Pre Limón..

Tomorrow morning we are meeting for our core seminar to talk about Limón one last time before we go there for the weekend. This afternoon I gave a presentation over the food and music of Limón at my Spanish class place and the other 2 students did geography and language. In case you didn't know, Limón is a province on the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica and is home to a very large percentage of the minority population. Although there is only a 2% population of blacks in Costa Rica, 75% of people from Limón claim to at least, in part, be of Afro-Carribean blood. The food, as I learned for my presentation, uses a lot of coconut stuff and is very different style of the standard Latin American/Costa Rican dishes.

On Tuesday we had a core seminar over economics in which one of the LASP staff explained some of the major economic terms and kind of argued only from a socialist perspective (which is prevalent in Latin America) as opposed to a capitalist perspective. It was pretty interesting. In 2 weeks I have a group presentation in LASP over economics and we have to argue what economic system Jesus would support... I don't think we're going to argue from the perspective that the staff wants, but I think I prefer that..?

I guess this isn't really an exciting blog post so here is a picture of the little girl that I was playing 'rocks' with in the last blog post

Long time.. long post

This week went by pretty fast.. since I didn't post anything all week, this post is probably going to be gigantic.

Monday was cool.. I got to sleep in, had my language class, and then chilled.

On Tuesday we talked about women in the church/bible and had a lady speak to us defending a more 'feminist' perspective from within the Bible. I'm pretty used to this since I go to a Wesleyan school where people are pretty gung ho for women in ministry but I think there were some people that weren't as comfortable. She seemed to go a little bit far on the pendulum for my taste but I suppose when you only have an hour or so to try to change people's minds, you can't hold back.

On Wednesday I got to help lead a 'praise and worship' time with other students. We did a song in Spanish and I got to play guitar which I'm kind of deprived of while I'm here.. win win.

On Thursday our talk was on drugs. We had a younger Costa Rican guy come in and talk to use about the drug war in Latin America/Costa Rica and why eventually, all drugs should be legalized. I had to address drugs my freshman year of college so I already was on the same page as this guy in terms of thoughts towards legalization.. however, he had some interesting perspective on the "War on Drugs" and pretty much did a good job of showing how much of a sham and disaster it has been for all parties involved minus drug lords themselves maybe...

On Friday I got to sleep in again, had a test in the Spanish class which went decent, and then chilled hardcore.

On Saturday I stayed in bed for a while and attempted to have some personal spiritual time and thought. Later I met up with some students and we went downtown with the intent of probably going to the mall. While we were on our way to the mall I saw a dirty looking dude sifting through a trashcan in the middle of the avenue (a pedestrian road with shops/stores for like 12 blocks). As we were walking by I saw him pull out what looked like a mint chocolate chip drink, and without any hesitation, he sipped up the small amount that was left through the straw that was left inside. It was an incredibly small moment, and I'm sure that this happens all around the world and even in Indy, but for some reason it stuck with me and struck me as really sad. It was sad that he was hungry/thirsty enough that he felt the need to dig through trash, it was sad that people constantly throw out unfinished food/drink, and its sad that people like him do exist all over the world, and are often seen as subhuman. Sometimes I'm a real Debbie downer..

Anyway, we went to the mall and kinda walked around. They got some food and I got a mango/banana/strawberry smoothie that was super tasty and then we went back home. Not too eventful but better than staying in the house all day, right?

Today I woke up kinda early and met up with another student near LASP to wait for a van/bus to pick us up. I didn't really know what I had signed myself up for other than that we were going to a finca (farm) and there was going to be a pool.. and like 5 or 6 other friends were going to be there. After waiting kind of a while, a minibus shows up and we get on. I saw familiar faces at the back of the van (other students) surrounded by a lot of unfamiliar tico faces.. and instead of going to the back, I got told I could sit up front right behind the passenger seat but pretty much entirely disconnected from the other seats :p. We picked up some other ticos/ticas and after like 45 minutes (I didn't talk to anyone the whole time.. I'm such an extrovert) we got to a property. The property was up a hill in a neighborhood and nothing like a farm I'd imagine. There was a big open semi-outdoor picnic/meeting room where we put our stuff, a rectangle pool (not to be confused with circle ones) and on the property there were also a lot of coffee plants, I think? We threw the frisbee around and even tried some ultimate frisbee although we didn't have very much open area, played some UNO (for some reason, people here LOVE uno... hah!), and I played monkey in the middle with a soccer ball with some tico dudes for a while. After getting sweaty, I went to get into the pool. I jumped in and within 2 minutes I was sitting on the side because it wasn't heated at all and I wasn't about to continue inflicting that sort of torture on myself. At one point later in the day while a lot of people were playing uno and I was sitting outside next to some of the other students, I tried interacting with this little girl who was sitting a few feet away to my right. After I gave her a rock as gift and she pushed it to the ground and started giggling, it started a 30~ minute fun time session with rocks as the main toy. Worth noting: little kids are hard to understand, especially when they speak another language than English. So that was fun.

