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| Vanessa's in Costa Rica |
| "I am learning all the time. My tombstone will be my diploma." -Eartha Kitt |
jueves, el 12 de julio
Ah, we meet again....
You know, it´s interesting how fast one can become aclimatized to a new place.
When I first arrived here in C.R., the weather felt hot... pretty much all the time.
When the temperature dropped just 3 or 4 degrees, the locals complained about
it being a cold day. That´s right, 82 is great, but 78 is cold. Go figure. I thought
they were just crazy. However.... it ocurred to me yesterday, when it was quite
overcast, that I had been wearing my sweater the entire day, and also the entire
day before, because I had felt cool. The temperature? Mid-70's. No where here
are there air conditioners or heaters, so I guess the body gets used to 75 being
the coldest it gets, hence cold, and 85 the hottest it gets, hence hot. It feels
really weird for me to be reacting this way after being here only two weeks. I
mean hey, in Texas if July temperatures were anywhere between 75 and 85, we
throw parties in the streets and be glad it wasn´t 102. ¡Fiesta!
I´ve also become more accustomed to walking across streets... it doesn´t give me
near the anxiety that it did at first. But there is no way I would drive here, man, no
way. I ride the bus pretty often though. You just hop on and hand the chaufer
your coins, and say ´´parada´´ whenever you want to get off. And yes, you read
that right, I am ´´chaufered´´ around the city by bus drivers. I guess Ticos feel
you just gotta give some respect to the man who can do u-turns with a bus on a
one-way-street.
An update: it turns out that the man I thought was repairing a mosaic on campus
is actually in the process of completing the mosaic. In the new picture, you can
see the new sunflower petals that are underway. The sunflower is the symbol of
the University of Costa Rica--I guess because they follow the illuminating light of
knowledge, or something like that. In Spanish, sunflower is ''girasol''--literally, that
which turns towards the sun.
Just for my cuñada, Mags, here is a picture of the only safe taxi company in town.
And I mean only. At least, that´s what I get from any person around me when I
mention the word ''taxi''. The red taxis with the yellow triangles are your ticket to
success. But not a traffic ticket. I was riding in a taxi the other night (red with a
yellow triangle, mind you), coming home from dance class, when my taxi driver
broke in line in front of maybe 15 other cars turning left, at just the moment the
light turned green, yelling an equivalent of ''Sorry, losers!'' out the window to the
other drivers as he turned in front of them. Ah, good times. At least he was
successful getting me home. If the red taxis are the best ones, then.... well, I
don´t want to think about what the others might be like.
As a last note... this is likely to be my last entry for a couple of days. In a few
hours some friends and I are traveling for the weekend. We plan to visit the city
of Arenal, to see a live volcano (from afar), and then to Monteverde, to do a
canopy tour. So, although you´ll have to wait to hear from me, you can look
forward to some fantastic photos!
Take care, ¡amiguitos! It´s a really big world out there.
Vanessa of San Jose
_________________________________________
miercoles, el 11 de julio
Hellooo... world!
In trying to decide what to write today, I thought maybe I would tell you how to say
''¿Be' shke'na?'', which means ''How are you?'' in Bri'bri'. But then I thought if f I
did, I would have to also tell you that Bri'bri is the language of the Bri'bri' people,
who are indigenous to Costa Rica and pre-date the arrival of Columbus, and that
Columbus named the land ''Costa Rica'' when he saw the vast amount of gold
available to the Bri'bri' people. But then, you might wonder why I am learning
Bri'bri', and I would have to tell you that in my methods class, we are studying how
to teach Spanish as a foreign language, but because Spanish is not a foreign
language to us, we need to walk in our students´shoes by using these new
methods to learn a language we know nothing about. Hence the bri'bri.
But then the linguistics nerd in me would totally be released, and I would begin to
tell you some of the cool things about the bri'bri' language. For example, I would
tell you that in Bri'bri, there is no verb ''to be''. You just slap the subject and the
predicate next to one another, and they become like an equation. Just like 2 + 3
= 4 (five, just kidding...) ''ye' dor bika^kala'' means literally
''I master of ceremonies'', or as we in English would say, '' I am the master of
ceremonies.´´ And I would also begin to tell you how that makes me think of
those Tarzan movies, when Tarzan typically says, ''I Tarzan, You Jane'', and how
we normally perceive that to be some kind of barbaristic baby talk. But really, that
stereotype probably came from indigenous peoples doíng direct, word-for-word
translations from their native tongue to the language of the (insert conquering
European people of choice).
