Special Occasions (2/21/10)

The past two weeks have entailed many new ways of celebrating old occasions, namely Election Day, Superbowl Sunday, and Valentines’ Day, and movie premiers. To elaborate a bit, Election Day is basically a giant party in Costa Rica, and everyone is invited. It doesn’t matter who you’re voting for or who wins as much as just that you are showing up to vote and participating in the democratic process, which Ticos are (rightfully) very proud of, as they are one of the more stable democracies in the Southern Hemisphere. Everyone in Quebradas voted at the school, and all the kids in town were there helping register people and sporting the t-shirts and colors of “their candidates.” Unclear what they were basing their decision on, but there were definitely some families with siblings going for different candidates, so it couldn’t have been entirely based on their parents. Costa Rica also holds an election where kids get to vote and they actually tally the results, and apparently it is almost always indicative of the actual winner. Based on my observations and conversations in and around my community, I thought Otton Solis was going to win, but it turns out he is from Pérez and the rest of the country was going with Laura, so at around 9pm on Sunday, Feb. 7, she was declared the winner by a landslide, making her the first woman president of Costa Rica. The coolest part of the whole thing to me was that everyone I talked to after was not bitter or angry that their candidate had not one but instead shrugged and said that she got the most votes so now we will all get behind her. We could probably use a little more of that attitude back at home…

Concurrently that evening was the Superbowl, which it appeared that about six people in San Isidro cared about, four of us being Peace Corps Volunteers (and me really only half-caring). We went to a sports bar in town where the game was playing on one screen and the election results were playing on the other, but unfortunately there was no sound and the commercials were local and in Spanish, which took most of the fun out for me. But we did eat nachos and drink Imperial and bond with the two other gringos in the bar.

Last week I spent three days in San Cristobal Norte, a beautiful town in the mountains outside of Cartago, for a training with FINCA, the organization that supports our micro-finance projects in Costa Rica. It was really cool because they conducted the training with the Community Credit Enterprise there, which is one of the most successful examples in the country. They have been operating for 15 years and have an office and computers and are actually able to pay someone to work their part time. A far cry from what any Peace Corps Volunteers have in their communities currently (and Quebradas doesn’t even have a CCE), but definitely something to aspire to and know is attainable if you find some motivated people and help show them why it is valuable to have access to micro-credit on a local level. We stayed with host families and the last night they put on a little party for us with a mariachi singer and karaoke, which was pretty adorable. I also ate more rice, beans and plantains than I have since I moved out on my own.

On Friday, the third edition of La Voz Quebradeña came out, this time summer/Valentines’ Day themed (here it’s called the Day of Love and Friendship, so maybe appeals to a wider audience…), and it got a good response as always. Last weekend began the 2-week Expo P.Z., which is basically a big fair in San Isidro that they put on every year with lots of little stands, giant cattle on display, carnival rides, horse parades and dance parties at night. So we checked that out one night but then it starting pouring rain, which kind of put a damper on the activity. Valentines’ Day morning began with a big event that we had planned with the artisan group in Quebradas: cleaning a giant rock. Not a typical romantic morning, but it ended up being a lot of fun and very satisfying. We were getting rid of all the brush and mud that had covered it because we are starting a public art project to paint a few of the giant rocks lining the road in Quebradas in an ecological theme to beautify the community and hopefully attract more tourism. So rock-cleaning was step one, and about six people showed up and we had a fun time and I killed two mini-snakes with a machete, which I feel is kind of a right of passage here.

This week I had to go into San José for three days to edit La Cadena, our tri-annual Peace Corps publication. Always fun to get a paid trip to the big city, but I’ve taken that bus ride over the Mountain of Death a little too often lately, so it was pretty exhausting. But we got the job done and the added perk of getting invited to the Costa Rican premier of Invictus at this fancy mall outside San José. Hearing the work “premier” brought me back to my LA days, and I was envisioning open bar, dessert table, the works. They do it a little differently here, namely you get a free ticket to the fancy theater but then have to pay a lot for fancy food (I had sushi!), and instead of movie stars all the rugby teams in Costa Rica were invited. Who knew Costa Ricans played rugby, you ask? Yeah, me too. Anyways it was fun and funny and reminded me that San José may seem fancy relative to Quebradas and San Isidro, but I’m still a long way away from Hollywood…

Last night we had a charla in Quebradas about how to form a Guías y Scouts group, and the turnout was decent, thought a lot of people I had invited and hoped would come were not able to make it, which was disappointing. But there seems to be enough enthusiasm among kids and some parents to get a group organized, and the woman who gave the charla, the Regional Director of the whole Zona Sur, is super energetic and awesome and seems like she will provide a lot of support. So hopefully I can keep the momentum and move this forward. Also, four new volunteers from Europe arrived in Quebradas yesterday and will be staying here with host families for six months and working with FUDEBIOL, so I am super excited to have some extra support in the community. The girl from Portugal is actually a Girl Scout there, so she was really enthusiastic about this project and came to the meeting last night with her uniform!

The best part of my day yesterday was, however, my belated Valentines’ Day gift, by now fault of his own. Dan asked me casually last Sunday if I had gotten anything, which I hadn’t and assumed it was because whatever he sent had gotten stuck in the mail and it’s not delivered on Sundays anyway. On Tuesday, when I was already in San José, I got a call from this guy saying he was outside my apartment with flowers. The 1-800-FLOWERS guys would not have gotten away with being two days late for a delivery, but he didn’t seem to see the problem. So I had to wait until I got back to San Isidro, but I found him in his shop next to the bus stop waiting for me with a dozen roses and a note written in English from Dan. What I don’t understand is how Dan ever found this guy, but I was way impressed and got the added bonus of getting to parade around San Isidro with my roses while I went grocery shopping and on the bus home and having everyone tell me my boyfriend at home must be a good one, which he sure is. Now maybe they’ll stop telling me I need to find a Tico boyfriend too and that a long distance relationship makes all four people happy (apparently this joke never gets old). I couldn’t be happier with my one…