It's been a while

It's been a while since I've last posted but here's some catch up now that I'm getting wireless in the living room of my house. This past weekend was spent just getting to know everyone. Just having fun in San Jose and getting to know the area before classes begun on Monday. Friday night everyone went out together to a bar in Curridebat (one of the barrios where students are living). My host sister made me shave before I went out, saying that facial hair is unattractive. We must have seemed a bit out of place, 16 gringos taking up pretty much half of the bar. The setup was a bit odd: there was a huge screen which was showing Aerosmith music videos and The Beatles Anthology however you couldn't hear any of it because of the reggaeton (a hybrid version of reggae and hip-hop that's extremely popular and extremely bad) that was blasting, all of which was under the sole light of a disco ball. It was good fun just getting to know everyone and for my birthday, they surprised me when they brought me la cucaracha (the cockroach) a drink that was lit on fire. Now I'm not a good dancer by any means but I'm certainly a creative one (if anyone I live with is reading this I'm sure you remember my performance at Folley Beach) and I did everything from the tango to the robot and eventually everyone was dancing. Although my birthday was three days ago, I honestly couldn't have imagined a better 21st birthday celebration and all of this from people that I barely even know! I know that this is going to be an amazing trip and that I've made some great friends already.

Saturday I woke up with my tongue a little burnt thanks to la cucaracha. A group of 6 of us decided to explore some of downtown San Jose. We took a bus from to the beginning of a pedestrian walkway which winds through the central part of the city around Plaza de la Cultura. It was a very hot day and I cannot tell you how quickly I get dehydrated down here. Stepping from the sunlight into the shade is a difference of about 15 degrees. However there is always a very nice breeze to cool you down when you're walking under the sun. I've been surprised at how windy it is down here. We grabbed some lunch at a restaurant overlooking the people walking below. We had come to explore San Jose but we ended up staying in the restaurant talking for an hour and a half. Nothing is better than good conversation. For most people visiting Costa Rica, San Jose is one thing: the location of the airport. Everyone is in a hurry to get out of the capital and to the beach. So San Jose is a city catered more towards the residents themselves than foreigners. So as far as attractions there are only a couple one of which is the Teatro Nacional which we passed. There were some very unique statues surrounding the building but we didn't go inside because of the fee. The pigeons in San Jose are just as if not more aggressive than those in Central Park in NYC. It seemed like everyone was out that day. The walkways were crammed with people shopping, eating and getting ice cream (POPS is the place to go). There are so many shoe stores here, like 1 every 25 feet. I don't get it, I only saw a couple clothing stores. There was a market with over 100 stands selling products for tourists to buy. Aside from colorful bags, the most common item in the market were Imperial t-shirts, the beer is probably the most famous icon associated with Costa Rica even more so than the nation's popular slogan, Pura Vida! This says a lot about the influence of tourism on the country. By the way Pura Vida! has like 10 different meanings so I say when in doubt just say Pura Vida! I plan on going back to the market to get people gifts and to barter for a drum. An afternoon walking around in the sun had left me dehydrated and not feeling very well. Everyone was going out that night but I was hesitant. I went home and drank a lot of water. I asked my host mom to not make a small dinner for me. She still gave me like 3 different dishes but it's really sweet of her to cook so much for me. I still wasn't feeling great but I wanted to hang out with everyone so I decided to go. I'm glad I did because once I was out with everyone I started feeling a lot better. We went to this Reggae club which had a huge poster of Marcus Garvey so you know it was legit. The place was really low key and it was a relaxing evening.