So after a bit of thought,... I decided that all that talk of Bri'bri would sound
complicated, technical, and of little interest to others, so I have decided to write
about topics of more popular interest instead.
In that vein....
I don´t have many new pictures to share today, so I thought I would show you all
what my favorite Internet cafe looks like. There are about 20 stations or so, and
after you grab a computer on a first-come, first-serve basis, you have no time
limits on the computer. So that´s pretty cool. The colors on the walls, like
everywhere else in Costa Rica, are bright and vibrant. So here are some
pictures, hot off the press, of my fellow chat salon compadres and me.
For all you movie fans, Mel Gibson made the front page of La Nacion, the Costa
Rican newspaper. He met with Pres. Arias yesterday in the president´s living
room to discuss providing financial assistance to the country´s indigenous
peoples.... oh, and a small tidbit about request rights to film a major motion
picture. Mr. Gibson bought a $25 million home here not too long ago.
An item of interest to my friends and family in The Lone Star State.... the Texas
rains have made world news! There was a special report on the 6:00 world news
here last night, reporting deluge and flooding throughout China and .... central
Texas. Wow, that´s rainy. Member Nation of the UN Security Council...... small
region in the Texas Hill Country. Member of the UN Security Council...... (Imagine
my hands imitating a balance scale. Wait, I´ll take a picture for you.)
Discrepancy??? Maybe the rains in Texas are horrific. Maybe it´s raining chow
mein. Hmmm... that would be yummy. Too bad I´m not in Texas right now.
Just wonderin´ from Costa Rica,
Vanessa
P.S. Hope I don´t get struck by lighting. Also, I really hope the Texas Rangers
don´t come arrest me. I bet this chat salon would be hard for them to find, given
that I am on the second floor of this building and their horses can´t climb stairs.
P.P. S. Don´t forget to sign the guest book, everybody! :-)
_________________________________________
Estimados amigos,
Today´s entry will be about the University of Costa Rica and my program here.
The University of Costa Rica, or ''la U'' as most locals say, is definitely my favorite
place to be in the city. The school is the most pretigious in the country, and in
breadth and depth of courses the school is roughly comparable to the Univ. of
Georgia or Univ. of Texas. Here on campus there are broad streets, abundant
trees, and various places for students to congregate.
The yellow and blue building is called ''La Facultad de Letras'', which houses the
schools of philology, philosophy, and linguistics. In this building my morning class
meets from 8.00 to 10:20. We study pedagogical theories and methods of
teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language. It´s a good class-- interesting as well
as useful. There are ten students in the class, so we have thoughtful discussions
but also receive much individual attention from the professor, or ''profe'' as the
students here call their teachers.
The building to the right is a just one of many colorful mosaics that decorate the
buildings on campus. You can tell the scale from the man doing repairs at the
bottom of the picture.
The university students finished their semester last Friday, and there was a lively
arabic - rock - latino band performing all afternoon outside of the student center.
They attracted a big crowd. But the audience was surprisingly sedate-- I´ve
found as a general rule here that Costa Ricans speak much more softly in
restaurants, parties, even everyday conversations. Carlos, our ''profe'', said that
when Ticos encounter Americans*, they find them in general to be much too loud.
*Disclaimer-- I use Americans here to refer to people in the States, but when
speaking with people here, you have to use ''estadounidenses'' instead, because
Ticos consider themselves to be Americans also. It´s interesting that we don´t
even have an adjective in the English language to describe our nationality other
than one that the rest of the world uses to describe the people of two entire
continents. Estadounidense literally translates as ''United Statesean'', which I
think has a peculiar charm.
Currently there is much graffiti on the buildings of the U, mostly protesting the
proposed CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Association). In Spanish, it is
referred to as ''TLC'. In October, the government is putting the issue to a
popular vote, which is the first time in the country´s history that such a thing has
happened. Therefore, there a lot of groups getting organized to host speakers,
hold demonstrations, visit voters door to door, etc.
Students here on campus are extremely opposed to TLC. Our profesor explained
to us that textbooks are extremely expensive in Costa Rica, so much that the
majority of students cannot afford them. (Credit hours here only cost about $50
each, to give you some perspective.) So, the faculty here has pretty much
abandoned the notion of copywrite violation and the students just buy
photocopies. In fact, the photocopying of textbooks seems to be quite an
enterprise here- In this photo you can see the street facing the principle
entrance to the campus; about 75% of the businesses are for making copies.
With the passage of TLC would come much more stringent penalties in regards to
pirating texts, which has most of the students very worried.
Signing off for now....
