¿Cat got your tongue?

I admit it.  I’m pretty lazy when it comes to actually updating friends and fam on life abroad.  Why have I been so lame about updating you all on life?  Because it is so overwhelming to try and consolidate my thoughts, and I really want to avoid writing endless paragraphs that I’m sure will only be skimmed over (as much as you might care about me).  I understand – I’m a scan-reader too, usually.  And let’s be honest, sometimes I’d just rather watch an episode of the IT Crowd than be all introspective and pithy.

I’ve been feeling the need to write again though, because I only have about three weeks left in Costa Rica before I make the journey home for the next chapter in my life.  In three short weeks, the “Living Abroad in Paradise” chapter will be closed, and I’ll have to start the treacherous journey through the “And Now What…?” portion of life.  That’s terrifying.  But also exciting probably, I don’t know.

Is it?

I’ve started getting the question, “How are you feeing about going home?” and my answer usually depends on the moment you ask me.  If it’s been after a particularly stressful day the answer is probably going to be get me the hell out of here.  It’s nothing to do with the people here – I just really need a vacation.  Then there are the days when we’ve been able to sit around the lunch table together for a long time laughing about the latest installment of the Telenovela that is our lives, and Luis or Yanory mention how sad they’ll be when we leave, and I start to feel reluctant about leaving.

Los Luis. “Luis el Guapo” y “Luis el Mas Guapo” – none of us are sure which is which. Those are the names they chose though.

This past semester was a hard one for me though.  Just before our Spring students came, my grandma Floy passed away, so while new students were flying into Costa Rica I was flying to Spokane for her funeral.  It was a rocky start to my last full semester and I don’t think I ever really recovered my full energy.  We also programed the crap out of the last few months, which was a lot of work.  Despite the busy-ness I’m still grateful  for the opportunity I had to see things that I hadn’t gotten around to in the previous year.  We got to enjoy the Festival Internacional de Arte in San Jose, the Wind Symphony came for their spring break to play in venues throughout Costa Rica, and I was lucky enough to have an excuse to channel my inner dirty hippie at the Envision Festival in Dominical.  It was A.Maz.Ing.  It helped me unlock the door to my third eye and realize my love of party pants.

One of the galleries that took part in the F.I.A. (Festival Internacional de Arte). They never let us in because the exhibit director never showed up. (boooo!)  It was a really cool space though!

One of the installments we saw during F.I.A. I’m a terrible art viewer and forgot to write down the name of the artist who did this. Your thoughts? On the piece, not on the fact that I’m a terrible person.

Another piece from F.I.A. in the Museo de Oro (Gold Museum). Again – I’m terrible and forgot to write down the artist’s name. I’ll do some research to track it down, and update this though.

Wind Symphony!  Apologies for the terrible photo quality.  I guess that’s about all you can expect from a $75 digital cam that’s about to explode on you.

In a community in the mountains near Puntarenas, giving master classes to kids involved with a program called SiNEM. It’s amazing: http://www.sinem.go.cr/

And Envision Festival.  I already did a post on Envision earlier, but these are some of the party pants I was talking about.  Watch out Spokane, you’re about to be punched in the face with coolness, by me, wearing these party pants (a.k.a. “bat-wings”).

Party Pants. For wearing to Pants Parties. But NOT for having a party in your pants. They’re probably actually party-in-your-pants-deflectors. Most likely.

And of course, I’m going to miss all this…a lot.   A lot a lot.  a lot a lot a lot.

Sunday trips to the Pacific Coast

Cultural events in San Jose.

Mountain Hikes in the Central Valley.

The Beach. I know Washington State has beaches, but come on. This is paradise.

Nicaragua.
(photo credit: Alina Reese – Spring 2012 student)

Backpacking. Here I am with my mates Anna and Allyn, waiting for our boat to Tortuguero.
(photo credit: Anna Gray)

And now for the next three weeks of my life.  My last three weeks in Costa Rica.  They’ll be pretty busy – the hardworking life of the CRC TA continues around here.  Right now we have Azusa Pacific using the facilities for their summer program.  It’s a smaller group, so logistically it’s going pretty smoothly.  Six people are much less work than twenty people.  We’ve got a few groups coming in to use the CRC for retreats as well.  This past weekend we had several families up here with little kids running around the place playing “good vs. evil portal” where, apparently, one kid got to decide whether you just came out of the good or evil portal and you had to act out your role accordingly.  Luckily I didn’t have to personally pass through any portals.  I got to stay playing the role of Bean, part good/part evil, but mostly evil (only in the mornings before my coffee and breakfast).

I’m both nervous and excited to leave Costa Rica.  I know it will be hard for me to slip back into U.S. culture – cell phones taped to your hands because apparently no one uses them for talking anymore, just for texting; the “time is money” mentality, which means conversations can more often than not seem ingenuous and hurried because we’re racing off to our next appointment; consumption obsessed; inward focused.  It isn’t that my job here hasn’t required of me a certain kind of time-obsession, but culturally here there’s a space for the ambiguous, and for embracing the moments when life is sort of driving you instead of the other way around.  There’s room for a genuine conversation even if that means you’ll be a bit late for your appointment somewhere else.    I don’t think that “Pura Vida” is always healthy, it can be dangerous if you were to always passively let life happen at you instead of taking some sort of initiative, but from affar I’ve observed that in the U.S. we’ve gotten too obsessed with trying to be the masters of every aspect of life, or with keeping to an over-booked schedule.  Sometimes its healthier to let go.  To cancel a few things on the agenda (or to burn the agenda altogether).  To embrace the ambiguous.  To throw our hands up with a bemused look on our faces and submit yourself to the fact that we don’t control everything, and that’s ok.  I worry that I won’t fit in when I go home, because that’s not how the dominant culture functions.

I’ve also missed out on a big chunk of the changes taking place culturally in the States over the past couple of years.  All of a sudden everyone has iphones, not just a couple of the rich kids on the neighborhood.  Everyone has even more expectations that we should be available at any given moment in the day.  I’ve been gone for the majority of the jobs crisis that’s hit the States, I’ve watched all of the Occupy Movement from abroad, and I’ve luckily been protected from most of the seriously disgusting negativity that’s plaguing the political arena these days.  I’m nervous about entering back into that atmosphere.  I don’t know if I have the energy to be a cultural outsider in my own home.

Luckily for me – I have loving friends and family awaiting me with open arms, with patience (please!), and with jokes on hand to help me laugh through it all.  I’ve been pretty wise about selecting “Pura Vida People” to welcome me home and help me transition. Hopefully they’ll be understanding when I make the intentional decision not to have an iphone.  So now what?  I begin a journey of learning how to merge two ways of living into one way of life for myself.  And that can be very tricky.