Pura Vida

Costa Rica! What a beautiful country, and what a lovely time I had with my family there. We saw lots of wild monkeys. We confirmed that the monkey call is to just simply hold a banana straight up in the air. They will come for it. The monkeys were the highlite of my trip. If you ask my mom, Michael, or Greta they may say ziplining. But for me, it was not such a pleasant experience. I don't know how you can mess up ziplining, but I did. The good news is I confirmed there is no possible way to die on ziplining if you do everything they tell you NOT to do. Anyway, doing turns on half the way down on the zipline and not being able to break when told so pretty much sums up my ziplining experience. Uf. I'm alive. I'll stick to the nature hikes next time, and meet y'all at the bottom.

I want to say thanks again for visiting my community. I hear alot of volunteers say that their families will never come visit them here. Maybe you all weren't up to explore the villages of a third world country, but you did it anyway for me. The people here will be talking about it foreverrrr. Thank you. When are they coming again?! They are asking. They did really enjoy seeing my family, and the people are still saying "esta joven, esta bonita su mama ." What about my brother and sister and law? "Oh, yeah. Them too" Miss you already. So in other news, I moved. Por fin! There comes a point when enough is enough. I probably should have moved before I got to this point. We all knew this. But yes, I moved about a month ago, and it's been great! I still go back and visit my host family almost everyday, and have a great relationship with them. I never feel alone, as there is always people passing by here. Even at night some ladies come and we will practice yoga or just talk. I'm slowly turning back into the person that I was once. My head is coming out of the clouds. I feel healthier. I actually want to be around people when I'm with them. I'm giving them the positive energy and attention that they deserve. Since I moved to a completely new area, I get to know different people. For the first time in 9 months I feel like an adult, and feel independence. I'm able to get my thoughts back as to what my purpose is here. I feel really comfortable with the relationships and my place here in this community. It surprises me just how much spanish I am able to understand. So far this experience has been huge self growth, and a learning experience for me. I'm ready to turn my focus on to the people in my community, and begin some projects that will fit their needs.

Don't let life pass you by.

This blog of photos is for Nora, Bill, and Ann- They remind me how this experience will go by so fast, as it is! Wow 7 months in already? And, also to take lots of photos, because everything will just start "feeling normal" They are right. Here are some pictures I took, that appear quite boring to me, but thought you all may enjoy. Thanks for the reminders!

Just some pictures from around the house: (Handwashing my clothes, pretending to bath, and of course a photo where all the shit goes down (literally))

My first hijo. Que lindo!

Just a quick blog to say, I got a puppy! What kind? Well, its more of a question of, what kind it isn't? But anyway, its cute and I love him! After going back and forth with alot of names, I finally decided on Rocky (all my host family agreed maybe because it was the only name they could pronounce) Rocky, because I wanted it to be a word in english that meant something to me. That something being the good old Rocky Mountains.

After picking off 100 fleas, and giving it a nice long bath, I was excited to cuddle with it in my hammock, and play. Of course everyone thinks I'm crazy and dirty for wanting to hold it. But I'm finding more and more people wanting to hold it (when there aren't alot of people around to see them) I'm finding members of my host family holding their dog alot more too, only to be yelled at shortly thereafter from their father. Whoops.

What an adventure getting these 3 chuchos (Rocky, Cookie, and Lazy) back to the community- The other 2 dogs are my friends. My friend Lorena, her son, and I (see photo below) walking 2 hours back to our community with the 3 chuchitos following close behind. Everytime we heard a car, yelling, "carro!" chasing after our 3 chuchos while they ran away from us. (This might be a 'you just had to be there' type of story, but we had fun!)

Rocky

Land of Dreams.

Everyone has got a dream, you know what I mean.
Everyone wants to see what they've never seen.
You know what I mean.
If you want me tonight, I'm yours.
For as long as I can be.
Everyone becomes invisible in the land of dreams.
- Langhorne Slim
(great song - you should download it)

For those who appreciate great music (or just any music in general- my standards for music have been lowered.), I would love to receive some! (hint, hint) It's great when it comes to hours upon hours of handwashing my clothes. Or when I'm sitting in my hammock, writing my blogs, watching the sunset through an array of beautiful green trees. Music is my sanity.

