Leaving. It's bittersweet, I tell you.
And ironic. Ridiculous. I am crazy, I now know it.
A year ago I would have died to be off to Argentina in two days, would have given it all up, all the bull and bureaucracy and small-town gossip. But today it's just bittersweet...everything is so good right now. You could say I've found that peace with Costa Rica and my life here, the very peace that I have been looking to find for two years.
Though perhaps it simply means I am becoming a little bit more stable. A little more knowledgeable of what I want in life. And that feels good.
So, that said, I'm off - with open arms, an open heart, and a major desire to explore, but also with a big peace of that open heart still here in Pura Vida land.
domingo, 27 de septiembre de 2009
sábado, 12 de septiembre de 2009
San José = Mixed Bag
Throughout service, the many times I have come into San José have always been monumental in one way or another; either I come in for some type of training that would improve my abilities as a PCV or to visit "old" friends and "family" from my training days, or to well, leave the country by means of the airport. Certainly monumental, especially since I've only left two times.
What always strikes me, however, is how the citizens of San José are so...tough, angry, unmoved in comparison to the rural areas. Arrival to San José hardly provides the aura or flavor of what my little town of Bahía does.
You can therefore imagine my embarrassment when I act as my normal self and try to "befriend" a coffeeshop worker or clerk. No one cares. No one cares that you can speak Spanish pretty darn well, nor that you have spent two years integrating into their community, nor that maybe you understand a little bit more of the culture than the next gringo. No, even if it's quite obvious, I end up just being treated like the next "gringo".
Interesting. At first - a year ago or so - it used to bug me. Really bug me, and I felt pretty self-righteous about it ("hey! I'm here 'helping' YOU", I thought, which is ridiculous because of course neither did that person know that fact nor was I actually helping him/her directly). But as I've realized through my experience with the Peace Corps and in Life (Capital "L", mind you, this is important) things are just the way they are. Trying to fight them just makes you bitter and tired.
Today, therefore, was different than all the other times. I'll set the scene: here I am, floor two of a newish coffee shop called MusCafé on Central Ave (hardly the Central Ave you are seeing in your head, sorry for painting the wrong picture - but it is quite vibrant and beautiful and busy, all the same). And of course, true to my espresso-lover nature, I am drinking a cappuccino.
This cappuccino is the key to my story.
When I asked for it, though I've been here many times, the woman behind the counter asked for the first time whether I wanted a big or small cappuccino! Caught up in the emotions of "holy s*@$ I had no idea there was a BIG one" I mechanically ordered a small, although I was realizing meanwhile that what I really wanted was a BIG cappuccino (lots of document writing and running around at Peace Corps has made me extremely mentally exhausted)...but...it was too late. By the time I'd made my brain send the words "oops, no, mejor grande" to change the order to a BIG one, the woman had the cash register already opened. Transaction processed.
"Oh well", I thought, and told her so. But her supervisor (or someone in charge, he was a very big man standing next to her counting money) didn't think it was so funny and he gave me a look that sadly, though I cannot read minds, have been subjected to before and mostly here in San José: "stupid gringa," he thought, "always want exactly what they want and abuse the system to get it." I could see it in his eyes. After 2+ years I can tell what eyes mean to say - there is a difference between being hit on because you're gringa and between being thought stupid or a prissy want-it-all because you're gringa.
I felt like the prissy want-it-all. Though of course, I am not, had not intentionally been in this situation and never want to be. So naturally I was able - within ten seconds - to convince myself I'm not of that "sort" of person and didn't feel at all bad about the situation. But I quickly realized it was not the same for him, as he continued to glare at me. I wished I could tell him the same, and I still do, even now as he steals disappointed glances up in my direction every once in a while.
No, maybe I'll go and and flirt with him on my way out. That'll change his mind.
KIDDING. That is abuse of the system. He'll just have to realize it on his own.
Consequently, although I am certain this manager-dude is not changing his mind anytime soon, this experience, along with the thousands of others I've had here, served to provide further inspiration for my exuberant and somewhat crazy life goal of bringing cultures together and providing a better understanding of people world-wide. Further fire = more motivation = Life is Good.
What always strikes me, however, is how the citizens of San José are so...tough, angry, unmoved in comparison to the rural areas. Arrival to San José hardly provides the aura or flavor of what my little town of Bahía does.
