The Waterfall

There are some things you dread. With just the thought of them your entire body convulses, and your mind, for a brief moment, is overcome with fear. At the same time, these are the things you are drawn to. Although you’re afraid of them, it is the emotion of fear that compels you to them. These are often the risks we take – or do not take – in life, when we step outside our comfort zone, when we seek a thrill or danger. One of these things, for me, was jumping off the infamous waterfalls in Montezuma.

“About half a dozen people have died attempting to jump off the Montezuma Waterfalls.”

These were the words I read in the Costa Rica Lonely Planet. Although I read this three months ago, having no plans to travel to the difficult-to-get-to Hippie beach town on the Pacific Coast, I still felt an acute anxiety rise inside my stomach as these words leapt out from the page at me. I’ve bungee jumped without hesitation; I climbed Mount Fuji in the middle of a typhoon. So what was it about these waterfalls? One thing that didn’t help was when a friend told me how she hurt her back from not jumping correctly, and how she still felt water inside her ear two months after she took the plunge. No problem, I thought, I just wouldn’t go to Montezuma. Or so I told myself.

With the school year coming to a close, and vacation approaching, my roommate, Jacob, and I planned out our final trip together, before he headed back to the US: party in the international town of Samara, chill on the beach in Jaco, and…visit Montezuma. In the days leading up to the trip, my inner-Woody Allen began to rise to the surface. As we took the beautiful ride down the Pacific Coast from Samara to Montezuma, I found that inner feeling of anxiety bubbling in my stomach.

The hike to the falls was one of the more difficult I had ever done – or at least, one of the most dangerous. We ended up veering off the path and hiking up some pretty intense steeps. A rocky river roared below us as we scaled a cliff, trying not to think about what would happen if we slipped. Man was my heart pounding when I made it to the top.

Then we got to the waterfall. I’m perfectly satisfied swimming in the cool water, I thought. I wasn’t going to do any sort of jumping. Definitely not.

Then Jacob did it. Without hesitation, he scaled the rocks like a monkey, and leaped. And I found myself, somehow, at the water’s edge.

I wasn’t as high as Jacob. But still, it took me a few minutes, sitting on that ledge, to summon up all the courage I had. And eventually, I jumped.

When I teach creative writing, I often open with a short story I wrote where the main character overcomes his fear. This sort of thing makes for great storytelling, I tell my students. But no matter how hard a fiction writer may try to escape into his imagination, he will always have to reenter the real world, stop living vicariously through his characters (or as a teacher, through his students), and confront himself, overcome doubts, and take on challenges. As I climbed higher, and leaped again, my anxiety and sense of adventure met, and I faced my fear – the same emotion I felt as I got onto the airplane to come here, knowing I’d be living in an unknown land. Fears are there to be conquered. By overcoming ours fears, we can become as strong as a mighty waterfall.

The Dog Who Looks Both Ways

There are no street names in Costa Rica. There are no house numbers. There are no mailboxes.

Ok…so how do you get around? How do you receive mail?

Directions are geared toward the locals. A block is referred to as “100 metros”. I live 75 meters north of the Musmanni Bakery, in front of the Catholic Church. The school I work at is 400 meters south of the Panasonic Factory. These are the simple addresses.

In the city of Alajuela, a movie theater is used as a landmark. The only problem is that the movie theater has been torn down and a bank currently stands in its spot. The “Cine Alajuela” no longer exists, yet it’s used in addresses all the same. In the San Pedro section of San Jose, there was a big tree, called “higueron”, which people used for directions, and although it too has long since been gone (for a good twenty years), all Ticos know it as a landmark, even the people who deliver mail.

There are no “mailmen” per say. To receive bills, for example, a representative from the company slips them through your door (or through the bars that surround it, which are there to keep out intruders). Unless you use FedEx, which can be up to $150 a package, sending mail outside the country can take weeks, even months to be sent, if it’s delivered at all.

The driving here is more aggressive than in the States (even in New York). One of the major differences is that in Costa Rica, pedestrians do not have the right of way. Cars zoom down streets and motorcycles weave in and out of traffic as people search for an opening to cross the intersection. Not only are people accustomed to this way of life, even the stray dogs that roam the streets know to look both ways when they cross.