My room doesn't let me sleep in, which is great for during the week, but frustrating during the weekend when I don't have to get up early. You see the sun comes up around 5 a.m. here and my curtains aren't very thick so the sunlight comes right in. I tried to stay in bed as long as I could but it's seriously impossible and I fought for sleep, eventually giving up around 10 o'clock. I knew the day was going to be an interesting experience because the plan was to go see San Jose's popular futbol club, Saprissa. Futbol games in places like Europe and Latin America in particular are a bit different than soccer games in the U.S., the reason being the fans. They're more than just rowdy, they riot. I wondered how they would feel when a bunch of gringos showed up. It was a hassle to get a taxi from downtown to the stadium but we got there during the first half. It was somewhat comforting to learn that they didn't serve alcohol in the stadium, I could only imagine would fuel it would add to the fire. Lucky for us it wasn't an important game. When Saprissa plays their arch-rival Liga from Alajuela people die. We chose to sit by the die-hard fans who beat a huge drum the entire game while they all, many covered in Saprissa tattoos chanted. They made Philadelphia Eagles fans look soft in comparison.
I kept expecting to get hit with something or at least hear some taunts (there probably were some but my poor Spanish skills kept me from recognizing them). I expected a great game with fancy footwork, bicycle kicks, etc. but it was rather disappointing. There wasn't much intensity and spirit in the way the teams played. But you wouldn't know that from the way their fans acted. We would later find out that that was not a good place to sit. It was cold and dark by the time the game was over and we put the girls in a taxi to go home and got some McDonald's. McDonald's here is much different than McDonald's in USA, here it actually tastes really good. I spent the night sitting around and watching the family play with Julian, someone in the extended family's baby. It's funny to think about how much I don't know but they've probably explained to me at some time. Oh language barrier. I kind of felt like part of the family playing with little Julian. Apparently North Carolina is getting snow and I kind of wish I was there to see it.

The reason I’m in Costa Rica is not to study Spanish, that’s only a small part of it.

The reason I’m here is to study Sustainable Human Development.

The five classes I'm taking at ULatina are:
Justice, Gender and the Challenge of Development
The Politics of Democracy and Development in Latin America
Justice and Human Rights in Latin America
Human Development and Poverty in Latin America
Intensive Spanish (thank god)

For me, this is the perfect class schedule.

Monday I had Justice, Gender and the Challenge of Development at 9 am and I really like the professor and I'm psyched for what we're going to learn about. You can't find this kind of material taught at Elon. We have class only four days a week and so most people travel on the weekends. That afternoon we decided we'd go to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, a town on the Carribean. To save money we're going to sleep in hammocks on the beach. It's going to be awesome.
San Jose isn't exactly the safest place in the country and crime is on the rise here, particularly muggings. As an American it is automatically assumed that you have a lot of money. But of course not all of San Jose is sketchy and most of the places we will be going are relatively safe (Although my host sister told me last night that Vargas Araya, where I live is a pretty rough area but so far all thats happen is Brendan got hit with an egg). All of this being said there is one sketchy spot in San Jose that we will all have to go to and that is around the Coca-Cola Bus Terminal where we must go to get tickets if we want to travel. This is the number one area of pickpocketing but the danger is mainly at night. We're pretty safe and smart kids though so after class on Friday we walked to find the bus station to get our tickets to Vargas Araya. The place was crawling with people and the area is definetly shady. We couldn't find the place to get tickets and we eventually decided to get a taxi and leave instead of walking back to the bus.

Tuesday morning I finally figured the shower out. I can either have hot water and no pressure or pressure and cold water, I go back and forth. Class that day was The Politics of Democracy and Development in Latin America (which is also going to be awesome) and Spanish. We had too take a placement test to determine what Spanish level class we will be in. I just wanted to tell them I didn't need to take the test, that they should just put me in the beginner level class. I did alright on the oral part of the exam but butchered the written section. That's all fine with me. We made plans to play futbol later that afternoon which is good because I needed some exercise but bad because I had played in years. Abby and I tried to get my host brother Alonzo (or Zo as I call him) to come with but we were late to the bus and he couldn't go because he had his Mormon Youth Group at 5:30. He's definetly coming next time. So that left me and Abby. We were all supposed to meet at La Iglesia de Curridebat but I made the dumb mistake of getting off the bus to early and we had to walk a good ways to the church. We got there a half hour late with no idea where the field was so we had to go to into the church to get directions. I am so lucky Abby was with me because she is a Spanish minor. She asked a man cleaning the church and got directions to a field and a history lesson on the church and the town from him as well. Eventually we made it to the park and found our group playing on the basketball court. It was gringos versus chicos. Two minutes into the game my body was telling me I was out of shape. But it was fun and my initial pain and shortness of breath went away. Although we lost we weren’t beat by much and I was impressed with our group since most of us don’t play soccer. It had been such a great day but when I got home I saw on the television that Heath Ledger had died. I was completely shocked. Heath was one of my favorite actors and one of the best current actors in Hollywood. His performance in Brokeback Mountain was excellent and I have a lot of respect for him for playing such a controversial and difficult role. I’ve been so excited for his performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight, the Batman Begins sequel that comes out this summer. His career was just taking off and he had the potential to become one of the greatest actors ever. I thought about stars that during my lifetime died under the age of 30 and he sticks out as the first famous talent I have seen die so young. For some reason, his death really shook me up and I can’t get it out of my head. Maybe it’s seeing someone die so young, I’m not completely sure. It's just such a tragedy. R.I.P.

