Living in Costa Rica

My First (Official) Cultural Exchange

cultural exchange shirt with signatures
| vivitronv

I was excited for the 1:30am wake up call.  It didn’t matter much since the anticipation was so great to begin with I knew I wasn’t going to sleep much anyways.  Today was day 1 of the Costa Rica – Wisconsin high school exchange.  18 hours from now we’d be in a snow frosted parking lot, temperatures in the teens, and students darting off the bus into their host families arms not only to greet them after months of emails and phone calls but to receive hats, gloves, and winter jackets, all scarce in the tropics.

For me this was a homecoming exchange in the fact that my alma mater and hometown was playing host to this exchange.  With them providing the families that would adopt the visiting students for the next two weeks and inviting them to school for a few days, the exchange had its firm foundation from which to work from.  Even my parents were delighted to be hosting their son and daughter in law for two weeks.  From there students could explore their surroundings and see all that snowy Wisconsin had to offer.  It didn’t take long for us to hit the ground running.

Just our second night we hosted a welcome event for the exchange families and community to come together and get to know the students.  Very few anticipated the number of interested community members that would turn out for this event and almost

IMG_2516
Big news for small town 🙂

no one expected the local newspaper to be there taking pictures and interviewing.  I was however very proud of the group as they showed no fear in making a small presentation about Costa Rica to the audience and even treated them to a mini salsa recital.

 

With cultural exchange activities and English language practice being our objectives we took in everything I’d been lacking since my childhood and then some.  Sledding and ice skating were at the top of our list but even activities such as ice fishing were prominent memories for the group.  And by group I include myself and a lot of the host parents/siblings as not all of us grew up ice fisherman. We pretended to stand on the ice and look knowledgeable during the demonstration to not lose face in front of the students.  Between these events, schools visits and family time the experience ended up turning into one of a lifetime.

I couldn’t help but notice the bonding going on between the local and visiting students.  Watching them explain how to skate or how to get maximum velocity on a sled was emblematic of the whole experience.  Every day the students would get together to share stories and funny experiences they had.  The amazement of the lack of rice and beans present in a Wisconsinites diet, the wonderment of how cows stay warm in the winter and how ice could form so strong that someone could walk on it, let alone drive a car on it were just some of the conversations had between students and their hosts.

Some people wondered why we chose to come in January.  Costa Ricans know what summer is all about but why not choose spring, or fall?  Well to begin with we were limited

IMG_2456
First time for everything!

due to the summer break in Costa Rica being Dec/Jan but to find the most diversity and biggest departure from the norm winter is what it has to be.  None of the Costa Ricans had seen snow before this trip and I don’t feel a bit of regret facilitating this experience.  Wisconsin does not have coffee plantations, volcanos, rainforests, or beaches that are within an hours drive of each other so we have to get creative with own nature and natural beauty.  Sure you’ll find a big enough cultural difference but the difference in climate is literally the icing on the cake of a winter exchange to Wisconsin.

 

I don’t believe the impact of this experience really set in until it was actually over.  We had gotten into this routine and we felt like it was never going to end.  But it did and the realization was almost instant.  When we boarded the bus to head back to the airport my

IMG_2536
Who could forget this?

phone began to explode with host parents and students expressing their gratitude and happiness with the experience.  As that was going on the Costa Rican parents were anxiously messaging us about travel plans and flight arrivals. 14 hours after bidding farewell to Wisconsin the students were back in the arms of overjoyed parents.

 

I think back now to the first meeting I had with parents in the fall and all their quizzical looks and even the parent who point blank asked me if I had children (I don’t).  Leaving that meeting casted some doubt on how I could ever convince a parent it was safe for them to send their child with me to a foreign country and to stay with a family they had never met before.  I could stand before them and give as much assurance as I could but until I have my own no one is really giving me the benefit of the doubt which is why host families make the exchanges so magical.

Whenever I talk to students and host families I can’t stress how important they are in the success of an exchange.  Months and years later a student doesn’t remember falling while ice skating or building a snowman but they do remember who they were with.  You might go on vacation or take an educational tour but there is no better way to learn about the place you are visiting than experiencing it with a local.  These bonds, created with the goal of learning one’s culture stay with us much longer than a week spent at an all inclusive resort where asking for a cerveza from the wait staff qualifies as culture.