Oh, also, some of the men that were there had gotten some sugar cane for us and cut it into pieces for us to chew. I'd never done that before but it was actually pretty cool. You just kinda chew and suck on this wood textured stuff and you taste sugary goodness.

That's all I can think of for now. Thanks for reading. Next weekend we are going to the province of Limón. It's supposed to have really strong Carribean influences and a food they call "rice and beans" (they say the english words.. haha). I'm excited to go there.. and word on the street is that there are sloths in Limón as well so maybe I can make some new friends while I'm there.

Silver Lining

On Saturday a group of 15 of us met up at LASP, took a bus to San Jose, and walked to the bus stop place for San Jose to Playa Jaco. We got there a little bit too late so we had to get tickets for the Bus that was coming in like 30 or 40 minutes. The bus was pretty nice and I sat with the other Kyle in our group.. we both had our cheap blue sunglasses that we got for free in different places... coincidence? Probably..

The bus ride was like 2.5 hours and once we got there, we bought our tickets for the return at 4:45. We made our way to the beach which was about a 10~ minute walk, got sun screen on, and did beach stuff. Just to paint the picture, I'm pretty sure I was the only one in tennis shoes (I forgot my flip flops at the house) and I had jeans on over my bathing suit because I didn't break any khaki shorts and I wouldn't want to carry my wallet in athletic shorts since the pockets are all loosey goosey. As someone that really dislikes cold water, I can say with certainty that the water is an awesome temperature. Cold enough that I'm cooler by getting in the water, but warm enough that I wasn't ever shivering. We spent most of the time trying to like.. "body ride" the waves in? It was fun and I got a lot of salt water down my nose and throat and learned that I am bad at body surfing.

A group of like 4 went to get lunch so I grabbed my tennis shoes, towel, shirt, and wallet and caught up to them. We found a little restaurant and had some pretty good food. I got a banana milk shake.. too bad the glass was pretty small :(. On our way back to the beach, I took of my shirt and tennis shoes and then realized that I didn't have my wallet. I had just payed 5 minutes ago, so I quickly speed walked back the way I came. As I was walking I noticed a guy with a reflective vest, pony tail, and hat holding something that looked like it could be my wallet, I tried to see if he would make eye contact with me as I walked by towards the restaurant, but he didn't. I doubted it was in the restaurant and was pretty sure it dropped when I took off my shirt (since I didn't have pockets, I think I had my wallet wrapped in my towel). It wasn't at the restaurant and they seemed to genuinely have not seen it so I decided I was going to look for the pony tail guy. I was struggling to find him so I went up to a security guy and explained I'd lost my wallet.. as we were talking I saw pony tail guy walking towards us and we met up- it was pretty quickly obvious that he had found it and he told me in english that he gave it to the police (The area that I was at was kinda semi crowded and had a DJ table with music playing and a sea-side restaurant and stuff.. and there was a small police station too). A few moments later I heard the DJ guy looking for a Kyal Logan and I had my wallet handed to me. I looked in it and everything was there minus $20~ worth of Colones (Costa Rican currency). My debit and credit card, license, and insurance were all still there. That's my silver lining... if I had lost permanently lost my credit/debit, it would have been a huggeee pain to deal with.. canceling cards and not being able to withdraw money from ATMs.

ANYWAY.. we played in the ocean for a while more and then at like 4:25 we started getting ready to go back.. except we were missing 4 people that had left to go find a place to play beach volleyball while my group was eating... We decided that we would take their stuff to the bus station because we weren't about to wait on the beach any longer for them (the bus boards at 4:30). When we got to the bus place, I asked the guy who was taking the tickets how long we had.. he said 8 minutes. So we had 4 peoples things and had no way to contact them and we didnt know whether we should take their stuff on the bus with us or try to find some place to leave it or have someone stay behind or what! Well in the nick of time they showed up and we got on the bus and made it home safe. The end.

