Pure Life

Hello one and all!

Sorry it has taken me so long to update you all on the adventure. WorldTeach has kept us incredibly busy for the last month. I keep hearing about how once we get settled in we´ll get so bored, but right now I have a hard time believing it. I don´t know if I´ve ever been as tired as I was those first 48 hours from the airport in Fort Worth to my bed in Orosi, Costa Rica. After arriving at the hostel in San Jose around 11:30 or 12, we - that is all of the other 20 volunteers and myself - had to determine a shower schedule. One of the last one´s to shower in the night I didn´t get to bed until 2-ish, took a two and half hour nap, and woke up to a still unknown person´s annoying alarm.

Everybody, awake by 5 am, rushed to repack toiletries and grab some food before beginning our paperwork for immigration at 7 in the morning and of course in Spanish. The moment that was finished we were whisked off to the fingerprinting office where we had the first test of our Spanish abilities, answering questions like married or single, how much school have you finished, mother´s maiden name, etc. Without so much as a bathroom break, we were off to La Clinica Biblica, the private hospital where WorldTeach has arrangements with two English speaking Tico doctors for when we are really in need. Ten minutes into the Safety and Health speech given by Dr. Longworth, we experienced the now infamous earthquake from the fifth floor of the hospital. Once the building finished swaying, we filed outside with everyone else to wait while some officials checked the building. The next thirty minutes were spent watching the window washers hurriedly trying to scale the building so they could take the stairs back down.

After the Safety speeches were complete, we took our private bus to Orosi, the site of orientation where we would be living for the next month. As wonderful as it is to watch the scenery passing by as one approaches a new city, I don´t think any of stayed away for the whole ride. Worn out and groggy, we finally arrived at OTIAC, Orosi Tourist Information and Adventure Center, where we would be taking Spanish classes and having ¨charlas,¨ aka talks, on teaching and living in Costa Rica, and were bombarded with infomation from Sarah, the Canadian owner, about how to approach our new host mother (literally, how to greet her), what to do to keep from being overfed, and how to handle our first night with our host family. I have never seen so many overwhelmed faces in my entire life. We were all scared shitless to meet our new family, but being so tired and ready to crash, we gave fear a back seat to joy at having a homebase and time to rest.

That´s the story of the first 48 hours. Most of the rest of orientation, which I will fill you in about little by little as I find internet cafés, was about as intense and fast pace. Whenever we weren´t at OTIAC, we had prearranged bonding moments at various locations throughout the town, and whenever we had a break from those, I developed my new favorite past time - sleep. I have come to appreciate sleep in a way I never would have thought about before. During college, sleep was to rest and gain energy for classes or to study. Sleep is still a wonderful way to rest, but more importantly, it is the only time when I actually get to be alone and process everything that´s going on around me. And I can do it in the language of my choice, a strange sort of Spanglish that even I don´t exactly understand.

I have so much more to tell y´all about - the crazy traffic conditions, the beauty of Cahuita´s Black Beach, the insanity that was my toliet in Orosi, and San Gerardo de Rivas, the paradise that is to be my home for the next year of my life, but I will have to let it out little by little. I´m still processing everything that went on during orientation, and I´m just beginning to embrace the Tico way of being - Pura Vida.