tell. I think that this is my only week with a class—the Michigan state group only has two weeks of classes before starting their internships, so I’ll have classes alone with Karla for two weeks in the morning, and then my internship in the afternoon, which hopefully won’t be too stressful. I’ve got a short paper due on Wednesday, a presentation on Thursday, and a test on Friday. I have all of this my first week so I can keep more or less the same schedule as my class. I think that having private lessons, three hours a day for two weeks will do wonders for my grammar. Today I had my welcome lunch, at a cute little Tico restaurant called Toas. The Executive Plate, as they call it, is just a normal tico “cansado”—that is, rice, beans, meat, a little salad, and fried plantains. After classes I planned to have some time to get online, but all of the computers were busy, and mi madre tica came early to pick me up. I did have time to buy a phone card—I called my mom, father, and Ryan… and nobody answered. It was quite depressing. I’ll try again later, and hopefully someone will answer. Ryan, I’m sorry I left you such a passive-aggressive message, it was only after neither parent answered, and I wanted to talk to someone.

Tomorrow Teresita (the CAPA director) and I are going to the city so I can learn my bus routes to go to my internship next week. My Tica mom told me that if I pitched in a little gas money, she’d be more than happy to pick me up in the afternoons so I wouldn’t have to take the bus, which is a wonderful guesture. As much as we bitch about gas prices in the US, they’re just as bad here. When I was here two years ago, it was about 500 colones a liter, which is about a dollar, so $4 a gallon. Now it’s at about 775. Marlene and I had a really interesting conversation about prices yesterday. I remarked that the prices for the electric pianos seemed really high, which is somewhat due to them being imported and at a music store in the city center, but they were really pricey. The basic ones like I have were well over 200 dollars, which is about twice the price of mine, I think. She said that she didn’t think it was right that here they made so much less money, the per capita income is maybe $15,000, but everything is very expensive. On top of that, there’s a LOT of disparity between those who make a lot of money, and those that have nothing, so the per capita isn’t really helpful. I told her that was one of the reasons that I wanted to study latin America, because I didn’t like seeing so many people taken advantage of, and she said that I was a good person. Maybe—who knows if I’ll ever actually accomplish something, but I’d at least like to try, and tell those who can make a difference about the problems. To all of my friends that I’ve preached to about Latin America, this means you.

Also, in addition to forgetting my makeup bag, apparently I failed to pack the cord that connects my camera to my computer. Bah. I also bought a flash drive today, because I had forgotten to pack mine, and I had hoped to transfer my files to that and post my pictures and my little journal online. Oh well. I may buy a cord, or just see if someone else has the same kind. Ryan, it should be on your computer desk, from when we were working on getting them to transfer. Dangit!

5/25/08

Phew. Costa Rican parties are crazy! We arrived at the party at about 4:45, and got home at 10:30 or so. We were one of the first families to arrive, so we staked out our table, and everyone came over to say hello. I’m still not used to the idea of getting kissed on the cheek by strangers, but at least they’re making an effort to be friendly. Every family member who had ever been to the US or spoke a little English wanted to talk to me and tell me all about it, which was fun about the first five times. Oh well, I guess I shouldn’t complain they wanted to talk to me too much. There were chips and pastries, and toasts with shots of the strongest eggnog I’ve ever had. After a couple of those, and a couple Imperials (la cerveza de costa rica), my family decided that I needed to learn how to dance properly. Everyone stood around in a big circle and danced around in place, while people who were good dancers went into the middle of the circle. Dancing while standing in one place is much harder than you’d think. Marlene showed me some of the steps, and I don’t think too many people laughed at me until I got the hang of it, but some sure did. They all thought it was funny that I knew all the songs in english—Sugar, Sugar by the Archies and Born to be Wild. My highlight of the evening was when they all did the Macarena (don’t worry, I got pictures). When I got tired, I went back to our table and had a lovely chat with their cousin Luis, who has the cutest faux-hawk and indie glasses, and of course I made friends with the awkward boy in glasses. He’s fifteen, and takes English at high school, but wanted to practice. I like all the kids who want to practice english, they all ask me my favorite color or what my typical day is like. It’s quite cute.

Sundays are pretty slow—we had breakfast around 10, with fruit and bread with cream cheese. Rosemary has dance club practice for most of the day, and tonight around 4 we’re off to church. I told them that I wanted to go with, but I have a feeling it might be the only time I go.

Oh, apparently after packing my little makeup bag, I totally forgot to pack it. Or at least, it did not arrive with me in San Jose. Ryan, could you look for that? I’ll probably just end up buying a little bit here to get by, I’m just irked because I bought some new stuff especially for my trip. Oh well. I just feel weird getting dressed up for church, or parties, or work without having a little makeup to go along with it, although I never wear it at home.

3:00ish

Apparently we aren’t going to church, because it’s too rainy. As it’s been a constant downpour for at least three or four hours, I agree with this. Marlene said that it’ll get better in a couple weeks, as this is the start of the rainy season, and the worst part. Unfortunately, now I don’t really have anything to do for the rest of the day. At lunch, my family commented on how brave  I was, coming to Costa Rica without a group from my school, like the others in my class, and how lonely I must be! Un poco, si. They then volunteered to keep me entertained and keep me company the whole time I’m here – Wilbert is my personal trainer, as he likes to go running (and I wish I had brought my running shoes), Rosemary is going to teach me to dance, Marlene is my conversation partner, and Roxana will keep me company the rest of the time. I teared up a little—this family is wonderful.