With technological advances students and families can live the experience through each other, even if they are not actually on the exchange.  Every school we visited and every

IMG_2538
Hi mom, I’m on Wisconsin!

activity we did there was an opportunity to snap a photo and share it with all of the Costa Rican parents.  Watching a hockey game, participating in class, or even eating at food court, parents were able to see what we were up to and that was very reassuring for them.  Combining that with the pre-trip communication they had with their host family via email and video calls everyone felt confident with the trip and this was the backing I needed to convince parents my empty nest was not a cause for alarm.

 

At the end of the two week whirlwind trip I could have slept through four alarms having maxed out all the energy in my body.  As I write this now a month has gone by since the exchange ended and recalling all these fond memories provokes the same excitement all over again.  This inaugural exchange couldn’t have gone better and I’m hopeful to carry over these positive vibes to many more exchanges in the future.

Exploring (by chance) the Community Center

| vivitronv

When I first moved to San Ramon I was an explorer.  I went everywhere walking, running or by bus.  There was a lot to see and do and every neighborhood had its charm.  Nowadays I like to pretend I’ve seen it all which unfortunately means I have fewer experiences like these: 

One day during my first few weeks I lived in San Ramon, I was out jogging around when I made an innocent right turn and proceeded down a deep ravine road to see where my next adventure would take me.  Bystanders on the street gazed at me as I hustled along down the road, like a dog retrieving a stick, and a few of them yelled some words of encouragement.  Feeling more upbeat than a kid on the last day of school I picked up speed on the decent and nearly crashed head on into a big yellow wall just before regathering my footing.  What was with all the barbed wire around the top?  Was this a jail? The immensity of the site puzzled me as it stuck out raw in a neighborhood of residential makeshift homes.

I took note of it and continued my journey a few more blocks when I realized I wasn’t in the San Ramon I knew anymore.  Every house had barbed wire, walls and barking dogs.  Children were in the street, shirtless with no shoes, and old beater cars with souped up stereo systems were taking turns rattling their chassis across the street from one another with pounding reggaeton beats.  The subwoofers had to be worth more than the cars.

This was all fine and dandy except for the way they were looking at me.  It didn’t take too long but I realized I may have made a wrong turn back up the road, that maybe those kind words weren’t encouragement but rather words of warning.  I was alone, in a new neighborhood and I doubt I would have been able to walk past them and come out on the other side without incident.  I quickly faked a side ache and turned to head back up the hill, palms sweaty not knowing if I was being pursued but too scared to look back.  At that moment the big yellow jail doors began to open.  This is only going from bad to worse, I thought. 

Well there was no stopping for me and at the moment the doors opened I caught a glimpse of a playground as I sped by the entrance.  A playground?  Inmates don’t have playgrounds, what could this be?  In a split second I decided my options were better heading towards the playground then trying to outrun whoever might be pursuing me from down the hill.

I entered and saw that in addition to that playground there were soccer fields, basketball courts, reading P1040658rooms, computer rooms and classrooms.  The big barb wired yellow complex was just a cover for a safe haven for the children of the roughest neighborhood San Ramon has to offer. Founded in 2008 and run by a Christian ministry, this community center provides education and spiritual guidance for those in need.

Since then I have volunteered on and off at the center, mostly on playground duty without really poking my nose around too much.  I know that just my presence at the center is a big lift for the kids, even if I don’t always feel so special pushing kids on swings for hours or jumping rope.  Any hours you can keep the kids off the street are hours well spent no matter what you are doing.

That had been my role until I bumped in the center’s coordinator in the street last week and she invited me to come to an open house they were having for the community.  Even though I thought I knew what was happening at the center this would be a good opportunity to go for a visit.  It became clear to me that what you see as a volunteer is quite different from what you see as a parent of a child that uses the center.  This is not just a daycare for when children aren’t at school, this place requires work before you ccmake it to the jungle gym.

The center’s focus is reading and math so therefore everyday when children arrive they must first go to the reading room and read for a certain number of minutes depending on their grade in school.  Those who are too young to read are read to by volunteers.  After that they go to work on math.  It was very interesting to hear that learning the multiplication tables are what they work on the most.  Once they have completed that they are able to go to the playground or stay and work on other homework.  Students enrolled in the center are required to come at least 3 times a week to qualify for year end

parties and activities which is the best thing about their program.  Everything is earned whether a pair of shoes or a pencil eraser.  In a community as rough as this one with a lot of government subsidies it is important for children to earn their keep in order to break the cycle of poverty and value the things they’ve earned. 