Foreigners often seem perplexed by the directions, mail, and traffic patterns in this country. It’s the same way in Nicaragua as well, though not in Panama, a country created by the United States for transportation of goods. When I first came to this region, I found these differences particularly striking when compared to the US. Yet the more I thought about them, the more I made sense of it all. With directions like “seventy five meters south of the bakery”, sure people need to know where the bakery is, but they also need to know where south is. It’s harder to forget the four points of the compass when that’s what’s used to get around. This can only help develop an innate sense of direction.

One thing every expat learns is that there are many ways of looking at the world. Living abroad forces you to see things from a different perspective. This cultivates open-mindedness but it also creates challenges. It’s easy to see things as black and white, good and evil; it is harder to accept a world filled with murky complexities. Being pushed out of your comfort zone is certainly part of the experience of living abroad. but maybe this is something we all have to face. We are always changing, learning, adapting to our surroundings. Even the dogs learn to look both ways.

Journey into the Jungle: Part 2 - The Coconut

My roommate, Jacob “the Dude” Westman, coined the term “Costa Rica, the new west” on our trip to Cahuita National Park. In one sense, he was describing Costa Rica as an extension of the not-so-old American idea of manifest destiny. As recent as the 1990s, US citizens and Canadians have invested heavily in developments in this country. The Oregon Trail leads to Costa Rica.

Yet in another sense, Jacob was referring to the wild west. Rules aren’t rigid here; laws are not necessarily upheld. Police officers are bribed. It’s ill advised to walk the streets alone at night because of muggings. More US passports are reported stolen in San Jose than any another city in the world.

Foreigners work hard to establish their lives in Costa Rica. They have to deal with the excruciatingly slow and difficult bureaucracy not unlike other Central American nations. They have to find their own place and then furnish it. They need to make new friends. Establishing a new life isn’t easy, but it is this very thing - the newness, this sense of adventure – which gringos seek.

One of the greatest changes that anyone living abroad has to grow accustomed to is food. What are the things that I miss the most? New York pizza. A Jersey bagel. But there are foods that are unique to the region that I was looking forward to before moving here, like fresh pineapple and rice & beans. But there is one food that has stood out above the rest. The coconut.

Jeffrey, our guide to Cahuita National Park, was taking us snorkeling, where “fruit is included in the tour”. I had nothing in my pockets, no iPhone, no money. I had no sense of time and nowhere I needed to be. When Jeffrey mentioned the fruit, I imagined fresh pineapple awaiting me, simmering on a plate on the sunny deck of a sailboat. Not quite.

Jeffrey led us to a launch, filled with canoes and enclosed by coconut trees. I watched as Jeffrey took a long wooden stick and swung it at the coconuts: one, two, three, they tumbled into the sand. Then he took one of the coconuts, leaned it against a pile of rocks, cut into it with a knife, and smashed them as hard as he could with the stick. I was so mesmerized by him that I didn’t notice that Jacob had already opened his coconut until he handed me the knife and plopped the heavy, hairy fruit in my hands.

When I tore into that coconut with the knife, smashed it with all my might with the stick, and then peeled the final layers with my bare hands, I felt primitive, otherworldly. Never had I felt further away from the streets of Manhattan. I was in a different world, a place where coconuts fall from trees and you walk barefoot in the sand. Where it’s OK to just let go and be free.

Living in Costa Rica is not without challenges. But gringos need these challenges – they seek them – so they have something to overcome. Every good story has conflict. As I put the coconut to my mouth, I realized that because I had worked for it, the juice was that much sweeter.

Journey to the Jungle: Part 1 - The Sloth

5% of the world’s biodiversity (animal and plant life) is in Costa Rica, more than Europe and the United States combined, all in an area of the size of West Virginia. Nearly every bird, mammal, fish, and critter that you could imagine resides somewhere in Costa Rica. Living in the Central Valley, I’ve been experiencing Latin culture, but I hadn’t fully experienced the wildlife of Costa Rica. That is, not until I ventured to Parque Nacional Cahuita, a wild jungle on a beautiful beach along the Caribbean Coast, rarely traveled to by the common tourist.