It was a good day, I didn't get burned, I didn't have my credit/debit cards stolen, and I got to swim in the ocean.

Oh yeah, and today (Sunday), I chilled at home and did some personal devo. time and then went to a Reza Del Nino (Prayer of the Child?) service at the Catholic church with my tica mama. I'm ready to go to a church that will have the lyrics somewhere for me to read because I just can not follow them by ear.

That's all for now.. peace

I got to sleep in today

Today was my first day to sleep in. We had an abnormally busy week where we had our Tuesday/Thursday class also on Monday and Wednesday... however today, we only had the language class.

This week has moved by pretty fast.. we talked about family roles mostly in our language classes and had some interesting speakers at the core seminar. On Tuesday we had a guest speaker (who normally wouldnt be here) talk to us about his time in Africa as a missionary that works with Wycliffe Bible Translators. He told us about the African community he lived with and helped to translate the Bible for and gave us a bit of a  view of tribal life. The community pretty much operated in a way where everyone did their job and shared with one another if there was need. It was cool to hear what he had to say about this village but I couldn't help feeling like it was a bit romanticized and wouldn't work at a large scale in this world.. he even admitted that it had its problems and that selfishness existed even in a society based on sharing with one another.

The Thursday speaker was an El Salvadorean who was born and lived in an El Salvador trash dump with his family for many years of his childhood. He explained how he was always hungry and would dig through trash in search of food.. food became such a huge theme in his life that much of his imagination revolved around food. He also explained that many of the people that lived around the trash dump and spent their time searching through the trash would also look for things that they could repair to sell. He loved (and still loves) drawing, painting, and writing.. after the civil war in El Salvador, his family was put on a government "hit list" for people that participated in protests so his family was forced to leave or face likely death. They came to Costa Rica and today this man works as a neighborhood guard (48 hours shifts) and spends his free time and even his guard shifts painting and writing poetry. All of the students got a chance to buy some of his stuff paintings which was cool. He has a pretty powerful story and carries with him a huge sense of humility.

Not much out of the ordinary has been going on other than that we had a Spanish test today which went pretty well I think? I never really know...

Tomorrow a group of us are going to try to take a bus to the Playa Jaco which would be the first time that I'll have seen the Pacific! We'll see if it works out but I'm pretty pumped to be on a beach...

I can say now that I kind of got lost

Hola

On Saturday I went to San Jose with 3 other LASP students (Spencer, Connor, and Jessica). We met up and took a bus there and spent a good amount of time walking around. Eventually we took a taxi to the mall at San Pedro where we walked around more. I've never been one that enjoys walking around the mall... in fact, I've probably done it less than 5 times in my life... the mall was a little more interesting than an American mall but my companions did spend a good 25 minutes in the book store looking at books. I wasn't really very into that but it wasn't THAT bad :p. Because of the way the busses work, we had to take a bus back to San Jose in order to get a bus back to our houses... so we did that... and Spencer, Jessica, and I just so happened to get on the wrong bus. The bus we wanted was Guadalupe de Carmen.. we got on Guadalupe de something else.. So we got to the end of the bus route, Spencer talked with the bus driver a bit and then we got on the bus that was waiting to go back the way we just came. Spencer also talked with this new bus driver and the driver waited for about 10 minutes before it seemed like he should start the route. As we were going back the way we came from, I was starting to get really anxious and just wanted to get off and take a taxi (which are more expensive, but travel all around). After standing up awkwardly to get off and the bus driver telling us to wait because we weren't where we needed to get off yet, we finally got off. Across the 2 lane road was the bus we were supposed to have taken (Guadalupe de Carmen), and despite the fact that we were now dead set on taking a taxi the rest of the way, the bus driver was trying to honk and get the other buss' attention. Super awkward as we just kind of shook our heads and went our way.. Not to mention EVERYONE on the bus starring at us as we walked away... such gringos :(...

We got in a taxi and gave him the address and he was able to find where we needed to go... so it all worked out.