I´ve been warned about being mugged by a transvestite with a knife

I´m writing this from an internet cafe because the internet in my house isn´t working. After I begin school next week, I will post more consistently. To catch up with my trip so far:

Tuesday was my birthday and I spent the day getting to know San Pêdro which is the area outside of San Jose where I am near. I technically live in the barrio of Vargas Araya and since they don´t have addresses in Costa Rica, my house is described as being one block down from Bar Acapulco, a very sketchy bar. My host mother is best friends with the host mother of Vicky (another Elon student) so they showed us around the town. It was a bit confusing at first, but the University is only a bus ride or short walk downhill. In the afternoon my host mother went to work and Vicky´s host mother took us to Parque Nacional Braullio Carillo, a huge rainforest in the mountains just north of San Jose where she had to take care of some business, from what we were able to understand, she is a agronomist. When we got up in the mountains, we were driving through a cloud and it was drizzling on us. Vicky and I were both ready to go into the rainforest, but for some reason, maybe because she wasn´t dressed for it or because it was drizzling her host mother didn´t take us in and all we got to see was the forest from the road and since it was so cloudy we really didn´t see anything. It was quite a disappointment but it was nice having another student around to talk to.
Back in San Pedro, host siblings went to their Mormon youth group and I just sort of sat around. At dinner my host family gave me a cake for my birthday which was really nice of them. I figured I´d just read or watch Alonzo play Resident Evil, but out of the blue Alex, another Elon student called the house and said she and Brendan (the other Elon student here) wanted to go out for my birthday to some jazz place. Vicky and I weren´t able to meet up with them but we eventually found them at a place called Jazz Cafe and it was great. It was jam night and so the stage was full of jazz musicians who didn´t know each other but were just jamming out together playing covers of Herbie Hancock and overall just improvisational jazz. The cafe was really cool and Vicky, Alex, and Brendan each bought me shots for my birthday which was nice. I tried Imperial, a Costa Rican beer which is huge down here, you see the sign all over and a Padrino, which was some cocktail with whiskey which was quite tasty. It was a great birthday. We all walked back and when Vicky tried to get into her place her key broke in the gate lock so we lifted her over the gate but then her door key broke in the door lock so she had to come back over and ended up spending the night with Alex. It was pretty funny.

