5/1/2011

5:42pm

I just walked home from school. Marching down the street with my backpack slung over my shoulder, I felt thirteen years old again. (They recommended wearing it on your front, to protect yourself from thieves and pickpockets, but I felt that such a tourist-like action might spoil my indulgence in a moment of child-like innocence.)

Costa Rica is a place that unmistakably feels like a foreign country. Small roads with insane traffic (that doesn't give way to pedestrians!), gutters about a metre deep to accommodate for a torrential rainy season, and most obviously I suppose, all the signs are in Spanish. Traffic lights dangle from power cables, and locals are either extremely friendly, quite used to providing for tourists, or rather scary and intimidating, most likely adept in stealing from them. Violence is low, but petty theft is rife in San Jose.

Home life here is a surprising mix of familiar and unfamiliar customs. They urge us to turn off the lights when out of a room to save energy, but toilet paper is put into a bin rather than flushed down the toilet, in order to ease the pressure on a less than perfect sewage system. We sat down and ate dinner together, but said Grace before starting. (Though I realise this unfamiliarity is more a personal difference than a cultural one. However, many Costa Ricans are heavily religious Catholics.)

My host mother is lovely. I'm staying here with two other girls from the volunteer group, and she's been treating each one of us like children of her own. Speaking of which, she does have two grown sons, who don't live at home. They did visit last night though, and I must admit one in particular fulfilled my expectations of a typical Latin American hunk. He invited us to join him at a discotheque tomorrow night. While not expecting to score my own Latin American dreamboat, I'm quite curious to investigate the local night clubs. I wonder if I'll enjoy Costa Rican straight bars any more than Australian ones! (I've ruled out options of venturing to any gay bars: it's not something I'd want to drag anyone along to, and it's probably unwise to explore on my own at night).

Our first full day was an introduction at the Spanish school, then a tour of the local hot spots in Heredia (the suburb of San Jose we are staying in). Also, a dancing class where my time of ballroom dancing has actually paid off! Spanish lessons were in the afternoon, which meant I was a little sleepy, but the classes are pretty fun and interactive, so I'm hoping my Spanish will improve during my stay. I just had a successful, despite slow and fragmented conversation with my host mother, so I feel as though just being here has made a difference.

On the detox front, however, there as been little success. Computer access is quite easy around here, so I have decided to make the most of that, as I know it will be a different story come the volunteer project. It's nice to keep in contact, but at the same time I feel the short snippets of conversation are like picking at nearly healed scabs, and I begin to miss them all over again. Never-the-less, I think it's worth it, and I'll savour those precious few moments.

If one things for sure, only one day into my home stay, life as a Costa Rican is an interesting a refreshing change.