The Tican Teacher
_________________________________________
lunes, el 9 de julio
This weekend was very adventurous!
Saturday, our group took a trip to La Paz Waterfall Gardens. The gardens are
located in a relatively new cloud forest-- new, because there is a volcano nearby
that erupts every 30 years or so, and the ash kills off much of the area
vegetation. So, since the last eruption in 1982, there hasn´t been time for the
different strata (canopy, etc.) of a mature cloud forest to grow. Nonetheless, the
park is very beautiful and there were many wonderful things to do.
When we left San Jose at 6:30 in the morning, the weather was rather hot, but
when we arrived at Poas, we were all very glad to have followed the tour guides´
advice to wear pants and bring lots of rain gear. The cloud park is I think 10,000
feet about sea level, and quite cool.
I saw so many fun animals! There is an aviary there, where I saw my first tucan.
Later, several tucans flew right over my head, so close I could feel a breeze from
the flapping of their wings! We also saw parrots, and even a bird my guide book
calls a ''monkey eating vulture''. Whoa, scary!
Next was the ''rañero''-- an entire facility dedicated to the viewing of frogs. All
kinds of poisinous dart frogs, transparent frogs, and turquoise blue ones no
bigger than a fingernail.
My favorite part-- although it did compete with the aviary-- was the butterfly
garden. Soft classical music drifted down from above as we all oohed and aahed
over hundreds and hundreds of winge'd beauties fluttering all around. We saw
some cocoons that literally looked like jewels just removed from the necklace of a
queen. They had these tiny droplets of gold spiralling down shell-shaped,
turquois cocoons. It was marvelous.
We then enjoyed a gourmet lunch under a tree-shaped dome and headed for the
waterfalls. There were five, and we climbed down a total of 500 feet to see them
all. I´ve never been so close to waterfalls, and I was delighted by the waterspray
and the loud rush of the cascades. The atmosphere was so dark and misty.... I
really felt as though I were in another world.
Topping it all off was the La Paz waterfall, which appears in a video of our
Spanish 1 textbook at school. It really did look just like it does in the video. I took
several photos of that waterfall in particular. I hope you all enjoy the pictures I
took-- digital photography is a wonderful thing. It feels good knowing I can share
my trip with you all, more or less in real time.
Tonight is my second dance class-- more narrative to come!
Take care, everyone.
Vanessa la Costarricensa
Ah, we meet again....
You know, it´s interesting how fast one can become aclimatized to a new place.
When I first arrived here in C.R., the weather felt hot... pretty much all the time.
When the temperature dropped just 3 or 4 degrees, the locals complained about
it being a cold day. That´s right, 82 is great, but 78 is cold. Go figure. I thought
they were just crazy. However.... it ocurred to me yesterday, when it was quite
overcast, that I had been wearing my sweater the entire day, and also the entire
day before, because I had felt cool. The temperature? Mid-70's. No where here
are there air conditioners or heaters, so I guess the body gets used to 75 being
the coldest it gets, hence cold, and 85 the hottest it gets, hence hot. It feels
really weird for me to be reacting this way after being here only two weeks. I
mean hey, in Texas if July temperatures were anywhere between 75 and 85, we
throw parties in the streets and be glad it wasn´t 102. ¡Fiesta!
I´ve also become more accustomed to walking across streets... it doesn´t give me
near the anxiety that it did at first. But there is no way I would drive here, man, no
way. I ride the bus pretty often though. You just hop on and hand the chaufer
your coins, and say ´´parada´´ whenever you want to get off. And yes, you read
that right, I am ´´chaufered´´ around the city by bus drivers. I guess Ticos feel
you just gotta give some respect to the man who can do u-turns with a bus on a
one-way-street.
An update: it turns out that the man I thought was repairing a mosaic on campus
is actually in the process of completing the mosaic. In the new picture, you can
see the new sunflower petals that are underway. The sunflower is the symbol of
the University of Costa Rica--I guess because they follow the illuminating light of
knowledge, or something like that. In Spanish, sunflower is ''girasol''--literally, that
which turns towards the sun.
Just for my cuñada, Mags, here is a picture of the only safe taxi company in town.
And I mean only. At least, that´s what I get from any person around me when I
mention the word ''taxi''. The red taxis with the yellow triangles are your ticket to
success. But not a traffic ticket. I was riding in a taxi the other night (red with a
yellow triangle, mind you), coming home from dance class, when my taxi driver
broke in line in front of maybe 15 other cars turning left, at just the moment the
light turned green, yelling an equivalent of ''Sorry, losers!'' out the window to the
other drivers as he turned in front of them. Ah, good times. At least he was
successful getting me home. If the red taxis are the best ones, then.... well, I
don´t want to think about what the others might be like.