It’s amazing how many things I think I know just from the surface but when taking the time and digging deeper there is actually a whole lot more going on then what meets the eye.  Makes me wonder if I should dust off the cross trainers and return to my old trailblazing routes.  I’ve probably missed some things along the way.

Taking the Costa Rican out of Costa Rica

| vivitronv

See you later San Ramon…..  Follow us the next two weeks as we take 11 Costa Rican students and 2 teachers on a cultural exchange trip to Wisconsin.  They’ll be visiting high schools and experiencing the best that Wisconsin winter has to offer.  Departing 80 degree Costa Rica at 5:30am and should see the snow by midday.  Should be interesting….

Small town social media politics

| vivitronv

It was late at night when the phone rang.  I didn’t bother answering it because it’s always for my wife and since I feel confident in my secretary Spanish I just let her get it.  This time though after about a minute of talking she turned and handed the phone to me.  In a look of astonishment I tried to read her face as to why I needed to get involved. 

Was it a telemarketer?  Somebody trying to prank us?  Or some lost tourist calling out of desperation?  I fumbled with the phone and slowly raised it to my ear.  “H-Hello” I said not even sure what language I should be speaking.  I received a poorly articulated, mumbled response that sounded much more like gibberish than Spanish or English.  After repeated attempts to establish who this person was and what they were asking me I was about to write this person off as a prank artist when their was a sudden change in the tone of the voice.

Gone was the soft, mumbled whisper now replaced by a deeper more polished tone.  “Dustin, what is the password to my Facebook account?”  Stymied I was still trying to piece together vital information.  First off, who is calling me and why at this time?  Is this person safe?  For all I know maybe he was being held for ransom by computer hackers… “It’s me. A, Ale-le-jo, ejo, Alejo..” Alejo?  I thought for a moment and that’s when it made sense.

A few days earlier I had received a call, during normal business hours, from my wife’s uncle about help setting up a Facebook page.  I was a little perplexed as it’s not everyday a middle aged banker starts a social media account.  There had been rumors circling the last month or so that he would be running in next February’s elections for mayor of San Ramon.  It wasn’t quite Joe Biden buzz but it was to the point where even I was getting asked in the street. Something had to be up.

Well, when he arrived later that afternoon he came sporting bumper stickers: Alejo Castro Mayor 2016, thus putting to rest the rumors that had been circling the last month.  As far as a social media announcement he had his heart set on Facebook.

I didn’t think he knew exactly what it was for or how to use it, but he knew that he needed it.  Like he read it in a campaign strategy book or something.  He probably also read somewhere that nothing is officially official until Facebook says so.

I mean this is the uncle that comes over on the weekends to hang out with his sister and brother in law, the one who invites us to go ride his horse.  This is the one who visited my parent’s house and was most amazed by how green the grass was and how beautiful it looked when it was all mowed and swept up.  This guy couldn’t be farther from social media than Pluto is from the Sun.          

Our first meeting couldn’t have been closer to the truth.  He sat in the living room with my in laws and yelled instructions to me while I sat at the kitchen table making the page.  Occasionally he would use my wife as a messenger when I couldn’t hear him over the roar of the TV or the dog barking for attention.  I felt like I was at my grandparent’s house where my Grandpa would yell at us from his armchair instead of getting up and walking over to see what we were doing.

I felt honored that he would trust me enough to make the page for him.  Maybe that was a sign that I’m now part of the family and it felt good. No one close to me has ever gotten involved political so much that they started a campaign and it was great knowing I had successfully made my contribution to the campaign, well, up until the phone call.  The following day I was working in my office when there was a knock on the door.  I went to the door and there was the banker.  Dressed in a suit and tie and flashing around his smart phone, he was really trying to act the part now.

“Chito (a Costa Rican word for boy) how do I get all my social media friends to ‘like’ my page?”  I was taken aback.  “Is that your smart phone?”  I asked, or was he borrowing it from someone?  After corralling his wavering arm I managed to take a look at his phone and it turns out it was indeed his and he even had the Facebook app installed.  However still no page likes.

In Costa Rica the term “pobrecito” (you poor thing) is used when people notice that you are not achieving what you want to achieve.  Usually right after they say that they will offer to help in some way.  I didn’t say it but I was definitively thinking it so I invited him in and we figured out how to get ‘likes’. 