You can therefore imagine my embarrassment when I act as my normal self and try to "befriend" a coffeeshop worker or clerk. No one cares. No one cares that you can speak Spanish pretty darn well, nor that you have spent two years integrating into their community, nor that maybe you understand a little bit more of the culture than the next gringo. No, even if it's quite obvious, I end up just being treated like the next "gringo".
Interesting. At first - a year ago or so - it used to bug me. Really bug me, and I felt pretty self-righteous about it ("hey! I'm here 'helping' YOU", I thought, which is ridiculous because of course neither did that person know that fact nor was I actually helping him/her directly). But as I've realized through my experience with the Peace Corps and in Life (Capital "L", mind you, this is important) things are just the way they are. Trying to fight them just makes you bitter and tired.
Today, therefore, was different than all the other times. I'll set the scene: here I am, floor two of a newish coffee shop called MusCafé on Central Ave (hardly the Central Ave you are seeing in your head, sorry for painting the wrong picture - but it is quite vibrant and beautiful and busy, all the same). And of course, true to my espresso-lover nature, I am drinking a cappuccino.
This cappuccino is the key to my story.
When I asked for it, though I've been here many times, the woman behind the counter asked for the first time whether I wanted a big or small cappuccino! Caught up in the emotions of "holy s*@$ I had no idea there was a BIG one" I mechanically ordered a small, although I was realizing meanwhile that what I really wanted was a BIG cappuccino (lots of document writing and running around at Peace Corps has made me extremely mentally exhausted)...but...it was too late. By the time I'd made my brain send the words "oops, no, mejor grande" to change the order to a BIG one, the woman had the cash register already opened. Transaction processed.
"Oh well", I thought, and told her so. But her supervisor (or someone in charge, he was a very big man standing next to her counting money) didn't think it was so funny and he gave me a look that sadly, though I cannot read minds, have been subjected to before and mostly here in San José: "stupid gringa," he thought, "always want exactly what they want and abuse the system to get it." I could see it in his eyes. After 2+ years I can tell what eyes mean to say - there is a difference between being hit on because you're gringa and between being thought stupid or a prissy want-it-all because you're gringa.
I felt like the prissy want-it-all. Though of course, I am not, had not intentionally been in this situation and never want to be. So naturally I was able - within ten seconds - to convince myself I'm not of that "sort" of person and didn't feel at all bad about the situation. But I quickly realized it was not the same for him, as he continued to glare at me. I wished I could tell him the same, and I still do, even now as he steals disappointed glances up in my direction every once in a while.
No, maybe I'll go and and flirt with him on my way out. That'll change his mind.
KIDDING. That is abuse of the system. He'll just have to realize it on his own.
Consequently, although I am certain this manager-dude is not changing his mind anytime soon, this experience, along with the thousands of others I've had here, served to provide further inspiration for my exuberant and somewhat crazy life goal of bringing cultures together and providing a better understanding of people world-wide. Further fire = more motivation = Life is Good.
viernes, 11 de septiembre de 2009
I'm done. Oh my....
I've just finished Peace Corps! Officially, date-wise, no...but here in the San José office, yes.
I finished all the paperwork and signing up for insurance and writing documents about my service and saying my goodbyes to the wonderful Peace Corps staff that have supported me for two plus years, etc. etc. etc.
And wouldn't you know that I've just received the best line/piece of advice I've yet to receive in two years that perfectly summed up my Peace Corps experience and brought a mixture of tears and hysterical laughing to my already elated emotions? :
"You should have been a CYF volunteer" yelled to me from Dan Baker, the program manager for our CYF (Children, Youth and Families) program who's work (by nature, and not by bending the rules as I have done in my CED - Community Economic Development - program) with children.
I knew it the very first day of Peace Corps, when Delia (the wonderful, eccentric, red-haired cultural director of PC who I fell in love with at first sight) took one look at me (with red hair and nose ring and eccentric outgoing bubbly personality) and said:
"You are a CYF volunteer, not a CED volunteer...you should change programs right now so you can work with kids."
Obviously I could not change programs and have therefore I always took that statement as a kind of joke until today.