5/24/08 3ish

Day three, and I finally got the shower to give me hot water! Costa Rica is no longer the land of cold showers! We had a very nice breakfast this morning around 9, with eggs, fruit, and of course, gallo pinto. Thankfully, Marlene doesn’t like it very often, and neither do I. After breakfast we got cleaned up and went to the music store. Roxana is learning to play the organ, and they wanted to get her an “organeta” or a portable keyboard. They didn’t buy one, because all of the ones that they had were either really complicated, but with knobs instead of buttons, or were really basic. All the electronics here seem really expensive to me—I’m not sure if it’s because they’re of better quality, or because they are just more expensive. I’m getting a lot better at quickly calculating the exchange from colones to dollars in my head; for some reason I can’t calculate worth without relating it back to dollars—see my example with buying the umbrella at the department store, instead of on the street.

After we got back, we had rice and beans and pork. Ohhhh, rice and black beans. At least for lunch they weren’t mixed. Now we’re going to take a little siesta and at about 4:30 head to their cousin’s quinciero. It’s for their cousin Marco, so it’s a big party, but for girls it’s a huge ordeal. Rosemary showed me pictures of hers, where everyone was wearing formal dresses, and then another that she and Roxana went to a couple weeks ago, which was a costume party. Rosemary dressed as Snow White, and Roxana had a beautiful Arabian nights-esque costume. I’m not sure how excited I am to go to a party with a ton of people I’ve never met, and have difficulty communicating with, but it´ll sure be an experience.

5/23/08

Arrived yesterday. Of course, in my travels, there were long lines, and redneck seatmates, and both planes ran late. I cried for quite a while after Ryan left me at the security gate, which did not improve my popularity with other passengers, as it made me look like I had pinkeye and a bad case of roscecea. It was the first time I had flown totally alone, but finding my gate in Atlanta wasn’t too scary, although I only had about half an hour to get there. Upon arrival in San Jose (well, Juan Santamaria), I had never been so relieved to get my luggage, go through immigration and customs, and see the friendly Tico holding a sign with COSI/CAPA Anna Frieden BIENVENIDOS! I was so incredibly worn out that I couldn’t really formulate too much to talk about during our drive to my house in San Jose. San Jose is pretty scary at first—crazy drivers, gates and bars in front of all the houses and businesses, and trash in the streets. It’s hard to see the houses behind the gates—not because you can’t see through them, but at first it’s hard to get past them, visually. And there’s huge disparity between neighborhoods, and sometimes even between houses. For example, my family lives in a wealthy gated community, but across the street is a lot full of old concrete pieces, and outside the guards and the main gates is a supershady Chinese restaurant and fruit stand.

            When I arrived yesterday late afternoon, my family was waiting to meet me. As I walked through the door they handed me a big bouquet of flowers, and had “BIENVENIDA ANNA” in cutout letters on the wall. It was very sweet. My family consists of Wilbert, Marlene, Rosemary, and Roxana. I’m actually staying in Roxana’s room, but she doesn’t seem to mind too much. I’m the first student that they’ve ever hosted, and they’ve been trying really hard. They’re absolutely wonderful—the moment I start to look confused, they stop talking and explain it in another way. So far their verdict of my Spanish is that I have a sufficient amount to get by, but need to get a lot better. I agree.

            Today I was greeted with a wakeup call at 5:45, breakfast at 6, consisting of fruit and a tomato sandwich with mustard. The pineapple and the coffee were great. Wilbert dropped me off at the school at 7:15, and my Spanish placement test was at 7:30. I did reasonably well—at first Vanessa, who is in charge of the Spanish language program was confused about my lack of basic vocab but ability to use complicated words, but then I explained that for the past two years I’ve had only literature classes, and had forgotten many easy things. She told me to review, and I’m in the advanced class.

            I was placed with a group from Michigan State who are also doing internships after the intensive Spanish class. I have the same placement as one of them, Zack, who seems nice enough. They’ve kind of started to adopt me, which is fabulous, as I’m the only person there without a group from the same school. Today we went out to lunch, where I had Aztec soup, which is quite delicious. I had forgotten to pack an umbrella, and it rained all afternoon, so I got soaked on the way back from lunch. After classes were done, Marlene picked me up and took me home to change before the movie. We went and saw Los Cronicos de Narnia: El Principe Caspian, doblado en espanol, which is conveniently the movie I saw in english a few days ago. Before the movie I stopped to buy an umbrella at Carrion, a department store. I love how a lot of things here have really strange meanings in english as well—all of costa rica shops at Carrion and eats Bimbo bread. Hehe. Anyway, after buying the umbrella, which is lovely and blue with a wood handle, and pops up and down, I realized that 6.900 was nearly 14 dollars, which is the most expensive umbrella I’ve ever purchased. Oh well, it’ll be put to good use, as it rains every day.