Since then I haven’t been awaken in the middle of the night with any social media emergencies and I’ve also seen that he’s been adding content to his page.  I’m not convinced I taught an old dog a new trick but I think I’ve bought myself some time until the next campaign event.  I just hope he doesn’t ask me to open a Twitter feed for him, then I’ll be the pobrecito. 

Alejo Castro 2016

If I had a penny every time this happened.

| vivitronv

This blows my mind how the yellow line has no significance at all in Costa Rica.  Why even bother?  It follows the same guidelines in North America yet no one ever gets a ticket, much less towed.  Think how much revenue the town could generate if they just enforced the yellow line?  On the bright side I love being able to park wherever I want…

A Sacred Pilgrimage or a Walk of Shame?

| vivitronv

As my wife tugged my shoulder, she urged me on impatiently.

“Come on, come on just a little bit further!!” she said. “My uncle was at this bar last night, and he said there were a bunch of fights, so I want to see what it’s like today.”

I quickened my pace but not my expectations.  I’ve been to enough festivals and block parties to know I’m probably not entering a battle zone, but then again it’s not every day there is this much excitement in San Ramon.

We sped up the sidewalk toward the bar. There was music blaring in the parking lot and a DJ reminding patrons they could only consume alcohol if they were under the tent surrounded by police officers.  We figured we might see some blood on the wall or teeth on the floor and even though it was a Sunday morning, maybe another throw down.

However this wasn’t like a heavy metal concert, or even the beer tent at my local hometown days festival back in the US.  This was part of the annual Lady of Los Angeles pilgrimage, a Catholic tradition that involves people walking to the basilica from all over Costa Rica to pray to the Lady of Los Angeles and ask for help and guidance.

The street party was completely unaffiliated with the tradition, of course, but it was obviously taking advantage of it. And it wasn’t unusual.  The condensed version of the Lady of Los Angeles story goes like this: A young girl found a small statue of the Lady of Los Angeles in the forest and took it home with her but couldn’t find it the next day. She returned to where she had found it and it was there again. That happened over and over.  As a result, the town decided to build a basilica at the site, and every year people make the pilgrimage from all parts of Costa Rica to ask her for forgiveness and help with their lives. They walk for days, some barefoot, and some even on their hands and knees.

In theory, this should be a beautiful, sacred event. They close the main street for miles leading up to the basilica, and even if you are not religious, you are welcome to walk along with the crowd. Many people choose to go with friends as a fun way to spend the day.  Some use it as an excuse to get in some exercise, and others, well, use it as an excuse to get drunk and fight.

I was really baffled seeing people walking around with plastic cups with what I thought had to have been ginger ale. It was a hot day, so soft drinks would make sense. But it began to dawn on me that there was a little more going than casual ginger ale drinking.

You didn’t have to look far from the basilica to see signs advertising beer. There are only two bars in the small town and it seemed like they needed to make all their sales for the year on this weekend.  Panning down to the street, I started to notice people pulling up in the back of pick up trucks in cowboy boots and hats as if there were a parade. Here there were people who have walked miles, maybe for days and others were acting like it was a tailgate party.  Nowhere would I have imagined a scene of this kind.

The Catholic church has events year round in San Ramon, and they are always family-friendly. They have a parade of saints where they march each of the surrounding town’s saints around the downtown area. They have Holy week processions. They even have a big two-week “hometown days” type event where they have concerts and carnival games.

At none of those events have I seen consumption of alcohol. So I was puzzled and beleaguered at the amount of alcohol at this event.  I can see people walking along with friends just for fun, but the amount of alcohol was overwhelming. I saw groups of teenagers walking down the street with bottles of liquor in paper bags. There was a first-aid station set up for the pilgrims but if I had to guess they probably attended more drunk than sober people.

Maybe this was too big of a culture shock for me. This was my first time participating, and despite everything that was going on the pilgrims didn’t seem to mind. Or maybe the ones who feel disgusted just don’t even go anymore. We visited some friends who lived down the street from the basilica, and they didn’t even seem to notice the event was going on.

I didn’t come across any evidence of violence and didn’t stay long enough to see if the fighting resumed, but I saw enough to know that a fair number of “participants” are hurting the image of this  sacred pilgrimage.  I know God works in mysterious ways but even He should have been upset. I was half expecting He would send a lighting bolt to fry the DJ’s sound system.  That would have sent a message.