Accompanying me on this venture was my roommate Jacob, who is best described as “the Dude” from the movie, “The Big Lebowski”. He’s also 6’5 feet tall, which was a huge relief for my mom, because if I was traveling with him, she could rest assured that I would be safe. It was Jacob who recommended we travel to Cahuita.

Our trip began with a touch of fate. We had planned to stay in Puerto Viejo, a popular party destination south of the national park but despite bringing our backpacks and sandals to work, we still missed the final bus there. Instead we ended up passing through the town of Cahuita, and when we stepped off the bus and onto the dirt road, we immediately changed our minds. Perhaps it was the dry air against our cheeks, or the sand beneath our feet, or the laid-back feeling in the air. Whatever it was, we couldn’t resist staying overnight in the small town of Cahuita.

The chilled out vibe of Cahuita comes from a Caribbean atmosphere. In fact, the locals we talked to identified themselves more with the Caribbean than they did their native Costa Rica. Outside our hostel, we could hear people conversing in the local dialect, Mekatlyu. Whereas so much of Costa Rica has undergone development with the onslaught of tourists, Cahuita has been able to retain its culture and its natural beauty. Only a few hundred meters from our hostel was the national park. We walked along the dirt road, and within minutes, we found ourselves surrounded by monkeys, snakes, hundreds of species of birds, and my favorite, sloths.

It was on our first venture into the national park when we saw our first sloth. We had been hiking for about a half an hour, eyes pointed downwards, searching for snakes, when I commented, “hey, we should look up too and maybe we’ll see a sloth.” As soon as I said that, Jacob lifted his head and low and behold (or should I say “high and behold”), we spotted a sloth, hanging off a branch at the top of the tree line, peacefully gazing into the sky, without a worry in the world.

It seemed like fate that brought us to Cahuita; it was as if an indescribable force propelled me to tell Jacob to look for sloths in just the precise moment when one was hanging above his head. Ever since I’ve come down here – just the fact that I am down here – I’ve thought a lot about fate. But there’s also something else, something I learned from my weekend in Cahuita. Costa Rica’s most famous saying is “pura vida”. Literally, “pura vida” means “pure life”, but the meaning goes much deeper. It refers to a “go with the flow” way of thinking, just letting things happen, and believing that in the end, it will all work out. As a result of this mentality, the pace of life is very slow here, something I’ve had to grown accustomed to, coming from quite the opposite environment of hectic New York. It’s important, I think, to take it easy sometimes, to let go of our need to control our surroundings. Like the sloth hanging from a branch of the tree, sometimes you have to chill.

Gefilte Fish

The mother of one of my students invited me to her home for Shabbat dinner. As the six year old son passed the gefilte fish across the table to his grandma, I realized that somehow, in this Christian nation, I have felt as – if not more – connected to my Jewish roots than living in New Jersey or New York, where are there are more Jews than anywhere in the world, second only to Israel. How is this possible?

First, let’s look at Costa Rica’s relationship with Israel. Costa Rica was the first country to establish their embassy in Jerusalem, unlike most countries, where their embassies are in Tel Aviv so as not to offend the Palestinians’ claim on the religious city. This is a statement in itself and it stems from a very unique commonality between two nations – they are (or were) the only democracies in a region surrounded by military regimes.

What role do Jews play in Costa Rica? Well, there’s Luis Liberman Ginsburg. Who? He’s only the vice president of Costa Rica.

This country is a hospitable country to foreigners, making Costa Rica a place where Jews cannot only practice their religion, but thrive in an active Jewish community and in the community at large. Part of the reason that I’ve felt a strong connection to Judaism here is because it’s something I’m familiar with in an unfamiliar land. But I believe that it’s more than that. It stems from the fact that the Jewish community here is not only successful, but is very tight-knit. It seems like Jews here do not marry outside their faith: in every Jewish gathering I’ve attended, there has also been someone playing the matchmaker. Also the day after I informed my student that I was Jewish, he handed me his cell phone, saying, “it’s my mom”, and she extended an invitation to her home for Shabbat dinner. Would that have happened in New Jersey? Probably not. Not when there are 500,000 Jews as compared to 3500.

