As Our Second Week Comes to a Close

Friday, June 15, 2012 The weekend is here again! This means I abandon my role as student and pull on the tourist facade! But first, a bit about this week.  School has been going very well. In Spanish we've learned the majority of the grammar we're going to need (all past, present, future tenses in the imperative and indicative moods - no subjunctive, thank heavens!) and now we are practicing speaking for most of the class period every day. We do basic exercises, like defining our vocabulary words in Spanish, but we've also had real conversations about world affairs and the like. I really enjoy our classes. I find it much less difficult to compose sentences in Spanish than I did when I first got here. It always heartens me when I speak in Spanish and the listener gets my meaning immediately. I'm happy to say that has happened on many occasions today :) Wednesday night we went out to a little strip of bars that were absolutely packed with North Americans, and thus dubbed Gringa bars. They had cheap drinks, and I met many new and fun people! Karaoke at the end was the perfect end to the night. Thursday night the director of our Spanish classes invited us into her home for burgers, hotdogs, beer and more! We were initially put off at the price of $24 per person, but the food was absolutely delicious - I could have eaten the whole Pyrex of salsa/sour cream/jack cheese/guacamole/refried bean paste, and I probably actually did eat a LOT - and also the opportunity to interact with everyone in the program outside of the school context, including the instructors, was very nice. This Friday was another hospital visit! The two groups from last week switched hospitals, so today my group visited Grecia and El Hospital San Francisco. For a pubic hospital in Costa Rica, it was VERY nice! Their wards were spotless and their working equipment in very good repair. They also had a few recent pieces of equipment, like a 1-year-old Finnish mammography machine. It had a very open layout with wards as individual buildings with breezeways connecting the different buildings. Courtyards with greenery were everywhere and didn't give off the strict clinical feel that you get in Duke Hospital, for instance. And every staff member we interacted with was so nice. The doctor in the maternity ward was so excited to show us what he did and he different machines he used, encouraging us to take pictures of the 3-hour-old baby in the incubator (we didn't, haha. If I were the baby I wouldn't have appreciated it). We did basic maintenance on phototherapy lamps, an infant incubator, and assessed problems with a centrifuge and an anesthesia machine. Many thanks to Susana, our Seguridad Social engineer, for allowing us such a great day! From Grecia we went back to San Jose and caught the bus to Manuel Antonio, a small town close to the Pacific coast, where we'll spend he next two days. There are 12 of us tonight, and four or so more will join us tomorrow! There are apparently two things to do in Manuel Antonio: the beach and the nature trails through the national park, and I am excited for both! Those who visited last weekend told us about monkeys who run around the beaches; I can't wait to see them for myself! I've never seen them in he wild before (not that a touristy beach is particularly wild, just not in captivity).  Right now I'm on the bus. This is an actual coach bus with numbered seats and decent foot room. Given the disorganization of last week's bus ride, I assumed our "assigned seats" as written on our tickets were to be totally ignored. Apparently not. Though because we all bought tickets one after another, our group is all together, mostly. I sat down later than the others, and so whoever my seatmate was sat with someone else, leaving me to sit with a beefy local whose butt and biceps are currently encroaching on my present location as I type. It's a good thing I don't know who you are, true seatmate, or I'd pee on your bed tonight >-< Complaining complete. Time to sleep :) P.S. I found out who's really supposed to be in the seat next to me. You better watch your bed tonight >:)

