Missing Home

       I titled this post "Missing Home" because it is what I feel most strongly right now! I´m having a great time here and this has been such a learning experience for me so far...but I miss Elliot and my family! At least the scenery is absolutely beautiful, like the photo above from Cahuita! Anyways, since I last posted, I was on my way to my rural stay, and that´s where I am right now. The city is called Llano Bonito and it reminds me so much of my trip to Jamaica with Joe, GGG, and Ripon College students! I chose this city because it is where I am going to conduct my research for my Music, Identity...and Culture? final research paper. I´m not exactly sure what my title is anymore or what question exactly I´m going to write it on because my professor encouraged me to reasearch a more specific topic, since I don´t have that much time left in the semester. Apparently this is like my Psych classes where I want to tackle on thesis topics instead of small research papers! Oh well, it´s best for me to listen to my professors on this one because I don´t want to stress myself out with more questions than I can research during my three weeks (now two) here!

       Those of you who know me know that I am somewhat of a workaholic and like to constantly keep myself busy. If I want to stereotype, I would say that that is one reason why I miss the United States, because it is one of the top countries for having the population work the longest hours for most days throughout the year. I definitely don´t think that is healthy or so much a good thing for most people who don´t even like their jobs or want to spend more time with their families, don´t get me wrong, but compared to the Costa Rican culture here where most of my days are spent watching TV for hours on end...yeah, I miss the busy life of the United States and feeling like I have a busy schedule at least Monday-Friday. I am in Llano Bonito with one of my ACM friends Christina and we feel like this is more of a vacation than volunteering to work with making natural products with the Women´s Organization here, or me teaching computer classes to the women! Joe says I should really try to find my inner relaxed and non-busy Crystal while I am here, since that is the way of the Costa Rican culture, and I really am trying. But I don´t like watching TV for six hours a day, only giving computer classes (my supposed to be busy job here) three days a week for two hours, and then free time for the rest of the 24 hours a day. My host family house here only has two channels on the TV (both are either news, soap operas or soccer) and no internet or computer, hence why we only watch TV all day! Just like Jamaica, however, this place makes me very grateful for the sources of entertainment I have back in the United States that is just a normal part of my every-day life. I go to Christina´s host family every day for a couple hours to use their computer for internet, but that still leaves me with a lot of free time throughout the rest of the day. If I was back at home, I would just go to a friend´s house or go our somewhere fun in the city...but the only fun place to go here without wanting to pay to take a bus somewhere for an hour are the local bars with pinball machines. Haha, and when we do go to a family´s house just to visit...guess what they are doing and what we just end up doing as well? Watching soap operas on TV. I sleep ten hours a day just to take off hours of the day from watching TV! Also, Christina and I joke around that the families are trying to make us overweight because of all the delicious food they feed us sometimes five large meals a day! That is one element I know I am going to miss when I get back to the United States...the excellent food here. It seems like ALL the women in Costa Rica are excellent cooks and I want to eat everything in front of me, which isn´t good since they put so much food out for us on the table. Every morning I wake up here looking forward to hot chocolate and a fresh, cheese tortilla thing, can´t remember the name in Spanish, and marshmellow frosted flakes, something I haven´t had in over seven years.

       The scenery here truly is beautiful though - very natural and peaceful. While in one of the houses here (for an interview for my research), she told me to look out the window, and all I saw was a valley of mountains, just like the photo below! The view was incredible! It was probably one of the best views I have seen here in Costa Rica (and I´m sure I have many more to come). I wish anyone who loves natural resources and is against logging or deforestation could see this place. I believe the photo below is of cocoa trees. It was awesome because the woman pointed out the cocoa workers on the mountain across from us; they were so far away they looked like mini-people.

       Here is another picture of what the valley and mountains look like here. :) You can see some houses if you look really hard. It´s very pretty at night when you only see the street lights across the mountain against all the fog here, and there is a lot. It has as much fog as Marina, CA!

       So, my journey contines on in Llano Bonito. Although I don´t have internet or cable in my host family´s house, at least I have warm water - warm, but not hot like in San José. Poor Christina has to bathe in ice-cold water. I´ve already done that in Jamaica for two weeks, I´m very grateful I don´t have to do that again! The showers are different here in Costa Rica though to where you have to only turn on the water a tad bit, otherwise you don´t get any warm water! I think a large group of the ACM students had to figure that out the hard way after taking a couple of cold showers. I didn´t though, since I asked my family in San José the first day if I had access to hot water! So during my first shower in Costa Rica, I messed around with the shower knob until I figured out how to access the hot water. That´s it for now...can´t wait until I see Elliot, family and friends near Christmas-time! :)