Yet it’s more than sheer numbers. In Japan, where there are 2000 Jews, I didn’t find the Jewish community to be as welcoming nor as active as in Costa Rica. This may be in part because the Costa Rican Jews have a rich history. Most of the oldest Jews here immigrated in the 20s and 30s from the same village – a shtetel in Poland called Yelechov. There are even 200 holocaust survivors in Costa Rica. In the center of San Jose is a statue of Anne Frank (picture above).

The Jewish community here is unlike any other Jewish community I have ever come across in my travels. Despite being accepting to Jews, Costa Rica is still a Christian dominated land, and so it’s unlikely you’ll come across a kosher restaurant or a mikvah. The Jewish community has responded to this by defining its Jewish identity in unique ways, at least from a New Jersey Jew’s perspective. My student’s family is part of the orthodox community here. Having attended Shabbat services on Friday night (as they do every week) at a synagogue where men and women are separate, they returned to the grandmother’s home to meet me for dinner…by car. They then served the vegetarian (that’s me, by the way) cheese lasagna while everyone else ate chicken. They may even be working today - one of my Jewish friends here told me that most Jewish businesses stay open on Shabbat. What I’ve gathered from all this is that there seems to be a distinction here between inside and outside the synagogue.

Judaism is not only a religion, but a culture and a race, a small minority with major success, a people of nearly 6000 years (the oldest existing religion in the world) who have survived countless persecutions. As my student’s family drove me home after Shabbat dinner, I told them that it was nice to be among Jews. “There’s a unique connection among us,” the mother responded, “which nobody else understands.”

The Adventure to Guatemala: Part 2

Cesar pulled the car over and we examined the tires in the storm. The front left and the back left were flat. We changed the front tire, which was completely dead, but we only had one spare. In order to secure a safe spot on the side of the road, we had to turn around and drive against traffic. The only lights visible in the night were those of the oncoming cars. We pulled over to the side and Cesar rang the doorbells of nearby homes to no avail. I noticed he was wincing in pain - his forefinger had turned green. He injured it while changing the tire.

Cesar called for help from Guatemala City - an hour away - and we waited. Mima sat quietly and the girls typed away on their phones while Cesar soaked his finger in the rain. Three hours later, Cesar's brother showed up with a truck, who knows where he got it from (there's no AAA in Central America). Cesar drove the van onto the back of the truck and I gazed through a misty windshield as we were driven back to Cesar's home, lost in a state of exhaustion and surreal silence.

We were the lucky ones. The next morning I awoke to a television report about landslides, "rumbas", throughout the country. The road to Antigua was closed; rescue teams were sent out, searching for people buried beneath the earth. Nine people were reported dead.

What I found most striking of all from this experience was the way the Palacios responded to the situation. Not a single complaint was made by any of the teenage girls. Not once did Mima express fear or incertitude. Cesar took charge, understanding his duty to his family, and seemed unaffected by his wife and daughters' gentle laughter when he wrapped up his finger in a makeshift splint of band-aids. I taught the family the word game "Ghost" and they demonstrated the English they had learned at their bilingual school with giggles and squeaky voices.

Things move at a slower pace down here than most places - let alone the New York area. There is less stress and worry - at least on the outside. Maybe having gone through a 36 year civil war, countless corrupt governments, and little in the way of human rights, the people of Guatemala are able to let a small crisis (or inconvenience, depending on how you look at it) glide down their backs like the falling rain. All people encounter tragedies in their lives of some form or another. Perhaps it's how we respond in the face of these events that really defines us.

The Adventure to Guatemala: Part 1

As I entered the terminal at La Aurora International Airport, I studied the faces of men and women from a different world. This was my first flight within Central America and I didn't see a single gringo lining up to get his or her ticket checked before stepping onto the plane. Guatemala was the first country I knew I would travel to before I even mored to Costa Rica. I wanted to see where Marleny, my family's housekeeper since I was three, grew up; I wanted to meet her family. I wanted to experience Central America.

In the last decade, only 5% of the murders in Guatemala were prosecuted. The number of kidnappings have quintupled; annual murder rates have risen from 2904 to 6498. Despite new penalties for femicide, they are considered useless in a country where so many murders go unsolved.

