Well, I am finally in Costa Rica and settled in. Costa Rica is very different than America (more than just the language). In any case, has been a interesting journey... let me fill you in.
I got into San Jose Airport at about 10:00 pm on Tuesday night. I had been in and out of planes all day, from 12:30 am until I arrived in San Jose. However, I was so excited to be in a new country that I was not tired at all. After we arrived we went to a retreat/school place for the night. The next morning we started our orientation, and were given a little time to meet each-other and the professors/staff. The orientation was very informative about the city and culture. The staff is very concerned with our experience and the potential it has to change us for the better. For this reason, they did not tell us much about how to act and what to say when we meet our host families. To make things even more interesting, they told us that we were going to meet and go home with our host families in about 3 hours! They told us how to be polite and greet our families and the next time and place we were going to meet and that is about it. They deliberately kept us somewhat in the dark because they want us to experience the culture through trail and error. Naturally, I did not like this concept right off the bat. However, the staff reminded us that the families know that we are new to this culture and they expect us to make mistakes. Anyway, we met our families and went to their house (now my house). It was a lot bigger than I expected but it is not huge. They have just about all the same luxuries that we have in the states... hot water (but in some houses it doesn’t work very well or not at all... mine works fine), electricity, pluming, and internet (most houses don’t have internet but I got lucky). As for my family, they are great and very patient with me. My host mom is Cecilia. She mostly stays at home and cooks, cleans, and runs various errands. My host dad is Julian. He is a instructor at a school (it is kinda like a handyman institute) where he teaches wood/metal shop. However, he is not a Tico ( the word for a “Costa Rican”) but can speak spanish very well. He is was born in Hong Kong and moved to Costa Rica with his family when he was 7 years old. He uses his skills as a handyman a lot around the house. For example, he made the staircase and most of the tables and chairs in the house. He also did all the electrical work in the house. Currently, he is on vacation. He explained to me that in Costa Rica everyone gets a vacation every year... similar to the America. The longer you stay with your job the longer your vacation becomes and he has been an instructor at the school for 25-30 years (i think... it was hard for me to understand). Accordingly, he gets about 2-3 months off! I have 2 host sisters and 1 host brother. My host brother’s name is chuck and I don’t quite know how to say my host sisters name yet (both are chinese names). Chuck is 26 years old (Ticos usually live with their family for a long time... not just 21 years old and your out like in the states) and goes school for some sort of international business degree (If I understood correctly). The older sister is 30 years old and is married to a man named Luis. They have a house down the street and have a boy name Diego who is 2 years old. They younger sister is about 17 years old and wants to be a bilingual teacher for children. They are all very nice and patient because I am still learning Spanish. They don’t speak that fast but it is still hard for me to pick up on sometimes. However, I have learned quickly and now can understand what they say to me most of the time. But when they talk to each other it is still hard for me to understand because the usually talk at my level. I told them that I want to learn Spanish and experience everything I can. So, They are always testing me asking me, “What is this?,” or, “What do you call this?.” It really helps, but there are so many new words that it is going to take a while for me retain all of them.
Most of this week has been orientation and getting to know the program LASP (Latin American Studies Program). On friday we had the experience of going in to the city (San Jose) trying to navigate around to certain areas. Everyone here uses public transportation (either buses or taxis). So, in the morning our families dropped us off in San Jose so we could know how to use the bus and know how to get there. Oh one more thing, they don’t use addresses like we do in the states. Instead there address might be something like this... El Carmen (the city) near the supermarket with white walls, 75 meters north, the house with a green gate in front of it. Sometimes they have house numbers to, but not usually. Accordingly, to get to the city and my school I have to take the bus near my house, and take that bus until it stops in San Jose, walk 2-3 blocks and make a left at the auto store, walk past the national theater and make a left, and get on the bus near the big coca-cola sign, get off near the indoor club, walk down the street to the left of the indoor club and its the orange house at the end of the street. That is the directions they gave me for finding my school. However, this first week we had help from our families and professors so now I know where it is. Anyway, we explored the city and we had to do certain tasks to get familiar with the city. For example, we had to talk to people in the city’s plaza to find out what events take place. However, we did have some time to do some shopping which is good because I needed to buy some new shoes. I needed some new shoes because Cecilia told me that we were going to have some sort of catholic party (cerebrating the birth of Jesus) on Saturday at 7:00 pm which is great. However, my professors told me that this culture has rules about shoes. For example, nobody is ever barefoot in the house (if someone is they immediately get them some shoes) and they usually were dress shoes. Tennis shoes (or vans) are looked up as shoes for poorer people. However, Cecilia explained that its not a big deal because most of the younger people wear tennis shoes but older people usually never do. My professors also told me that if I were to wear my vans to a party then it would be culturally weird and almost offending. So I bought some shoes that are pretty nice and would cost about $80-$100. However in Costa Rica I paid 17,000 colones which is about $35 (10,000 colones = a little more than $20). So the party is tonight and I don’t really know what to expect. All I know that its going to be all family and around 50 people here... wish me luck!
Disclaimer - Some of this information about the culture and customs might change because I am still learning the language and I might have interpreted something wrong.