So I felt that song to be appropriate while writing this blog. So of course the people here believe the jibberish of the world coming to an end in May (due partly to the fact that they are extremely religious). I was having a talk with my Salvadorean friend in my community about one thing we want to do before we die. Her response was she wanted to go to the States to see her son's dad again (It's been 3 years). While talking about my dreams, which included "bicycling to Chile, a yoga retreat in India, and running with the animals in Africa" I realized, I'm living my dream. I remember my middle school/high school years always having an image of being in a developing country in Latin America and playing soccer with little kids. Yup, that pretty much sounds like my life right now. I did it!

Anyway, what have I been up to (outside of playing soccer casi todo los dias)? Well yours truly is getting started on some projects, poco a poco. I've been in the process of grant writing to get computers and huertos (vegetable gardens) for my school here, and later educate the youth the importance of eating healthy, and how to do their own gardens) The grants still include a 25% community contribution, so I've been coordinating with some of the staff and community members for ideas for fundraisers. Well it was more or less me throwing my suggestions out there, and them being like sure sounds good, lets try it. So in the next few weeks, I'm going to try to make shampoo de salvila (aloe) with some students and sell it. Luckily, I found a lady here that knows how to do this, so she told me she would help my first time (I hope she actually meant my second and third time too). I think we're also going to try to do a movie night, and charge dos cordas to enter, and sell popcorn and what not.

Wish me luck.

Que mas? Well, my host mom returned from the mental institution last night. She's been there for 3 weeks. She claims she is doing better, but we will see. Oh, and the house that I can move into is ready. But I do have to admit, the thought of living alone scares me a bit. We all know it is the better option to move out of my house. I think next month I'll give it a shot.

Off to San Salvador on Sunday to be Americanized for the day (eat wings, talk english, and watch the Super Bowl!)

Adios!

Why not?

I remember the months leading up to my big departure for El Salvador, people would ask me, "Why did you join the Peace Corps?". I replied with, "Well, why not?" Some liked my response, but I would mostly receive a look of, "I'm going to need a better answer than that." Of course, I can understand their need for a more intelligent answer. I mean, who would give up living in the city with the most options of restaurants west of the Mississippi to eating rice and beans 3 times a day all week long. Who would give up their 2009 Subaru Impreza to stand in the back of a pickup truck with 40 other people driving an hour to buy fruit and use a computer to feel somewhat connected to life back in the United States. Who would give up a house with carpet and animals you can actually touch to a house you don't dare walk on barefoot with animals you don't dare touch (unless its time to kill them for food)? Who would give up a bathroom indoors with a seat you can sit on, to having to squat over a hole in the ground 30 yards from your house? Who would give up nice comfortable couches for plastic chairs? Who would give up a room with a door and all the privacy and space you could ask for, to live in a room with no privacy and not much space, requiring you to still partially live out of your suitcase? What part of going to sleep watching spiders and other bugs crawling on your mosquito net and waking up to all the roosters in Calderitas sounds appealing to anyone? Why would anyone give up a washing machine to come to a place where you spend a morning hand washing your clothes from the past few days? Although I must say I have really learned to love this.

Anyway, after reading Bill Brysons book, "The Lost Continent" (gracias Audra!) it made me miss the states & mostly road trips; the freedom of the great open road, the beauty and diversity of the different landscapes. Of course, this got me thinking about some other stuff: the 4 seasons, and dare I say it; the 20 degree weather, that can be enjoyed best with fireplaces, hot tubs, and warm blankets. I miss the power the mountains have and how much happiness they brought me each time I skied, climbed, or biked through them. I miss that stuff. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss my country. I miss the endless options of activities to do. Here my options include hanging out with my "campo" friends, a 5 hour bus ride to see a good volunteer friend and then hang out with her "campo" friends, the beach, or to a club in the capital and spend a ton of money.
I would love to take a hot shower, without having to wear underwear due to lack of privacy. I would love to lie on a couch cuddled in blankets, watching "Scrubs", eating Oreo cookies and milk. I would love to be able to bike into town for some yummy Thai food, and a Blue Moon spending the evening dancing to live bluegrass music. I would love to be able to climb to the top of a mountain and enjoy the breathtaking views the Rockies have to offer. I would love to sit by a fireplace, watching the snowfall, sipping hot chocolate, and talking to friends about where we want to go skiing tomorrow.