These dangers stem from poverty, which is impossible not to notice if you look out the airplane window as the plane hits the runaway in Guatemala City. Between the forests and rolling hills are dilapidated homes as far as the eye can see.

The first thing you can't help but notice when you step out of the airport are the Mayans, Nearly half the population consists of "indigenas" clad in traditional garb - striped skirts, ornate blouses, and long, beaded necklaces for the women with braided hair, cowboy-like sombreros for the men. The Mayans may be the poorest people in the country, but they possess an incredible richness in history and culture. It was to an ancient city, Antigua, where I was headed, to which my friend, Reuben, who traveled the slither of land from Costa Rica to Guatemala, described as, "the Jerusalem of Costa Rica".

Marleny's niece, her husband, and their three daughters, ages 15, 17, and 19, picked me up at the airport. Cesar, who has a note written by one of his daughters above the desk in his office that states, "el mejor papi del mundo", rented a van just to have enough room for me and my luggage (which was only a backpack).

After lunch at a nearby mall, we set off for Antigua. Not only does Antigua retain its beauty through colonial building and ancient ruins, but it is surrounded by 3 volcanoes. But I only knew of them through books and photographs. By the time we left lunch, a deep fog had taken over the sky, and it started to rain. Hard.

In the midst of a thunderstorm, Cesar Palacio took the wheel, dodging potholes left and right, on the road to Antigua. The three daughters were in the back , playing with their blackberries, and Mirna was silently observing. When our tires hit the cobblestone streets, I could tell, despite the horrid weather, that Antigua was a special place. In fact, Antigua looked pretty in the rain, heavy droplets falling in front of the lights of the Catedral de Santiago. I studied the local dwellings, built with mud, stones, and wooden poles "bajareque" style, through the blurred car window. Perhaps this was the way Antigua should be seen - the city has stood the test of time, surviving earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and has retained its traditional charm, not unlike that of Kyoto, Japan.

All was fine as we ran back into the van and left the ancient city. But on the road back to Guatemala City, Cesar was unable to avoid one of the many potholes. One was all it took.

Part 2 soon to come...

Yom Kippur in Costa Rica

There are four synagogues in Costa Rica: an orthodox and Sephardic temple in the Jewish area of Pavas, a chabad, and one in the outskirts of San Jose, which a member described as “reform or conservative – whichever way you look at it.” Costa Rica is nearly 85% Christian (70% Roman Catholic and 14% Evangelical Protestant). There are a total 2500 Jews.

B’nai Israel, the “whichever way you look at it” synagogue, was my shul of choice. I took a long taxi ride through San Jose traffic to a destination I feared the driver had no idea how to find, let alone what a "sinagoga" was (my explanation: Una iglesia para judio!). The sun set and it was dark. But as I scanned the buildings out the window, I spotted the Magen David (Jewish star) in the window and shouted, “Esso!”

The services were conducted in English, Spanish, and Hebrew. I felt strangely drawn to the Spanish prayers, to chanting aloud in the native tongue. When the service ended, I kibitzed with the congregants. They were from all over the world: Spain, Mexico, USA, Colombia. The rabbis were a couple from Argentina.

Although I wasn’t spending the holiest of days with my family, I was glad to experience Yom Kippur in Latin America. It felt good to be part of a larger community. There I was, saying the same prayers as Jews around the world, atoning for my sins, fasting. It’s nice to know that almost anywhere I go in the world there will be a synagogue for me to go to, the Magen David proudly displayed. Now if only that were the case with a good bagel.

Final Thoughts on Fate

This is my third time in Costa Rica. The first was a trip with my family and the second a group tour when I was in high school. There was a rebellious side to me as a teenager - I lauded Catcher in the Rye, and opposed almost anything mainstream. I associated a lot of these ideas with music, hailing classic rock as the sole genre worth listening to and insisting that that pop had no value except as a drug of conformity.

It was on an organic farm in Costa Rica that I put Zeppelin II into my CD player for the first time, watching rain pound against the roof of my camping tent. The effect that album had on my rebel teenage spirit was immense: when I returned from the trip, I arrived at school with “Ramble On” blasting through open windows.

In college, I got into more current music, rap, modern rock, and eventually jazz. While my devotion to The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and The Who remained strong, Led Zeppelin loomed farther into the background. As the years passed, I listened to them less and less.

