I’ve arrived during the rainy season. During the months of September and October the average rainfal in Costa Rica is about 12 inches per month. Today is typical. In the morning the sun is shining brightly and the walk to the school leaves me dripping with persperation because, though it is not necessarily hot, it is very humid. Usually the day stays sunny until about the time class is over, at noon.
Then the clouds roll over the mountains like tanks assaulting a fortress. The air becomes slightly cooler, and then comes the rain. Sometimes it is soft and gentle for a while, but when it gets wound up, which it usually does, it can really get going. The rain beats hard on the roofs of the homes. When I am sitting on the patio of my house, with it’s coregated plastic roof, the noise is sometimes so deafening that I can hardly think. Yesterday it rained so hard that the narrow street between the houses was like a raging river. There is are no spaces between houses, and no lawns at all, in the section of town where i am living, so all the water flows to the same place. Fortunately the homes are built on the hills and everything flows downhill from here. I don’t know what it might be like for those at the bottom, but the storm drainage system seems to keep up with it all very well.
Today I made it into the ‘multi-plaza’ just as the rain began. This plaza has a large space filled with beautiful plants and open to the sky as you walk through the door. The rain began to beat hard, and the thunder to roll, and then It began to hail. My impression is that this is not a normal occurance here in Costa Rica because children and adults alike were rushing to the open space to pick up the tiny ice crystals. They seemed amazed. and I’m sure the children were asking, “Can I take it home?”
Sometimes the rain will slack off and the day brighten again, but most of the time so far, once it has started raining it hangs around and continues to fall, sometimes lightly and other times more heavily, into the night. It makes sleeping, of course, absolutely wonderful. At my home in Oklahoma I have electronic ‘rain’ via a convenient little white noise machine to help me get to sleep at night.
Here it happens naturally. I like natural better.
Usually I’m so worn out from struggling with the language that I end up taking a short nap after I’ve walked the 15 blocks from class. If it’s raining my room is nice and dark and the cool breeze sifts through to lull me into a short but very refreshing sleep. When it’s not raining, I still find that there is enough breeze to relax me. I don’t think there are many air conditioners in the homes. At least I’ve seen no evidence of any. The temperature is pretty much the same year round, though. The difference might be the humidity.
Learning a new language is tough! Perhaps if I’d had some background it might not seem so, but coming, as I have, with absolutely no formal training in Spanish, I find it a real struggle. I have always had great appreciation and admiration for the students at the college who come from their home countries to study in the U.S. and who must learn a whole new way of life language. Now my admiration has increased because I’m feeling what some of them must feel when they try to do anything and are assaulted by a barrage of words, only a few of which they may understand, and have to try to make sense enough to ask the right questions to get what they are needing.
I smile a lot. Sometimes it helps.
The teachers here (all women in this school) are muy patiente and work hard to make me feel like I’m making some progress. I sometimes wonder how bored they must be listening to me read at what feels like about a first-grade level. The equivalent of “See spot run. See spot jump. Spot is a good dog.” Well, maybe a little more complicated, but not much. Yet they continue to cheer me on.
I did get a very wonderful quick tutorial in Spanish from a very precocious nine-year-old last weekend. My new friend, Steven, as you know, invited me to share a weekend with his family camping on the Carribean side of the mountain. At one point we were sitting at the restaurant and Steven and Allison were tending to something with the other two of their three children. That left just me an El at the table. I had already asked her for clarification on a couple of words on the menu. When I asked a third time, this nine-year-old put her hand on mine and said,
“O.K. Here’s something you need to know. Really English and Spanish are just the same. Water is water in Costa Rica just like it is where you live. There’s an ‘a’ in Spanish. There’s an ‘a’ in English. There’s a ‘w’ in Spanish. There’s a ‘w’ in English. See it’s just the same. No difference! They just spell the words different is all!”
With that, she turned away to look at her own menu and left me to ponder her wisdom. She said, in effect, ‘you’ve got all you need right in front of you. Deal with it.’ If she hadn’t been sitting there I would have laughed until I split. She, of course, has grown up speaking both languages and does so interchangeably. If you say something to her in Spanish, she answers in Spanish. If in Engish, no hesitation.
Ah, to be nine and have it all sown up!
This weekend, instead of taking a tour somewhere else, I have opted to stay here so that I can figure out the bus situation between here and San Jose. I want to visit several places there - the gold museum, the teatro nationale, and several other places. The National Theater was built by coffee plantation owners to show the world that they were not just peasant farmers, but could hold their own with anyone in the world. It is supposed to rival the La Scala in it’s opulence. The gold museum holds the largest collection of pre-Columbian articles of the smooth yellow stuff. Should be interesting. There are several other places that I want to be sure to see. I’m planning to take the tours conducted in Spanish. I know I won’t get as much of the information that way, but my teachers didn’t give me enough homework to keep me busy this weekend, and I need the practice. I’ll probably buy a book at each place to fill in the blanks.
I received an email from my wander-lusing daughter, Stacy, who is presently living in Ghana, West Africa. In the email she talks about the joys and challenges of traveling and living abroad. I want to paraphrase just part of what she shares because I like it so much.
She says that traveling abroad is like being the baby sitter. You play with the kids awhile and its fun and exciting and different, and then you go home and watch reruns of Seinfield in your underwear. Living abroad is like being the mom. You wouldn’t have it any other way, and most of the time you love it. But every now and then the challenges become so overwhelming and the frustation so great, that you feel like chucking the whole thing and calling it a day.
I know that what I am experiencing falls somewhere between traveling and living. Stacy is right. There are days when I think, “I’m never gonna get this. It’s too much. (demasiado). People talk too fast. I don’t know enough words to carry on a half-way decent conversation, and right now I can only speak in the present tense, which is very limiting. I try to listen to Spanish television, but the words just jumble together and all start sounding the same. Is this going to turn out to be a huge waste of time and money?
But then I begin to think about the fact that I am in Costa Rica — actually living here for a while — and the place is beautiful and the people wonderful and I’m going to have opportunities that I’ve never had before. And the possibilities are just so llimitless.
And just this morning as I was getting ready and as I was walking to school, I realized I was thinking in Spanish – not English. Limited though it is, I was forming questions and carrying on conversations in my head in Spanish. When I got to school I didn’t speak English the whole time. I made myself live within the limits of what I can do. And, you know, it wasn’t bad at all.
And then I think, “I’m going to do this!”
But even if I can’t,
WOW, what a trip!!!!
Pura Vida!!