As a last note... this is likely to be my last entry for a couple of days. In a few
hours some friends and I are traveling for the weekend. We plan to visit the city
of Arenal, to see a live volcano (from afar), and then to Monteverde, to do a
canopy tour. So, although you´ll have to wait to hear from me, you can look
forward to some fantastic photos!
Take care, ¡amiguitos! It´s a really big world out there.
Vanessa of San Jose
_________________________________________
miercoles, el 11 de julio
Hellooo... world!
In trying to decide what to write today, I thought maybe I would tell you how to say
''¿Be' shke'na?'', which means ''How are you?'' in Bri'bri'. But then I thought if f I
did, I would have to also tell you that Bri'bri is the language of the Bri'bri' people,
who are indigenous to Costa Rica and pre-date the arrival of Columbus, and that
Columbus named the land ''Costa Rica'' when he saw the vast amount of gold
available to the Bri'bri' people. But then, you might wonder why I am learning
Bri'bri', and I would have to tell you that in my methods class, we are studying how
to teach Spanish as a foreign language, but because Spanish is not a foreign
language to us, we need to walk in our students´shoes by using these new
methods to learn a language we know nothing about. Hence the bri'bri.
But then the linguistics nerd in me would totally be released, and I would begin to
tell you some of the cool things about the bri'bri' language. For example, I would
tell you that in Bri'bri, there is no verb ''to be''. You just slap the subject and the
predicate next to one another, and they become like an equation. Just like 2 + 3
= 4 (five, just kidding...) ''ye' dor bika^kala'' means literally
''I master of ceremonies'', or as we in English would say, '' I am the master of
ceremonies.´´ And I would also begin to tell you how that makes me think of
those Tarzan movies, when Tarzan typically says, ''I Tarzan, You Jane'', and how
we normally perceive that to be some kind of barbaristic baby talk. But really, that
stereotype probably came from indigenous peoples doíng direct, word-for-word
translations from their native tongue to the language of the (insert conquering
European people of choice).
So after a bit of thought,... I decided that all that talk of Bri'bri would sound
complicated, technical, and of little interest to others, so I have decided to write
about topics of more popular interest instead.
In that vein....
I don´t have many new pictures to share today, so I thought I would show you all
what my favorite Internet cafe looks like. There are about 20 stations or so, and
after you grab a computer on a first-come, first-serve basis, you have no time
limits on the computer. So that´s pretty cool. The colors on the walls, like
everywhere else in Costa Rica, are bright and vibrant. So here are some
pictures, hot off the press, of my fellow chat salon compadres and me.
For all you movie fans, Mel Gibson made the front page of La Nacion, the Costa
Rican newspaper. He met with Pres. Arias yesterday in the president´s living
room to discuss providing financial assistance to the country´s indigenous
peoples.... oh, and a small tidbit about request rights to film a major motion
picture. Mr. Gibson bought a $25 million home here not too long ago.
An item of interest to my friends and family in The Lone Star State.... the Texas
rains have made world news! There was a special report on the 6:00 world news
here last night, reporting deluge and flooding throughout China and .... central
Texas. Wow, that´s rainy. Member Nation of the UN Security Council...... small
region in the Texas Hill Country. Member of the UN Security Council...... (Imagine
my hands imitating a balance scale. Wait, I´ll take a picture for you.)
Discrepancy??? Maybe the rains in Texas are horrific. Maybe it´s raining chow
mein. Hmmm... that would be yummy. Too bad I´m not in Texas right now.
Just wonderin´ from Costa Rica,
Vanessa
P.S. Hope I don´t get struck by lighting. Also, I really hope the Texas Rangers
don´t come arrest me. I bet this chat salon would be hard for them to find, given
that I am on the second floor of this building and their horses can´t climb stairs.
P.P. S. Don´t forget to sign the guest book, everybody! :-)
_________________________________________
Estimados amigos,
Today´s entry will be about the University of Costa Rica and my program here.
The University of Costa Rica, or ''la U'' as most locals say, is definitely my favorite
place to be in the city. The school is the most pretigious in the country, and in
breadth and depth of courses the school is roughly comparable to the Univ. of
Georgia or Univ. of Texas. Here on campus there are broad streets, abundant
trees, and various places for students to congregate.