Volcano Weekend and Speaking Spanish

Tuesday, June 12, 2012 We couldn't have had a better weekend. After getting off the bus in La Fortuna, we tooled around the little town and ate lunch, then took a van up to our lodge, a 30 minute drive from town on the opposite side of the volcano. It was pouring rain when we arrived, but our rooms weren't ready, so we decided to go for a short hike. That hike ended up including not only a waterfall, hanging bridge, and snakes jumping out at us, but also a 3 hour climb up the side of a neighboring mountain for an excellent view of a high altitude lake. I was so exhausted but so proud that we'd made it. I haven't had a workout like that in a long time.  After all that exertion we treated ourselves to a buffet dinner at a neighboring hotel and tried out the "hot springs." it was quite a bit more touristy and less natural than I was hoping for, but it was very relaxing and a great evening activity. Apparently one doesn't leave Arenal without having visited the hot springs. I've never been able to legally order anything from a bar before, but equally cool is that I've never been able to swim up to a bar mermaid style and order a drink from the bar! What a novelty! On Sunday morning we got up for the free morning tour and got a closer look at some of the things we'd seen the day before. Our guide explained about the birds we'd seen, Costa Rican Orioles, who build large hanging tube-like nests and have a most unique call. I finally was able to get a decent photo of the volcano! We spent most of the day traveling back to San Jose, and due to a lack of sleep I chose to go to bed at 9:00 :) A scary thing happened that day, though. Five of us went to the bathroom in Taco Bell on the way back to the house, and it was absolutely packed, very crowded for a Sunday night. Of boy of a group of three guys dropped a couple coins on the ground as Tracy passed, and naturally she bent down and picked it up. I was standing behind her and didn't see anything, but as she left she told us that the guy had tried to pickpocket her; she'd felt it. But she'd locked the pockets of her bag, so nothing was taken. But I was RIGHT behind her! I don't understand how I didn't see anything but the stupid up-to-no-good grins on their stupid faces. This has renewed my resolve to always lock the small pocket of my bookbag whenever I'm out. I had heard of that scam before, and I still can't believe I didn't recognize it when I saw it. Constant vigilance.  Yesterday was my day of preparation for my presentation on the Oxygen Concentrator; the assignment was to explain (in 100% Spanish, of course) the function and how to repair the chosen machine. After school the girls and I went to a fancy pastry cafe and completed our homework during the worst of rush hour and got home closer to 7, or about the same time had we left an hour earlier. I then stayed up half the night collecting nouns and verbs, writing a script, and practicing for the presentation. The presentation went well today, accordingly. There were awkward long pauses as I tried to remember what I was supposed to say, and I'm sure I made up quite a few words, but I was able to communicate to my teacher, who only speaks Spanish, about an oxygen concentrator, Nd we both consider that a success. Now I have the night free! I think I'll take the night off to use the Internet for he first time since Sunday.  Successfully completing the presentation has taught me a few things. To communicate effectively in a foreign language, I think it's helpful to build a small core vocabulary of action verbs, basic nouns, and a bit of syntax. If you've got that mastered you can describe other things you don't know the word for and learn more vocabulary naturally. And you can't be afraid to communicate. That's a bit of advice I wholeheartedly agree with from my Spanish phrase book. You must speak. You must accept that you won't know all the words you'll want to say, so you have to be flexible and form it with the words you know. And with your actions. Flory is masterful at communicating with body language and hand gestures. Without them I'm not sure anyone would understand me in Spanish :) Since I'm all done with stuff we may all go out :) Hasta luego!

First Hospital Visit and Soccer!

Saturday, June 9 2012 Friday was a great day! We had our first hospital visit. We split into two groups and half went to Turrialba (my group) and another half to San Ramon, I believe. After an hour and a half of travel through scenic backcountry Costa Rica we arrived in the municipality's largest hospital, which incidentally wasn't that big. We were given a tour and shown the general wards, OR, ER, laboratories, etc. it was so different from hospitals I've visited before in that it seemed just like a sprawling building, not particularly sterile or neat. I'm sure they manage just fine though.  We worked in the large workshop out back. They hauled out a few pieces of old equipment for us to take a look at, not necessarily fix, just examine for practice. They also had three suction pumps (aspirator machines) that each had something wrong with them for us to try to fix. Ron, our instructor, identified the problems with them in very short order, as he has a LOT of experience with the equipment. I'm sure I would have spent 3 times as long determining the function of internal components and even longer examining little details to find the problem(s). Hopefully we'll have many more opportunities to see and work with these machines before we're turned loose so we are as efficient and effective as possible. These Fridays are great practice. Incidentally, we only managed to completely repair one of the suction pumps; time gets to these components and there's only so much we can do. Later we went to the Costa Rica v. El Salvador soccer game! What an amazing experience! The stadium is absolutely enormous. Pablo, the government's engineer sent with us to our hospital, was telling us about how it was built. Apparently Costa Rica was on good terms with Taiwan and China didn't like that. They persuaded Costa Rica to break ties with them, and as a gift they built them a fancy new stadium. Flory told us they shipped over workers, too, and that they worked way more quickly than Costa Rican workers and had it completed very quickly. In any case, the stadium was gorgeous, a bit reminiscent of the "birdnest" stadium built for China's Olympics 4 years ago. I will upload pictures when I get back from this weekend.  More than the stadium it was the people who made it so amazing. Everyone wore a jersey, red or white.  As we approached the stadium we were accosted by countless vendors selling noisemakers, food, t-shirts and souvenirs. I couldn't help being reminded of going to the Quidditch World Cup in Harry Potter. Once we got inside and saw how huge the stadium really was the comparison was intensified - the sheer number of people. It was like being back in Cameron Indoor, but with a whole bunch of people who didn't speak the same language and had a whole set of traditions that I knew nothing about. Talk about contagious excitement! One of the chants they started out early was to the tune of ole, but they substituted in words and we couldn't make them out for the longest time, but I finally realized it was their nickname for their nationality: Ticos. They also had a few more lewd calls for when the ref made a poor call. Also these people are by far the best at doing the wave of any I have ever seen. We did 3 circuits, at least.  It's too bad the game ended in a tie. I'm still glad I went. We got back from the stadium at 12:30 this morning, and we caught our taxi to the bus station to go to Arenal at 5:00. Needless to say we are a bit exhausted, but I at last slept a bit before writing this. We have 2 more hours of travel. It's a coach bus, but I still can't really feel my butt anymore >-<. If the hotel has wifi when I get there I'll be able to post today rather than Monday! I'm excited :)