On Sunday I went to Catholic mass with my mother and grandmother. They had a bulletin so I was actually able to understand a big chunk of what was being said (just listening is way more difficult). Afterwards I pretty much stayed home all day.. I kind of had a headache and homework to do so I didn't feel much for walking around or whatever options I had.

Today we went to LASP at the normal time (8:00) and had our Core Semester class (after this week it is just Tuesday/Thursday). We talked about colonialism and it's affects on Latin America- some of the required reading that we had over the weekend explained Christopher Columbus' true attitude and the genocide that he was responsible for. We also had a small group time to talk about how we are doing in a more intimate setting... it was good and I think I'll actually look forward to that time every week. Although normally it's on a different day I think?? Idk..

After LASP, we walked as a group to the Spanish Language place (called ICADS - Institude for Central American Development Studies) and got put into our language groups. My teacher is Gustavo (the only guy teaching there) and I have two other students with me (Maria and Jenna). It seems like ICADS is going to be an incredible help for my Spanish. We have a small project due on Friday where we have to give a presentation on our host family's family tree... should be pretty stress-free since I'll only presenting for my teacher and 2 classmates.

The walk there was pretty dang long (45~ minutes), especially in Costa Rican sun and 80 degree weather while wearing jeans... but who am I to complain- at least there isn't snow and brutal Marion Indiana winds biting at my entire self! Heh!!! On the way back, a group of about 12 of us tried to navigate our way back the way we came... we successfully made it back (somehow?) without getting lost at all and the weather was much cooler and the sun was not glaring down on us.. so it was pretty cool. I think the walk there and back every day will honestly be some awesome bonding time with whatever students I end up going there with.

I haven't eaten yet tonight, but I hear Alba preparing it right now. So far, the food has all been really great. Alba is an awesome cook and just yesterday she made some sort of "orange jam" (a marmalada I think) and I had it on my toast this morning- it was legitly really good. I've been eating any food that I've been given, even if I normally wouldn't (raw tomatoes especially..) and I think I'm going to start drinking the coffee black- hopefully in a few weeks I will be able to finally be weened away from needing sugar and creamer/milk in my coffee.

Well, I've successfully written a novel... if you have any particular questions feel free to ask! Thanks

El Primer Viernes

Today has been pretty cool. All of the students met in the morning at the LASP (Latin America Semester Program) headquarters where we will be having our Core Seminar every Tuesday and Thursday. The Core Seminar, as I understand it, is kind of a broad class that will be going over history and cultural things of Latin America and Costa Rica in particular. We mostly just had an orientation today where we went over some of what's to come during our first 6 weeks and some security stuff. After lunch, we played a pretty fun culture game where we split up into two groups and were given a list of rules for how our "culture" operates and some different cards that served as money. We were on separate floors of the building and had our little economy card trading thing going and then every 3 minutes we would have some people from our group go to visit the group downstairs that had entirely different rules, customs, and cards than us and they would send 3 from their group to us. The purpose of the visitors was to try to 'figure out' the rules of the culture and pretty much what was going on. The other group from mine that I got to visit had some rule that foreign guys aren't supposed to approach women, so when I went to visit and walked up to a group of girls, I was immediately told that I needed to leave by the head honcho guy. Afterwards we had some good discussions about how we classify other cultures as good or bad or better or worse... I felt like there really wasn't a conclusion reached other than that we should be cautious when making judgments and try our best to be flexible and understanding of things we don't understand.

After class I went to a small super market with Alba and Spencer (a student in my program that is now one of my neighbors) and got some 2 in 1 shampoo/conditioner and some soap. They didn't have any bodywash or shaving cream so I'm probably just going to be using a lot of bar soap....

I've got some homework that I'll need to do this weekend but honestly, my schedule is pretty much empty for the weekend aside from going to the Catholic church with Alba on Sunday.

Oh yeah. Every day for the next 6 weeks I will have my language class with 3 or 4 other students. It's about a 30-45 minute walk from the LASP headquarters where we have the core seminar or potentially an hour long bus ride because of the way the bus routes work... so I'll probably be walking there with a group every morning which might be fun or might be awful- not sure yet.

I got my suitcase as well today so that's cool.

Whelp, that's about all I can think of to say... I'll post as interesting things happen...

peace!

Día Dos

Hola familia y amigos...

There's so much I can talk about.. ahh...