University of Minnesota – San Ramon, Costa Rica Capstone course

student group with flag
| vivitronv

This January the University of Minnesota will bring a group of students to town to create a project proposal for an organization in need.  Coordinating with Costa Rica Frika they have been able to work with women’s centers and orphanages in the past and this winter they look to tackle proposals from yet another orphanage, a nursing home, and a parks and rec project with the University of Costa Rica.  Check out their project site for this year and their video from last year.

2015 Course review

Tiptoeing through the trap of a tourist mecca….

| vivitronv

We all have a fairy-tale fantasy of vacationing on an exotic beach.

Sipping juice from coconuts with the cute little cocktail straws as we watch the waves wash over the white sands. Relaxing in the harmony of finally getting away from it all.

That is until your paradise is interrupted by a scream. And then another, and another.

I was living that fairy-tale fantasy, and while the screams fortunately were neither a shark attack nor a coming tsunami, it was just the start of a strange day in which I got a firsthand look at a bad combination of nature and tourism.

After the first few screams, I could see tree branches waving wildly back and forth despite the otherwise calmness of the day, so I decided to check it out. And I wasn’t alone. By the time I got to where the commotion was, the whole beach had congregated in the area to watch the show.

A group of monkeys had climbed down from the trees and had stolen a backpack from one of the tourists on the beach. They were up in the trees going through everything. Watches, cell phones, books and panties all fell from the tree as the monkeys carefully examined everything, eventually discarding anything that wasn’t edible.

For a first-time visitor to Manuel Antonio National Park, this was quite entertaining. However, this ended up going on all day – screams coming from up and down the beach, large gatherings, followed by photos and laughter. It was like we were in the middle of a circus run by monkeys.

By the end of the day nobody could leave anything unattended on the beach.

It might sound fun, but it is having a damaging effect on the beach’s monkeys. Monkeys are not accustomed to chips and crackers, and they have lost all fear of humans, making them aggressive and unpredictable at times.

It’s a delicate situation, as this national park depends on the revenue from the visitors to protect not only this park, but other less visited parks in Costa Rica. As a result, it has catered to the tourists by building changing rooms and providing picnic tables for people to have lunch. And that has led to the animals becoming accustomed to a different diet, one that is harming their health.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s great tourists can come and see animals in the wild, but it’s too bad money-making opportunities are preventing better measures from being taken to not damage that very same environment.

With the massive tourism to the 5.5-acre park – about 150,000 visitors a year – money talks in the beach towns around it, as well. The day before our visit to the park (which charges $3 for Costa Ricans but $16 for foreigners), my wife and I had gotten an exhausting introduction to that, starting with a Spanish man pleading desperately with us.

“Just give me one opportunity, one opportunity! Come on man, one opportunity!” he said, hands up in the air.

Trying to get the two of us into his restaurant for dinner, he had eyed me up pretty quickly and had the sales pitch prepared.

He began to speak to us in English, highlighting that his restaurant was the only one in town that included all taxes in their prices. Then, after showing us the menu, he began to make remarks in Spanish to my wife – who he apparently thought was my tour guide or escort – suggesting that if she got me to eat there, he would give her a free drink.

His patience quickly grew thin, though, and he yanked the menu out of my hands to give to a bigger group of tourists walking down the street.

Unfortunately, this became the theme of the weekend. Everyone we talked to was working for some kind of commission and was ready to tell us anything to get us to buy at exorbitant prices. Even when checking into the hotel, they had to walk us through their tour packages before they would give us our keys to our room.

It was hard to even walk down the beach without being hassled. If I looked too long at a surfboard, they’d come after me. If we stopped under a beach umbrella to fix a sandal, we were frowned upon. Even sitting underneath a tree, beach chairs were placed strategically to tempt people to take a load off and start the meter.

The only conversation we had with a local that didn’t end in a sales pitch was with one who happened to be from the same town as my wife. Had that not been the case, I’m sure he would have been all over us to rent a beach chair.

As we departed the park area to head back to San Ramon we passed by many luxury hotels, condos, and restaurants, all touting the beauty of being one of the most beautiful beaches and national parks in the world.

I’m not going to say I didn’t enjoy my weekend – despite all the less desirable aspects of a tourism buildup the park is still quite beautiful. However, I think will take my coco juice and sippy straws on to the next beach, where hopefully, I’ll feel like an outside observer instead of the center of attention.

I don’t think this is the right beach for me…