As much as I would love to have that, I wouldn't give up this experience for it right now. I can have that in a couple years, AND for the rest of my life. WHY NOT have these experiences first? I will only appreciate that stuff so much more. I am happy here. I love this place. My "campo" friends actually asked me if I was this happy and smiled this much when I lived in the states. Then it got me thinking of whether I AM happier here, then when I lived in the states? I was not able to answer that question. It's a different kind of happiness. I am very happy here, but for a number of reasons much different to when I lived in the states. To begin, I'm happy that I learned Spanish and can speak in a different language. That's cool! I believe I can successfully complete my projects, and provide my community with new things. I'm learning a new culture & new things each week. My heart & mind are growing everyday (and I love feeling how much I changed already), but I think what brings me the most happiness here is seeing just how content everyone around me really is with what little they have. As I'm writing this blog, I'm looking at my family members surrounding their grandmother or mother in the hammock, talking, laughing, and enjoying the presence of each other. They have been there for the past 2 hours. The other little children from my family are having the time of their lives being creative with the items I threw in the trash the day before. (As a side note, my host sisters fight over who gets the last couple swallows of my milk when I'm done with my cereal each morning. A quote I enjoyed from Bill Bryon's book, "In America you are considered poor if you don't have a car with automatic windows or a refrigerator that makes your own ice cubes."

Anyway, the response I gave those people that wouldn't take "Why not" for an answer... " I want to simplify my life. I really want to live like a person in a developing country. I really want to feel and go through what they go through. I really want to see and understand that you don't need a lot of "stuff" to be happy."

I think it’s safe to say I found what I was looking for.

Yes, a blog on birds.

Could it be? Yes, I'm going to dedicate a section of my blog to the birds surrounding my house. I feel like a good chunk of my experience is constantly sensing these lovely (or err, tal vez, not so lovely animals) From the roosters as my official clock, to the occassional "oh no, i stepped in poo again", moments.
As I'm sitting here writting my blog, surrounded by a million animals, mostly birds, I felt it only to be appropriate to write a short blog on my bird ecounters these past week.

- My observation: The peerekos (small parrots) here are treated more like pets then dogs.
- I had my first rooster pooping on my head experience ( No need to explain more)
- And last but certainly not least, the two doves that manage to make it under my bed every single night no matter how much stuff I put there to block the entrance (even somehow managed to pass through the roll of medical tape I used to circle the bottom section of my bed off. The worst part isn't the poop that I slide on when I walk through my room. The worst part are the noises they make - a noise I can't even describe but I think I do a pretty darn good impression of. So my family decided after 4 months of me being here, that the chuchos (dogs) are out to get these birds and that they need to sleep inside. I almost didn't believe them until I saw the chuchos attempt to eat the duck one night. That explains that ducks missing foot.


On to some more exciting events - like my New Years Eve. It can be summed up with: Good friends, lots of fireworks, no ball dropping, Hugs at random moments throughout the night, more fireworks, more hugs, and FREE surf lessons. That pretty much sums up my New Years at the Playa Tunco! Of course the surfing part comes with a story, a brief one. I met a surf instructor and he gave me free surf lessons. My friends like to call him Tarzan because his hair looks mine when I wake up in the morning.
Anyway, the surfing is much more difficult then it looks. Needless to say, it wasn't much of a success, but it was still fun.

So all this week, there was a festival here. Let me recap the week in a nutshell: bicycle race, concert at the school, men climbing a post (5 men on top of each others shoulders) for money at the top, some thing with horses/the madrina/gifts, and dances! I was alittle iffy about drinking at the dances, but hey I can't lead my community in believing that I don't drink once in awhile, so what the hell I had a beer (or 3). The next morning I was ready to see what the community said about this. Some lady actually told me its bueno. "It's good for a stomach ache" were her exact words, minus the sarcasm.

I have never met anyone so depressed as my host mother and I hope I never do. All the life is sucked out out of this lady and there is literally nothing left but a body of a woman, a blank stare into space, and cries and moans at random times throughout the day. I might have mentioned this in a past blog, but its worth mentioning again since its such a a big part of my life here. There are times where she won't leave her bed for days , and also where I don't even see her eat for days. I don't know If i'll ever fully understand how she got to be this way, but I wish the day comes for her with the hope, life, energy, or whatever it is she may be looking for. My 4 sisters need a mother.

So I'm starting to have these delusions. For example, I thought my host sister was eating a chocolate chip cookie the one night before bed (mmm, where did she get that? what a great late night snack i thought!), but it was just a tortilla with burnt spots. The other day I thought I saw a truck driving through my community pulling a jet ski but they were just pulling sacks of frijoles.

Some other random moments: My 4 host sisters quickly leaving the room to watch an airplane flying overhead, followed by a "It's going to the USA" To them, only 2 countries exist in this world. Spending my sunday morning attempting to get 2 goats to make babies.

Oh El Salvador.