I got to Costa Rica Tuesday night and my group was taken by 2 smallish busses to a retreat center where we were going to go to sleep. We unloaded the luggage bus 'fireman style' and headed to our rooms. Shortly after the bus left, I realized that one of my carry on bags (with some of my clothes, tooth brush, and stuff was left on the bus)... it's Thursday and I still haven't gotten the suitcase.. luckily a finger is a sufficient toothbrush alternative.

On Wednesday we woke up and had some orientation things before meeting our 'families'. We had an opportunity to raise a bunch of questions about the family interactions (What do we call them? What's appropriate/inapporpriate? etc.) and we were told, after asking the questions, that they aren't going to give us any of the answers. Partially because there are 30~ families and each one will be different and partially because they have a motto here about failure being an inevitable, good thing. Whatever... Toilet paper goes in the little trash can by the way guys...

My "family" is a mother and her 3 boys. The guys are 23, 25, and 28 years old- they are friendly but I don't see much of them. Alba is my tica madre (Costa Ricans are called ticos/ticas) and she is great. When we first met it was pretty uncomfortable for me but after being around each other and getting more used to her accent, we have been able to communicate pretty well. On Wednesday, after we met our families, we went to their homes for the rest of the day. When Alba and I got home, she invited me to run some errands. We stopped by a small pharmacy, a bakery, and then hung out at her mother's house (all within a block or so). Her mother is a small, very friendly gray haired lady with tons of energy. And by the way, ticos aren't all really short like other Latin American countries- Alba's sons are all around 6 feet tall and one might be taller than me. After time at my tica abuelas's house we went back home. Alba invited me to something that I couldn't quite understand at the time involving her family and Catholicism. When we got to her extended families house, there was a pretty good sized gathering sitting around- I was immediately given a seat and sat by someone that straight up reminded me of Joseph Gordon-Levitt but just with slightly darker skin! I talked with this Joseph esque guy for a little while since he was sitting next to me and he explained the Catholic tradition of praying to Mary in order for her to intercede on your behalf. They spent about 30 minutes standing up and then sitting down going through liturgical prayers to Mary with a few hymns thrown in.. I didn't understand much but I sat and stood as they did. Afterwards there was a mini smorgasbord and we went home... I went to bed shortly after.

One thing that I found awesome about the family gathering was that it was a group of extended family getting together to pray and, essentially, take part in each other's spiritual lives. This is something that doesn't seem very common in the states.. and despite me not converting to Catholicism, I have a very huge amount of respect for a family that will come together to pray and sing to God together, outside of church.

Here is a picture of me and Alba that I took a few minutes ago

This morning the students took busses with their family to the center of San Jose and did a sort of scavenger hunt. Also, we had individual language interviews that will place us into our different Spanish classes. It was all pretty relaxed and a good way to get us more familiar with public transportation. Before leaving San Jose, my small group was just chilling in the public park area where a couple small vendors on the side were selling little bags of corn. The corn was being sold to feed the hundreds of pigeons flying around everywhere... it was really interesting to me that the children and even adults don't seem to see pigeons as dirty pests but instead, children were chasing them around and feeding them, and some Jesus-looking guy, barefoot with a gray beard and robe, had a huge bag full of bird food and I even saw him grab one of the pigeons, unravel something off of its leg, and then rub it against his face before he kissed it and let it back down to keep eating. Weird. I realized that I probably looked a little dumb flinching every time a pigeon flew over my head.. but in my defense, I really did not feel like getting pooped on.

Our mothers picked us up at San Jose and we rode busses back to our homes.

I'm sure there is more I could write about but honestly, I may already have gone a little too detail-heavy...

Tomorrow we are going to the place where we will have class- it's about a 5 minute walk from my house.

peace

Stuff

It's 11:40 AM and in about 3 hours, my flight will be leaving for Miami where I will be meeting up with a handful of other students from my program for our flight to San José, Costa Rica. Although I don't feel very worried at all about today, I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. I have only a few things left that I need to put in my bags and am currently finishing up a list of things that I'll need to buy within the first week (shampoo,  bodywash, etc.). I have little clue of what my "internet situation" will be like, but if at all possible, I'm going to try to avoid spending huge chunks of my free time just skyping and catching up on facebook. Hopefully I'll have some interesting things to post here over the next few months.

thanks :D