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WOW. I love Costa Rica! This is my third day here and I am having an incredible experience. Of course being in a foreign country has not been a walk in the park all day, everyday, but that fact that I am here and having this experience is so much fun. After flying by myself to Spain, I had no worries about flying here. The only part that made me nervous was the airport pickup. But I figured that would all work out just fine and if not, hey, Im sure I would have made plenty of friends at the airport lol.
Day 1: Sunday, August 2nd
I was super excited upon landing in San Jose. I felt all kinds of nervous, excited, etc. Mostly excited. :) Once I stepped out of the airport, I was overwhelmed by the swarms of people holding signs and asking me if I wanted to take a taxi. I was looking for a large, yellow flag that didnt seem to be anywhere. I panicked a bit, but had to remember not to look lost or scared. A kind man approached me and in his best English tried to help me find the people I was looking for. I was so grateful to him! He even called the manager of my program to find out if someone had come for me. To make this quick, my driver found me along with 3 other volunteers and we headed to our homestay. My house is so cute. Its little and green and barricaded with iron bars (everything is barricaded). My host family consists of just one little old lady named Marielos who has apparently been hosting international students for 20 years. She speaks no English which is fun for me because I get to listen and practice my spanish a ton. Costa Rican spanish is my favorite type of Spanish Ive heard so far. Its easy to understand. I have full conversations with no problems whereas in Spain it took a lot more work.
Once arriving a su casa, I went to bed. I have my own bed next to a bunk bed where my two other roommates were already fast asleep. The bed was extremely uncomfortable, but luckily I was tired enough from travelling to fall asleep quickly.
Day 2: Monday, August 3rd
So the keyboard Im using is extremely difficult to use because its a spanish keyboard. There are no apostrophes and everything is all mixed up. Pero pura vida asi que esta bien.
I met my roommates in the morning, Margaret and Grace. I havent spent much time with Grace, but Margaret is just lovely. Such a sweet girl, Ive had a great time living with her. In the morning we had fresh fruit, arranged beautifully on a plate. I need to get a picture of it tomorrow morning. And it tastes amazing. We have fresh fruit and bread every morning and I love it. Oh did I mention we have 3 other people living in our house besides my 2 roommates (I dont know how to use the question mark) Another girl doing the volunteer project, some random girl from Iceland that Im not sure if she actually exists or not because I havent seen her, and a dude from Belgium named Adric. Hes our brother, and we love him. He speaks english and is here studying spanish. Hes definitely a cutie. My same age, so maybe we could get married. ;) lol.
The rest of this first day was really quite overwhelming for me and I really felt like going home. One of the staff members showed me and another girl our project and I was told Id be the only volunteer in the morning and she would be the only volunteer in the afternoon. This daycare is in the slums of the city. Where drug abuse, domestic violence and gang violence are high. This was not settling in my gut very well. I felt overwhelmed by having to take 3 buses to get there and to be by myself in an unsafe part of the city. I am not sure why IVHQ plans it that way. Its not safe. Especially when you are young, female and blonde. I dont like the attention and comments I get from the locals. In USA, it would be considered harassment and makes me very uncomfortable. However, I do realize this is an entirely different culture and I have learned to write IM A B!TCH on my forehead by not responding, smiling or even looking. Even acknowledging that you heard them is an invitation for them to keep bothering you. Ive learned that I cant even smile at people, which is hard and sad for me because Im a very friendly person and would love to speak with the locals as much as I can.
On that note, Costa Ricans are very attractive. Its so hard not to respond or smile at the ones that are around my age because a lot of them are drop your jaw hot. And that is not sarcasm. Like they are very attractive people.
The driving here is insane. Pure insanity. Everybody honks at each other, nobody stops for you if you are crossing the street, the buses are manual so they jerk and swerve around cars, people and road lines. Its hilarious to me, but I am so so careful about crossing the streets. Its extremely dangerous. Some streets dont even have road lines, and the ones that do, Im not sure why they have them because everyone just swerves around people over double yellow lines. Dont even get me started with roundabouts. I dont know how anyone makes it out of one without being in serious accident and sent to the hospital. I feel like Im on a rollercoaster with no tracks and no seatbelt everytime I get into a bus. Its actually quite thrilling to be honest because Ive lived everytime. :) haha.
I dont know what I was expecting upon arriving to my project. I guess I assumed it would be a regular looking daycare but I guess I forgot I was in a third world country. Its quite sad to be honest how these children are raised. First of all, everything is barricaded (how it should be) but double barricaded at the child care center. There is one tiny room for the children to play in and a tiny little patio area. The children cannot leave these areas because its too dangerous. There are very few toys and the ones that they do have are all dirty, old and do not work. The children were all excited when we arrived, and I really tried to be excited about them, but I could not get over how sad I felt. I used to work at a daycare in the US, and its just entirely different.
I left the project feeling bummed, but also trying to be positive and recognize that this is my opportunity to really help these children and Estella (the owner, who also does not speak English). I came back to Maximo Nivel (the hangout spot for all the volunteers) just feeling stressed, overwhelmed and homesick. I kept having to reassure myself that everything is going to go smoothly. The rest of the day was a huge turn around as I made tons of new friends and attended a free salsa class with the rest of the volunteers. We all went home that night just completely worn out, Im sure we were all fast asleep by 10.
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