The yellow and blue building is called ''La Facultad de Letras'', which houses the
schools of philology, philosophy, and linguistics. In this building my morning class
meets from 8.00 to 10:20. We study pedagogical theories and methods of
teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language. It´s a good class-- interesting as well
as useful. There are ten students in the class, so we have thoughtful discussions
but also receive much individual attention from the professor, or ''profe'' as the
students here call their teachers.
The building to the right is a just one of many colorful mosaics that decorate the
buildings on campus. You can tell the scale from the man doing repairs at the
bottom of the picture.
The university students finished their semester last Friday, and there was a lively
arabic - rock - latino band performing all afternoon outside of the student center.
They attracted a big crowd. But the audience was surprisingly sedate-- I´ve
found as a general rule here that Costa Ricans speak much more softly in
restaurants, parties, even everyday conversations. Carlos, our ''profe'', said that
when Ticos encounter Americans*, they find them in general to be much too loud.
*Disclaimer-- I use Americans here to refer to people in the States, but when
speaking with people here, you have to use ''estadounidenses'' instead, because
Ticos consider themselves to be Americans also. It´s interesting that we don´t
even have an adjective in the English language to describe our nationality other
than one that the rest of the world uses to describe the people of two entire
continents. Estadounidense literally translates as ''United Statesean'', which I
think has a peculiar charm.
Currently there is much graffiti on the buildings of the U, mostly protesting the
proposed CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Association). In Spanish, it is
referred to as ''TLC'. In October, the government is putting the issue to a
popular vote, which is the first time in the country´s history that such a thing has
happened. Therefore, there a lot of groups getting organized to host speakers,
hold demonstrations, visit voters door to door, etc.
Students here on campus are extremely opposed to TLC. Our profesor explained
to us that textbooks are extremely expensive in Costa Rica, so much that the
majority of students cannot afford them. (Credit hours here only cost about $50
each, to give you some perspective.) So, the faculty here has pretty much
abandoned the notion of copywrite violation and the students just buy
photocopies. In fact, the photocopying of textbooks seems to be quite an
enterprise here- In this photo you can see the street facing the principle
entrance to the campus; about 75% of the businesses are for making copies.
With the passage of TLC would come much more stringent penalties in regards to
pirating texts, which has most of the students very worried.
Signing off for now....
The Tican Teacher
_________________________________________
lunes, el 9 de julio
This weekend was very adventurous!
Saturday, our group took a trip to La Paz Waterfall Gardens. The gardens are
located in a relatively new cloud forest-- new, because there is a volcano nearby
that erupts every 30 years or so, and the ash kills off much of the area
vegetation. So, since the last eruption in 1982, there hasn´t been time for the
different strata (canopy, etc.) of a mature cloud forest to grow. Nonetheless, the
park is very beautiful and there were many wonderful things to do.
When we left San Jose at 6:30 in the morning, the weather was rather hot, but
when we arrived at Poas, we were all very glad to have followed the tour guides´
advice to wear pants and bring lots of rain gear. The cloud park is I think 10,000
feet about sea level, and quite cool.
I saw so many fun animals! There is an aviary there, where I saw my first tucan.
Later, several tucans flew right over my head, so close I could feel a breeze from
the flapping of their wings! We also saw parrots, and even a bird my guide book
calls a ''monkey eating vulture''. Whoa, scary!
Next was the ''rañero''-- an entire facility dedicated to the viewing of frogs. All
kinds of poisinous dart frogs, transparent frogs, and turquoise blue ones no
bigger than a fingernail.
My favorite part-- although it did compete with the aviary-- was the butterfly
garden. Soft classical music drifted down from above as we all oohed and aahed
over hundreds and hundreds of winge'd beauties fluttering all around. We saw
some cocoons that literally looked like jewels just removed from the necklace of a
queen. They had these tiny droplets of gold spiralling down shell-shaped,
turquois cocoons. It was marvelous.
We then enjoyed a gourmet lunch under a tree-shaped dome and headed for the
waterfalls. There were five, and we climbed down a total of 500 feet to see them
all. I´ve never been so close to waterfalls, and I was delighted by the waterspray
and the loud rush of the cascades. The atmosphere was so dark and misty.... I
really felt as though I were in another world.
Topping it all off was the La Paz waterfall, which appears in a video of our
Spanish 1 textbook at school. It really did look just like it does in the video. I took
several photos of that waterfall in particular. I hope you all enjoy the pictures I
took-- digital photography is a wonderful thing. It feels good knowing I can share
my trip with you all, more or less in real time.
Tonight is my second dance class-- more narrative to come!
Take care, everyone.
Vanessa la Costarricensa
week do you want to see?
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