The Simple Life

It has been a VERY eventful past couple of days. I feel like I have so much to write about now because every experience I´m having is completely new, and it´s weird to think that in a few months this is all going to be routine and I might actually be bored...

So on Wednesday each current trainee was assigned a current volunteer to go visit in some part of the country for four days starting on Saturday. My assignment was to Allyson Hatchet, who is living in Cedral, Montes de Oro in the mountainous region of Puntarenas. Because there is only one bus a day that can get you there and it leaves at 7 am, I was one of the lucky 8 people who got to sleep at a hotel in San Jose on Friday night after training. The best part of that night was discovering Pops, a REAL ice cream chain they have all over San Jose. I got coffee and brownie dynamite, and yes it was as good as it sounds...That night we met up with some current volunteers who were in San Jose for different reasons, so it was fun to hear about what they are all doing at their sites and where they go in San Jose to have fun.

But the REAL fun began on Saturday morning when I caught the 7 am bus to Miramar, after some guy tried to scam me and told me it had already left and I would have to take a taxi there. What, do I look like a tourist or something! About two and a half hours into the bus ride, the bus just kind of stopped and some people got off and some people stayed on and no announcement was made whatsoever. A nice old man saw me looking confused and explained that the bus had broken down and another one would be coming in about ten minutes to pick us up. I asked him how far we were from the last stop and he said about a kilometer, so I said I would just walk and he said it would take me an hour and forty minutes. Something must have been lost in communication, but I decided to trust him with this one and wait around. About 15 minutes later a sketchy looking bus did indeed show up and took us to downtwon Miramar, where I met Allyson at an English language school where she had some friends.

The bus to Cedral did not leave until 3, so we met up with another volunteer, Melissa, who was hosting another trainee, Jen, in Miramar and took a bus to a nearby beach called Dona Ana. Unfortunately I had no idea we were going to be near a beach and did not come prepared, but it was really nice to just sit out and at least feel the water, which was insanely warm. The beach was totally deserted and made of black sand, which was pretty cool. Then we got lunch at this little hotel where the family who runs it was sitting around playing cards and reading magazines until we showed up. The mother asked us what we wanted for lunch based on the ingredients she had in her kitchen and then whipped it up for us, no menus necessary. There were some fried bananas that I avoided, but other than that VERY delicious.

We finally made it up to Cedral (literally an hour and a half bus ride straight up) a little before 5, and Allyson gave me a tour of the town, which much like Tarbaca consists of a church, school, and pulperia, though Cedral also has a soccer field and bakery. We met my host family where I would be staying for the next three nights. They live in a centrally located home with four kids, a dog, a cow, two roosters (who I subsequently learned are enemies and like to fight every morning at 5 am) and a BUNCH of chickens. Laly, the mother, is the cook for the high school, so I was VERY well fed. Allyson and I were both exhausted after an early morning and long day in the sun, so we ate dinner and watched Ice Age with the kids (I realized that Spanish cartoons are the way to go for me because they speak slowly and use my level vocab words) before passing out.

Sunday was Allyson´s birthday, and an eventful day it was. After a breakfast of homemade tortillas and natilla (basically milk fat that they put on everything...mmmmm), we set off for the community garden she started, which is a half acre of vegetables from corn to broccoli to peppers to every kind of seasoning. It is really amazing and a LOT of work. Because it had been so dry recently, they were trying to set up an irrigation system to divert water from the nearby river through a hose to the garden. Given my nonexistent knowledge of agriculture but desire to be productive and useful, they found a perfect task for me, weeding. For about two hours I just got to sit there and pick weeds out of the ground and found it extremely satisfying! After the garden we walked around town and visited with some interesting characters, including a 98 year old abuela who had FOUR generations of women in her house for afternoon cafecito. Most of the conversation was dedicated to counting her grandchildren. We came up with 35. We also visited with some gringo biologists who are living at the top of the hill and have been in Cedral for the past four months studying birds and trees. PLENTY of both around here...After lunch we went with Laly´s family and the gringos and a few other people from the community on a hike to an awesome river and waterfall and this time I got over not having a bathing suit and just swam in my clothers. It was so refreshing and beautiful there, I couldn´t believe she lived so close to it, but I guess that´s more common in Costa Rica than NYC. For Allyson´s bday dinner the gringo scientists drove us to this pizza place about a half hour down the hill. It was really nice to have a meal without rice and to eat real cheese, though I know it´s way too early to be getting sick of the food.

Monday morning I got up and went for a run at sunrise, which was AMAZING. It was so quiet and beautiful up there I hardly even noticed the hills! Then we headed back out to the garden with Allyson´s counterpart, the agricultural officer in Cedral. He and his assistant helped us set up the irrigation sprinkler system, which was a LOT of work and looked like it would be a lot of work to maintain. But it was really cool to learn all this stuff about sustainable agriculture, and the people here are so resourceful. All the water came from the river, all the fertilizer was homemade, all the vegetables are grown and sold locally, and any holes in the hoses were patched up with rubber from used boots. Allyson works really closely in the garden with the awesome 72 year old guy Calichon who is very handy with a machete...That afternoon we took it easy and watched the high school kids play soccer all day in honor of Dia de Deportes, which is apparently a national holiday here. Tomorrow they all start finals though. In the evening we watched the sunset and then went to the community microfinance bank meeting. Allyson had been working with them to set it up over the past 6 months or so, and they just finally had their inauguration last week, so it´s all very new. I couldn´t understand much of what was said but it was really interesting to observe how she facilitated the meeting without running it, which is what our job as Peace Corps volunteers is supposed to be, in order to make our projects sustainable once we´re gone. Anyways at the end they kept all walking in and out of the room and I didn´t get what was going on until they came in with brownies and arroz con leche and sang feliz cumpleanos to Allyson! They had organized a little surprise party and it was so cute and they clearly all love her and appreciate her so much and kept talking about how much they were going to miss her in 5 months when she leaves. It was really cool to see how much a volunteer like Allyson who really integrated herself into her community can make an impact.

This morning I got up at 5, appreciating the dueling roosters for the first time, and said goodbye to Laly and Allison and was on my way. I´m now two bus rides down in San Jose at an internet cafe before making the final leg of my journey back to Tarbaca and back to school...ugh. It was really great to get away this weekend and see what a real volunteer is up to and it got me really excited about my next two years of service. I don´t think I want to be in a site as rural and isolated as Allyson´s, but it was inspiring to see all the cool work she is doing with SO few resources and humbling to see how simply people can live and be totally happy. Now I am going to get Pops again before returning to rural life...