Ask me questions!

Today was an excellent day!  Spanish class went exceedingly well - we're all starting to get over our fear of speaking in class and we enjoyed the challenge of telling our teacher, in Spanish, the steps to make a cheeseburger.  I got a 100% on my previous homework and received a small wooden frog that doubles as a percussion instrument - you scrape the attached stick across the spikes on his back.  It looks very local and authentic and I treasure it greatly :)

After school today at least 12 of us decided to wait out the traffic and go to a bar down the street from the school.  It was so nice to be able to spend a decent amount of time relaxing and talking to our classmates outside of school without anything hanging over our heads!  I think we might do this every day :)

We've cemented plans to go to the Costa Rica vs. El Salvador soccer game this Friday after our hospital visit!  I'm not much for soccer, but I like new things and I like the people I'm going with, so I'm sure I'll have a good time regardless!  My guess is that some of you readers will find this much more exciting than I will :)

I just wanted to thank you all for taking the time to read my entries!  I'm kind of in my own little Costa Rica world here and I have a hard time remember what all I have told you all about and what I haven't gotten to yet.  Sometime in the next week I'll cover my homestay more completely and what I think of as "very Costa Rican things," but I'd love to get some questions from you readers!  I've heard that it can be difficult to post a comment to Blogger (believe me, I know how difficult Blogger can be.  Ever since I arrived in C.R. it has switched the site language to Spanish and I can't figure out how to switch it back...)  Anyway, if Blogger is difficult for you as well, please email me at:

It's 10:30 and I am done with my homework!  I think I will get an early night for once :)

Daily life :)

Tuesday, June 05, 2012

We seem to be settling into a comfortable school routine.  Each day we wake up at 6:30, a few of us shower, we get ready, eat breakfast, and make it to the bus stop by 7:15.  We’re at school by 7:45, and Spanish class begins at 8:15.  We have a 15 minute break at 10:00, and are finished at noon.  We use the hour break for lunch to run down the street to the local shop and buy lunch for $2-$4, and return and eat it while studying for the engineering quiz or playing cards.  Lecture lasts at most 2 hours, and can be a bit difficult to remain conscious toward the end, but Ron, the instructor, has a pretty good feel of when he’s lost people, and we switch to lab when that happens.  Today we made a makeshift LED flashlight!  It’s my favorite part of the day, which makes sense because I’m more competent at it than any other section :)  We end class whenever we finish the lab activities and go over the quiz, which is typically around 4:30.  We either hop on the bus or tool around for a bit, but no matter what when we board the bus we get stuck in rush hour traffic, which starts promptly at 5pm.  Today we spent an hour and a half getting home on what took us 30 minutes in the morning.  Once we get home we have dinner and hang out with the family a bit, then knock out our Spanish homework and get all our internet usage out of the way.  We’re exhausted and end up sleeping at 10:30 or 11. 

Yesterday Virginia and I stopped by KFC (which incidentally is MUCH nicer than any I’ve seen back home) to use their wifi.  I was able to have a short call home to my dad :) The call quality started out decent but deteriorated, and the ambient noise in the restaurant didn’t help much.  But it was nice to exchange even a few words!  Virginia uses a paid application through Skype and experienced much better call quality when we talked to friends back at Duke.  I might think about buying that, as it’s only $2-$3 per month.  Also we’re going to try just a regular Skype call home at a predetermined time to see if that works any better.  I have no idea when I’ll squeeze that in right now, but I’m sure I’ll make it happen.

We’re planning a group trip to Arenal this weekend!  We’ll be staying in a hotel for one night and get a guided hiking tour for $39.  We’ll still need to arrange bus tickets ($3-$4 each way), hotsprings, waterfall, and volcano visits, which shouldn’t be difficult once we’re there.  Visiting a volcano is one of the major things I wanted to do, and I can’t wait to hear about all the wildlife!

