I thought it might be nice for my first Costa Rica-based blog post to give a basic briefing of what I am doing (as I am just figuring some details of my job description out as I go!). But for the sake of making this blog post a reasonable length, instead, I have just created another entry that specifically details my job description. So please see the blog post entitled, “24/7 Job Description” from the menu at the right (also, here is the link: http://life-of-lara.blogspot.com/2011/01/247-job-description_09.html).
So, where am I? I am around an hour from Costa Rica’s capital San José, depending on traffic on any given point of the day, about 30-45 minutes from the international airport (also depending on traffic), 25-30 minutes from Heredia, the closest city, and about 15 minutes up the mountain Monte de la Cruz from the smaller town of San Rafael. There are links to maps of the region in the menu to the right on this page.
What have I been up to since arriving in Costa Rica on Tuesday? Well, thus far, my time being in CR at "Whitworth South" has been an experience quite different from that of my last time in CR, from July-November 2008 when I studied abroad as an exchange student at the Universidad Nacional (or UNA), in Heredia, and lived in a host family. What follows if my attempted at briefly highlighting some of my encounters and experiences thus far:
- Travels to CR: during the layover in Houston, I met up for breakfast and social time with the contingent of Whitworth students going to Guatemala for a medical mission trip. It was lovely to see friendly faces there!
- Arriving in CR: we piled our luggage and 12 people into a 12-passenger micro buseta, making for a comical (and slow) ride up the mountain (what usually would take about a 45 minutes took at least twice as long!) to arrive at the Costa Rica Center. Bags kept falling off the top and needing to be re-secured. We also saw some odd (and slightly disturbing) sights during our drive up, including a man raking gravel in the middle of a road in uncomfortably short shorts, and right across the busy street, another man riding a horse in the middle of where construction was occurring. (Also, Gabriel: the first English song we heard on the radio was by Mumford & Sons.)
- By 11:30pm Tuesday night, all 31 of the Jan Term freshmen students, plus two professors—Rick Hornor and Josh Orozco (and his family: wife Mandy and sons Micah (3 1/2 yrs old) and Mateo (1 1/2))—had joined us a the CRC.
- We’ve taken students around San Rafael, immersed them in cultural lessons (like riding buses, making purchases in local stores, and asking for directions) and intensive Spanish classes, visited an ecological park, and now they are away on home stays with families in the area (within an hour of the CRC campus).
- My, how busy the other 24/7s and I have been! We’ve been organizing home stays, coordinating transportation, running errands, driving around town to meet host families and make business-related purchases, organizing our newly renovated office area, making reservations for activities, creating “urban plunges” and activities for the students, leading orientations and making announcements concerning academic and student life information during their first several days here. I love the job because of its diversity! Em and Bean have been teaching me all the ins and outs of things they have discovered over the last semester. Their experiences and knowledge are invaluable; they are familiar with names, places, locations, and just the daily life involved in working at Whitworth in a foreign country.
- Yesterday morning, Bean led me and a group of about half of our Jan Term frosh further up Monte de la Cruz, to cross the continental divide and see a view of the back of the campus, and down the mountain. Glorious day—it was clear enough! Two hours later, our shins and hip flexors were sore from climbing up and down the mountain!
- I have thoroughly enjoyed having Josh and Mandy’s boys around! How joyous the sounds of children’s giggles echoing through our center and on our excursions. Today, we took Rick, Josh, Mandy, and the boys to San José just to hang out for the afternoon, stopping for lunch on the way in, and picking up pizza on the way back. It was such fun hanging out and playing with the boys! I love having these delightful kids around!
- Highlights of the job and my time here so far:
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| Our luggage being "secured" atop a buseta. |
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| On the old, dilapidated, collapsing bridge during our early-morning hike |
- I have a Whitworth phone extension: 3756 (the full, Spokane-area code number is: (509) 777-3756)
- I love love love working with the students! I love planning activities, watching them learn, observing their interactions with one another and the Ticos (Costa Ricans) they encounter on buses or in other public places.
- I thoroughly enjoy working with my colegas, or coworkers, the other 24/7s Emily and Kristina (Bean), as well as Lindy and Dinorah Scott, and of course our hilarious Jan Term profs Rick and Josh. Life is good. We share MANY laughs, and I LOVE working with these wonderful people! Meeting all the contracted Sodexo workers around the grounds and center has been good as well.
- Hellllloooooo! Living in CR again?! It’s the best. Okay, well, it is colder than most of you would think; we do live in a cloud rainforest on the top of a mountain. So it can get pretty chilly and windy and misty up here. But seeing familiar places, navigating new ones, and exploring our new Whitworth campus (we now have a sign that Lindy’s son carved, which reads, “Whitworth Costa Rica: It’s better here!”).
- Getting to explore the campus and enjoying the natural beauty of the Costa Rican mountains has been wonderful. I feel like I am at home in the Pacific Northwest, hiking in rainforests or something.
- Playing with dogs! There are puppies everywhere! And Larry, the campus dog that adopted us, is suuuuper playful and wonderful to have around!
- Downsides of being in CR? It’s all an experience. There really isn’t much to complain about.
- I haven’t even minded the lack of hot water when I take showers (our tank is only so big, which doesn’t afford all 40 of us hot showers every morning. So, one must shower at odd times of the day if one wishes not to have one’s breath taken away while getting clean!). I have actually almost enjoyed the arctic ablutionary experiences, as the cold refreshes and revitalizes, as well as saves time (it’s like showering on speed!), and furthermore, the cold showers made today’s first lukewarm shower feel exceedingly pleasant!
- I might gain some weight again. Returning to Costa Rican food is good (bread, veggies, fruit... and galletas (cookies)!) But living on a mountainside does have its perks; the exercise at 6,000ft. is a bit more strenuous than at sea-level Sequim or on the OlyPen in the Olympic National Park or beaches or Hoh Rainforest! Maybe I’ll get into better shape!
- Speaking of living on a mountain, the cold weather is sort of a bummer; it’s hard to dress for the day when it’s 60º and precipitating horizontal drizzle due to being in the middle of a cloud, but 80º down town when we head down the mountain.
- It’s pretty humid (around 80-85% at most times), so combined with it being 60º in the unheated, uninsulated rooms, sometimes sheets and clothes are damp. But praise the Lord for dehumidifiers! It has brought the level of moisture in my room down to around 58%, which makes the room feel much warmer!
- I got sunburned today. Not badly, but my pale, North American skin that that hadn’t reacted sunlight for three dark months finally gets to reacquaint itself with the role my melanin has to play. It finally encountered the Costa Rican sunshine these last few days. Result? Pinkness and warmth. I know, poor me. It’s not too bad though. Blessed warmth!
- As you can tell, pretty much all my downsides have resolutions and upsides as well.
Lastly, to end this super-long blog post (sorry; the first few weeks always have the longest entries, because everything’s new and exciting and there is so much to report on before life settles down into normalcy and routine)… for those who are interested, I’ve noted some basic details about CR that might be useful in understanding the country and culture of where I am. See the link under the blog post listings entitled, “Basic CR Details.”
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