All of the students in the two programs (17 of us total) met in front of the school to take a bus to La Catalina, a sort of resort in the mountains where we would have orientation. Other than the four of us from Elon, there are students from Villanova, Suffolk, one from Indiana, and several from George Washington. The afternoon was long and tiring going through orientation (hearing about being safe and learning about one group of students that was mugged by a transvestite with a knife) and playing icebreakers to get to know one another. The view from La Catalina was impressive and when orientation finally ended the girls took a Salsa class while the 6 of us guys opted out. That night was seriously the coolest time I´ve had in a long time, although there was nothing to do. We discovered a huge highway of thousands of ants carrying leaves probably 50 yards to their huge ant colony. I know it sounds lame cuz their ants but it was easily one of the coolest things I´ve ever seen. We followed their path, which began 20 feet up a tree. Some of the ants were bigger than the others and they would direct the smaller ants that carried the leaves. If an ant dropped their leaf a large ant would force them to turn around and get another one. The Queen ant must really be something to see. Watching the ants provided lots of conversation and we ended up talking about all sorts of crazy stuff. I seriously don´t think I´ve talked so much about politics in my life, but we were all pretty much on the same page. Basically all the people in the program are really cool.
The next morning we went to La Paz waterfalls and saw all sorts of crazy birds, butterflys monkeys, frogs and snakes. One extremely venomous snake is called the Bushmaster and its Costa Rican nickname is ox killer which is pretty sweet. A parrot landed on one of the girls and cleaned her hair before biting her in the cheek, we told her being bit by a parrot was pretty badass. Then we hiked into the rainforest and saw a series of five waterfalls, a couple of them were over a hundred feet high, it was really really cool. The waterfalls are a pretty big tourist attraction and the park has the coolest bathrooms I´ve ever been in. Anyways I´ll stop rambling about the cool scenery. Some people went out when we got back but I was so tired I went to bed at 7.
It´s really hot here and this morning we toured the school. I´m trying to find out about doing volunteer work sometime and apparently there are alots of opportunities. Everyone has been talking about all the places they want to go and at the top of my list is going some place to SCUBA with hammerheads, visiting Parque Nacional Corcovado which the National Geographic described as ¨the most biologically intense place on earth¨and is where I hope to see a jaguar. I really hope to get to the Carribean coast. The Carribean coast is much different than the rest of Costa Rica, it´s less developed than the Pacific and has a Afro-Costa Rican culture, composed of Jamiacans and creole speaking peoples. The spot I´m hoping to get to is Chaquita which is a where I can find a lot of Rastafarians and reggae. I just think it would be sick to sit on the beach around a campfire with a lot of Rastafarians and listen to reggae. Oh well, there´s so much I want to do and we´ll see if I get the chance to do it. I´ll put up some pictures when I get the chance/figure out how.
Tonight all 17 of us are planning to meet at some bar which should be crazy.
Anyways, I´m not all sure what else to say other than it´s been better than I could have imagined and I´m sure things will only get better.

Day 1

Since I have limited access to the internet until I start school on Monday, the date of these journals will not match with the date posted so I´ll post the date the journal is referring to at the top of the entry.

January 14, 2008 - Day 1 in Costa Rica

First off I´d like to apologize to Joe, I know I kinda copied your joeinargentina journal name with naming my journal Dan in Costa Rica, not very original, huh?. By the way I hope Mexico is excellent and Zach I know how much you love American football and have a hard time accepetingthe concept that there is another type of football, so I hope you´ll get to watch the Super Bowl in Italy.

This first entry is a bit lengthy and probably more boring than future entries since I´m just coming in and getting settled. I apologize for that, I tend to ramble. Future entries probably won´t be this lengthy.


The flight to San Jose only took about 4 hours and I passed the time doing a crossword puzzle and reading a very interesting National Geographic article on North Dakota and Obama´s book.
As we began our descent into San Jose I wasn´t feeling nervous for some reason. Immigration, the baggage claim and customs was a walk in the park and soon enough I was outside in the warm Costa Rican air. The person picking us up was a little late because of traffic so I practiced my pathetic Spanish turning down taxi drivers wanting to know my destination.
Our group assembled one by one outside the airport and we piled into a van to take us through San Jose to the university on the outskirts, in San Pedro. There were six of us in this particular group, two of us from Elon, one from Indiana University, two from George Washington, and one from Suffolk. We talked along the way finding out what we had in common discussing music and what to expect during these four months. We gave the Suffolk kid hell for being a Patriots fan. We talked about getting together and doing things like hiking and bungee jumping, but we honestly don´t know how much we´ll see of one another since there are two different programs and we´re living with host families.