However, after finishing my service and removing myself a bit, I now realize that yes, of course working with children is much more up my alley than working with local businesses and accounting. That yes, maybe I was in the "wrong" program, but I also realize that I have done the best with what I was given. Luckily, Peace Corps was flexible and wonderful enough to let me work with kids and do what I thought best for my community. And luckily I was also mature enough to figure out what works best for me. Life comes full circle.
Now that is making the best out of what you've got.
I finished all the paperwork and signing up for insurance and writing documents about my service and saying my goodbyes to the wonderful Peace Corps staff that have supported me for two plus years, etc. etc. etc.
And wouldn't you know that I've just received the best line/piece of advice I've yet to receive in two years that perfectly summed up my Peace Corps experience and brought a mixture of tears and hysterical laughing to my already elated emotions? :
"You should have been a CYF volunteer" yelled to me from Dan Baker, the program manager for our CYF (Children, Youth and Families) program who's work (by nature, and not by bending the rules as I have done in my CED - Community Economic Development - program) with children.
I knew it the very first day of Peace Corps, when Delia (the wonderful, eccentric, red-haired cultural director of PC who I fell in love with at first sight) took one look at me (with red hair and nose ring and eccentric outgoing bubbly personality) and said:
"You are a CYF volunteer, not a CED volunteer...you should change programs right now so you can work with kids."
Obviously I could not change programs and have therefore I always took that statement as a kind of joke until today.
However, after finishing my service and removing myself a bit, I now realize that yes, of course working with children is much more up my alley than working with local businesses and accounting. That yes, maybe I was in the "wrong" program, but I also realize that I have done the best with what I was given. Luckily, Peace Corps was flexible and wonderful enough to let me work with kids and do what I thought best for my community. And luckily I was also mature enough to figure out what works best for me. Life comes full circle.
Now that is making the best out of what you've got.
miércoles, 9 de septiembre de 2009
Floating.
5 days left. Counting, yes.
Perhaps it's those five long - or short, however you'd like to view it - days, or the fact that I never thought two years would go by so fast - or slow, however you'd like to see it - or the mixed fear and excitement about the pending adventure coming my way, or the thought of not having close the people here I love and home I've made, or (sadly) even the mental effects of the books I am reading lately (I'm on the second of the Twilight series, and embarassingly obsessed and feel like I am leading Bella's life to a certain extent)...
...but for whatever reason, it's as if I can see my life from the outside these days. I am the observer, the curious audience member watching down on the play from way up in the stands. I don't feel as if it's all so personal as it was before; the emotions from the hard parts of the Peace Corps now feel numb, now in the distant past; it's now someone else who experienced them...
But what I can see? The woman I am today, what I have, what I have learned and where I want to go from here. Step by step.
And that's good enough. Pura Vida.
Perhaps it's those five long - or short, however you'd like to view it - days, or the fact that I never thought two years would go by so fast - or slow, however you'd like to see it - or the mixed fear and excitement about the pending adventure coming my way, or the thought of not having close the people here I love and home I've made, or (sadly) even the mental effects of the books I am reading lately (I'm on the second of the Twilight series, and embarassingly obsessed and feel like I am leading Bella's life to a certain extent)...
...but for whatever reason, it's as if I can see my life from the outside these days. I am the observer, the curious audience member watching down on the play from way up in the stands. I don't feel as if it's all so personal as it was before; the emotions from the hard parts of the Peace Corps now feel numb, now in the distant past; it's now someone else who experienced them...
But what I can see? The woman I am today, what I have, what I have learned and where I want to go from here. Step by step.
And that's good enough. Pura Vida.
jueves, 3 de septiembre de 2009
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Costa Rica Detour!
Check it out:
Costa Rica Detour. Coming soon!
http://detourcostarica.com/
http://www.more.com/4879/7262-the-day-of-the-peccaries/2
http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=adri&init=quick#/profile.php?id=100000209535674&ref=ts
My boyfriend's new (and almost open & running!) Information and Activity Center in Dominical.
Check it out, or come visit! He'll set anything up.
Costa Rica Detour. Coming soon!
http://detourcostarica.com/
http://www.more.com/4879/7262-the-day-of-the-peccaries/2
http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=adri&init=quick#/profile.php?id=100000209535674&ref=ts
My boyfriend's new (and almost open & running!) Information and Activity Center in Dominical.
Check it out, or come visit! He'll set anything up.
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