It is POURING RAIN right now!  It makes quite a bit of noise on our steel roof.  It’s quite soothing when going to sleep.  But I still need to shower and do my homework, so that’s not an option yet!  Perhaps if we have extra time we’ll play Bananagrams!

Sightseeing

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Last night we went to the Jazz club.  It featured a great classic rock cover band and I sang along with every song.  I hardly expected a taste of home in the form of Money for Nothing in Costa Rica, but I can appreciate it all the same.  The drink I had was excellent.  It was local, sugar cane liquor and lemon juice with maraschino cherries – I don’t remember what it was called.

Today we woke up late and ventured into downtown San Jose again.  I figured out a nifty way to attach my camera to my jeans, so I was not as afraid to have my camera out and use it today!  I first visited an ATM and withdrew money with surprisingly little effort.  (I have yet to see what kind of international transaction fee I incurred.) We spent most of the morning wandering aimlessly and taking in the sights.  We had lunch at a local sit-down place, Spoon.  The waiter was bad, but the food was pretty good.  I had a carne wrap.  Muy rico!

It started looking cloudy, so we headed to the museums.  We met up with at least 15 of the EWH participants and learned about Costa Rican currency systems, city planning, big cats like leopards and pumas, and pre-Columbian civilization.  It was a wonderful museum; their presentation was excellent.  I’ll be uploading pictures.

Arielle survived the surprise trip to Arenal in good style!  After catching a bus and finding a hostel, they were picked up by a tour group who gave them the best possible experience touring the volcano, visiting the hotsprings and museum, and swimming with a waterfall.  They even helped them get a bus back to San Jose.  If only I had been prepared for that trip I would have loved to have gone, but what we did was fun, too.

Sorry I haven’t been uploading very many pictures!  I have quite a few, but I haven’t found an easy way to upload them.  Blogger is a fan of freezing for extended periods of time when I upload a large photo to a post, then deleting the most recent additions to the post, and then failing to post altogether.  We’re coming straight back from school tomorrow so we can do laundry, and I will figure something out then, and perhaps post this post. 

I haven’t been able to post my posts when I write them.  The girls in the rooms with wifi are already asleep, so I have no access to wifi currently.  There is a small area that spans both rooms in which wifi is usable.  It is not strong enough for me to be able to place a voice call home.  There is one possible location that a call might be possible, but I haven’t tried it because for the past few days I haven’t been able to get my iPod to connect to any wifi, including the variety my laptop can create. 

Zip-lining!

Saturday, June 2, 2012, 5:30pm

Argh! I had the whole blog typed out, but with a few bad keystrokes I managed to delete the whole thing! I’m typing on the iPod and now I know that I should copy my work from time to time so as not to lose it all. 

Today was a group activity day! We woke up at 4:45 to get to school by 6:15 to take the chartered bus to Tierras Enamoradas (Lands in Love) Hotel and Resort, two hours west of San Jose.  There we did some extreme zip-lining! I wasn’t especially excited at first, since I’ve zip-lined quite a bit, but this place was great! Apart from the normal zip-lining through the tropical forest, a thrill any day, we did a Tarzan swing and a Superman flight!  Both are exactly what they sound like: a giant cable swing and a half-mile stomach-down flight over a gorgeous tropical forest.  The operators were excellent! They learned all of our names and spoke in Spanish if you could understand it.  They had great senses of humor :)  Ronnie noticed my thrill-loving nature early on and always took the opportunity to elicit a delighted scream: shaking the cable as I went in for a zip-line landing or giving an extra spin or drop on the Tarzan swing.

After lunch it rained (is anyone surprised at this point?) and we took a break and relaxed and chatted.  I then made good use of the foosball tables :)  I forgot how much I love that game.

A group of peopled decided to continue to Ardenal instead of returning to San Jose with the rest.  It makes sense taking advantage of how far we’ve already traveled, but it was very spontaneous and no one had an overnight bag packed.  Plus there’s a risk that they’ll not get back in time to get ready for class Monday.  A bunch more of us want to go there and spend more time, so I’m heading back to San Jose now!

I just figured out that you can undo typing by shaking the iPod.  Good to know, but unfortunate that it’s too late to retrieve my lost document.

Tonight we’re thinking of going out to the local bars for the first time! I’m legal here :) There are bars literally everywhere in San Jose, so we have many options, but we’re going to try out a jazz café about 10 minutes from the house.

I suppose I’ll have to get around to doing that Spanish homework sometime, too… I’m disappointed that there wasn’t more of an opportunity to speak Spanish in the past couple days, but I’m sure doing the homework and next week during class will make up for it.  Until then, I’m going to keep thinking about how I’d say things in Spanish, just for the practice.  I sure need it!