Pura Vida

Living in Costa Rica is such a change from living in NYC. I knew that coming down here, but knowing it and seeing the effect this place has on me are two totally different things. The country´s motto (for lack of a better term) is Pura Vida. Litterally it means "pure life" but Costa Ricans have made it into much more than that. It´s a way of living. It´s a good life. No one is in a rush here. It´s taken me a while to get used to the notion that I can be late to things and no one will even care. It´s been good for this up-tight, former New Yorker, who has been living her life needing to be at least 5 minutes early to EVERYTHING (earlier, depending on the importance of the event). But you`d be proud to know that I´ve been running late to a lot of things. This is mainly due to my roommate DeAnna who is the opposite of me and is late to everything. We´re helping each other in this aspect.

But Pura Vida means more than just being late to things. It means that life is good. And honestly, down here, life IS good! I love it here. All of us talk about finding a place to rent along a beach and moving down here for a couple of years. I´d be lying if I said I wasn´t contemplating it. Seriously...I´d be totally happy to live here for a year and truly emerse myself in the life. They have a bunch of TOEFL programs here that I would consider doing. TOEFL is the certification you need to teach English. And that could lead me to either working here or really anywhere in the world! I´m honestly considering it if this new job of mine doesn´t work out.

There is only one thing that is hard to get used to - all the beans and rice we eat! Luckily my "mom" understands that we aren´t used to having rice and beans at EVERY meal, so she often gives us cereal in the morning or fixes us pancakes or French toast. Ok...before I say more on the whole rice and beans things...let me quickly talk about this French toast. It´s not you´re normal run of the meal French toast. It encrusted with corn flakes!! That may sound a little odd, but let me tell you, it´s amazing! I´m going to try it when I get home. I´m hoping it will taste almost as good as Doris´s. Plus everything is cooked in real oil - none of this PAM stuff that I´m so famous for using.

But back to rice and beans. They really weren´t kidding when they said you ate these two items at every meal. For example: today for lunch we had rice, beans, potatoes, and gravy. It´d be a lie to say it wasn´t tasty...but I´ve only been here two weeks and already starting to get sick of rice and beans. They serve it with everything. Even when we had spaghetti, we had rice to go along. And it was also in this cream of potato soup (this was actually really good though and might try to recreat it upon returning to the states). It makes me crave American food such as pizza, hamburgers, mashed potatoes and gravy (without the rice), etc. I´m pretty sure it´ll be a while until I want anything with rice and beans in it (probably no Cafe Rio for me for a while sadly).

But seriously, life here is great. If I were to live here, though, it would definitley be OUTSIDE of San Jose. It´s prety dirty here and one doesn´t see the true Costa Rican way of living until you get outside of the city (in my perspective anyway). I haven´t spent too much time in the city center, but that´s mainly because the time I have spent there hasn´t really drawn me back. I´m planning on spending a few days exploring the city though, so after that I´ll be able to comment more.

I´m getting used the routine of being here: waking up in the morning to an already prepared breakfast, having a lunch packed and ready for me to take with me to eat at Maximo Nivel (the volunteer center), then upon returning home around 7 having dinner already in the works. After work, I spend the remainder of the day reading or playing on the computer (I want to limit this though) and then taking Spanish lessons. Also, once a week my mom does my laundry. Like I said...one could get used to living la pura vida. And it doesn´t hurt that I´ve gone to a beach each weekend and have trips planned for the remaining weekends I´m here. What can I say? I´m just doing my best to live the Costa Rican way of life.

Oh...here are some more pictures of the kids I work with. They are so great!! I want to adopt them all as my own (ok...maybe not ALL of them...but most). They really like stickers and get excited when we bring them out. One day even I got included in the sticker fun when Suzie put them all over my face and arms. They are just adorable!