A little bit about what I witnessed along the drive through San Jose. All Latin American nations suffer from primacy, (the exception being Brazil which suffers from dual primacy) where there is one large city that stands as the economic, political, education hub of the nation while the rest of the nation is undeveloped as a result of being cut off from these institutions. In Costa Rica primacy is not as bad because of tourist spots along the coast but it still exists and its effects were visible as we drove through San Jose, its capital and largest city with a greater metro population of 1.5 million. It wasn´t quite like driving through Port-au-Prince since there are stop lights and lots of advertising especially for familiar businesses like McDonald´s and KFC. The air smelled of cheap leaded fuel and traffic was a free for all. The impact of primacy was visible from the road, thousands of residences packed together along narrow streets with gates and surrounding walls topped with broken glass which works as a sort of home security system. The small houses expand up into the hills as San Jose is located in the Central Valley, surrounded by tall mountains. The resulting thermal inversion producing air pollution was clearly visible during the ride as I watched I massive cloud of smog hover along the hillside. As terrible an environment as this sounds this is exactly what I wanted to witness on my trip. Though I want to visit some tourist destinations and am especially excited to see the nations natural beauty I want most to experience the troubled developing sections of the country which aren´t as pretty and designed for tourists who want to experience the beauty of the country while ignoring the nation´s problems. Part of my program is focused on human development and it´s what I´m most interested in and it is my ultimate goal to do work in a developing nation.

The anxiety which had disappeared on the flight came back strong once we reached the university. During the ride I learned that my host family had never done this before so I was a bit nervous about what to expect. There outside of ULatina we met our host parents and went our different ways. My poor Spanish came out as soon as I met my host mother who greeted me with a hug and a smile. I would be living with her and her two children, Alonzo, 15 and Margarita, 17. Most host mothers friend had driven her and we loaded my bags into the car and she gave us a ride to my new home for the next four months. The car ride was short but rather awkward as I realized my host mother spoke not a word of English. She said a lot of things to me and while I tried to understand I couldn´t keep up and I found myself uttering ¨Si¨ and nodding my head repeatedly with a face which I´m sure read ¨I have no idea what you just said to me.¨ But although I struggled to understand her, I knew right away that she was going to be great, she was very patient and enthusiastic and smiled a lot.
Outside the house I met their small dog Tafi and went inside to find Alonzo on the couch killing zombies on his Game Cube. He mainly stayed glued to his video game but he knew bits and phrases of English, still I just continued nodding my head as she showed me around the house. My room is quite quaint but I like it just like that, I think the house is perfect for my stay here. The adaptor I brought for my laptop doesn´t work with their outlets so I´ll have to use it at the univeristy and use their computer here at home from which I´m currently typing.
Then Alvan, my host mother´s oldest son who is 24 and married with a one year old child stopped by to say hello and since he spoke English rather fluently, translate a bit. I looked at family photos and he and I had the greatest conversation about political and social matters and the U.S.´s role in the world because I was interested in hearing his perspective as a Costa Rican. He gave me great feedback and I learned a lot and found that we shared similar views especially in regard to the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Our discussion was my first bit of education in Costa Rica. He is extremely intelligent and raised my interest on issues that I had never considered. He worked for some state financial organization but it was recently bought by Bank of America so he´s currently searching for a job. He´s interested in computers and wants to go back to school and eventually become a web designer so he can offer cheaper services for American companies than American workers. I told him I thought that was a great idea because you can make a good buck in computers and with someone who has intelligence I have no doubt he will succeed at that.
Alvan had lived in Utah and done mission work with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (he´s knocked on a door or two he told me) and talked to me about what the prophet has said about the U.S. immigration issue and how his family became Mormon when the met missionaries in Costa Rica. I had no idea that I would end up with a family of Mormons (with the exception of my host mother, who is a Christian but rarely attends church) in a region so dominated by Catholicism. Anyways, I have much admiration for Alvan and I told him that I felt like his heart was in the right place and that he will make a great father. I said all of this in Spanish (not really).

Around 6:30 Margarita, the 17 year old daughter of the house returned from her first day at university. Her Spanish is about as strong as Alono´s so I have a way to go but it´s coming along nicely. It was great eating dinner (the food was delicious, my host mother is an excellent cook, she works as a sort of wedding coordinator by the way) and listening to the rapid never-pausing sibling banter, though I could not pick up a word of it. It was a really great experience for me as an only child eating with a family where there are siblings just bickering and bantering away with one another, it made me happy. After dinner Alvan left, and Margarita put on the 4th Harry Potter movie and Alonzo went to play a video game on the computer. Tomorrow I´m going to roam the streets and then my host family is taking me to the rainforest at Parque Nacional Braulio Carrilo, I´m pysched. It was a truly excellent first day in Costa Rica.