Spanish
If you have ever taken a Spanish class, or have visited (or even lived in) a Spanish speaking country, do not think that you can also understand Tico Spanish (Tico = Costa Rican). Woah. Besides talking at ridiculously high speeds, there are "doble sentidos" (double-meanings) for basically everything, backpacks are called "salveques" instead of "mochillas", and colones aren't always referred to as colones. But don't fret! If you are ever doubting what something is called, you can call it a "chunche", and people will magically understand. What?
Also, not really directly related to language, but there aren't really street names in Costa Rica. Hence the title of this blog, "vivo aquí cerquito, abajito por la esquinita". Because literally that's what I have to tell people when they ask where I live (although I admit, I am exaggerating with my "itos"). It basically means, "I live pretty close to here, down the hill near the corner". And that's about as specific as anyone can possibly get.
My training host family
Awesome. For example:
Meet the adorable Maria Paula! She is SO cute, basically I can't handle it. But I put up with it. I also have an awesome 10 year old brother, Jose Daniel, who apparently is top of his class at school and super smart. My dad, Jose, is extremely friendly and helpful with everything, and my mom, Adriana, is ridiculously cool and fun to talk to/hang out with. I can already tell that I'm going to be so sad to leave them in October!
My community, and my CED project
Concepción de S.R. has about 4,000 people, and has a school, a health clinic, a soccer field, 2 churches, 3 convenience stores (pulperías), a stationary store, a bakery, a bar, and an Alcoholic's Anonymous. I live on the bottom of a pretty steep hill, so my walks to Spanish class twice a week are really fun. ¡Ejercicio!
A huge part of my Peace Corps training involves learning what Community Economic Development actually is, and how to explain it in Spanish to people who have never even heard of the Peace Corps. It's not easy! Today, Chris and I interviewed the owners of our bakery and stationary store (librería), and asked questions about supply sources, prices, products, tools, marketing/design, etc. To celebrate our first relatively successful attempt at sounding like we knew what we were talking about, we hit up our local bar for a beer and chicharrones (fried pork fat, or something), and chatted it up with the owner of the bar, who had no idea what the Peace Corps was and kept asking if we were coming to Costa Rica to deliver money to local businesses. We struggled a bit to explain it and he laughed at our choppy Spanish, but we finally understood each other and promised to return on the weekend for karaoke.
FOOD!
I love food, and luckily, Ticos also love food, in huge quantities. So far, breakfast has included gallo pinto (traditional rice and beans), omelets, fried plantains, and giant bowls of fresh fruit. About an hour after breakfast, usually people eat a snack, like a pastry or fruit. Soon after that, lunch is served, which so far has consisted of generous portions of salad, rice, beans, meat, and vegetables. A couple hours later, it's snack time again, so we usually have coffee and bread. Then, since we clearly have not eaten enough, it's time for dinner, which is usually a repeat of what was left over for lunch, plus anything else that you didn't have a chance to eat earlier in the day.
But when I told my host mom that I was getting fat, she was super understanding and now I only eat some of that stuff, which is nice. The only tough part is that she's an amazing cook, so while she's trying to give me less food since I complained of getting fat, I actually want more because it's so delicious. Clearly, life is rough.
Oh, and coffee!!!! I LOVE COFFEE, and so do Ticos. It makes me so happy to drink coffee several times a day, and even happier that the coffee here is insanely good.
That's all for now... stay tuned!