Two weeks after moving to Costa Rica, I scanned my iTunes list for something to listen to. I had forgotten about the night on the organic farm with Zeppelin in my ears. Yet that night, I chose Zeppelin II. But that wasn’t all. The strangest thing wasn’t that I happened to put on the same album I got into the last time I was here, but that I got the same feeling I had while listening to it. I was into it like I had been that rainy day…a decade ago. It was only later that I made the connection. As the lyrics go, “I’m goin’ round the world, on my way, I’ve been this way ten years to the day…”

Journey into Nature Part 2: Is it fate?

As soon as I arrived in Costa Rica, there was talk about fate. Now I’ve never really been a believer in fate – I believe in choice and in God. In the recent months before coming here, I was becoming wary of making decisions. Maybe it was my future looming in the distance, but for whatever reason, I began taking a different approach for the small decisions: let fate handle it. And then suddenly, and completely unexpectedly, I ended up in Costa Rica.

When I first arrived here, Carlos told me the story about how the day he arrived in Costa Rica was the same day his wife's birthday (who is a Tica). Is that fate? My journey to Barva looking for the waterfall to no end, yet finding myself in the very festival I thought I was missing…is that fate? And why am in Costa Rica, anyway? Three weeks before landing at Juan Santamaria International Airport, feeling the humidity hit my cheeks, I never would have imagined myself living here.

With these thoughts circulating, I made a second attempt to escape the urban life and commune with nature. This time, I would head past Barva to San Jose de la Montana, which I was told, was a real mountain town, and was near the entrance of Barva Volcano. I didn’t know how long it would take to hike up to the peak of the volcano, or which path to take, all I knew was that I wanted to find a spot in the woods, eat a sandwich (I packed a PB&J with pretzels), and read my book (In Cold Blood).

I hopped on a bus, and when I arrived in San Jose de Montana, I got off at the very last stop, and asked the bus driver, “Donde esta la Montana?” Keep hiking up, he said, take a right, and a left, and then I’d reach the volcano. It sounded simple enough.

Simple, sure, but long and steep. I hiked up that road for four hours…and it felt fantastic. As I walked higher and higher, it became more rural and rural. I saw cows grazing on a cloudy field. Wet local cheeses for sale lying lonesome on a wooden table. A middle-aged man and woman igniting a fire with sticks along a stream. As I kept hiking, I entered into a white mist. It was gorgeous drifting through the trees that dotted the hills. But soon, I couldn’t see any trees. All I could see was white. I was in a cloud.

Fine, I thought, I could keep going all day – maybe I’d even reach the volcano. But then it started to rain.

I took shelter at a nearby restaurant – the first one I had seen for miles (or should I say kilometers). I had an umbrella but I didn’t bring my rainjacket, and I was getting cold. I knew then that I was done hiking for the day, even if I was just three kilometers from the entrance to the volcano. I had imagined the walk from the entrance to the base of the volcano to be a five-hour journey, but I’d find out later, it was only five kilometers away.

I sat down at the restaurant and was thrilled to see a cheese omelet on the menu. Cheese omelets here mean ham and cheese, so I tried to explain what I wanted to the waitress (no ham!), and a man came over asking if I needed help. I didn’t really, but I let him anyway. He said, “Welcome to Costa Rica!”, and sat back down with his family of four. When the omelet arrived, he came to my table again, and said, “Don’t worry, I already paid.”

I was wowed by this man’s generosity. Then as I began to walk back down, I debated whether I should try hitchhiking or not. On the one hand, it was pouring, but on the other, was it safe, in a country with metal bars and electric fences in front of homes? I finally got fed up with the rain, stuck out my thumb, and was picked up twice.

Although I didn’t reach the peak of Volcan Barva, it felt great to hike, and see rural parts of the country. And although I didn’t reach my goal – I never found that spot where I could sit down, eat my sandwich, and read – I discovered something more valuable. Maybe the generosity of the people I had met that day came from the fact that they were from the countryside, or maybe it was because they thought I was a tourist, and they wanted to make a good impression of their country. But still, what it showed to me, was that certain values have no bounds, and one of them, which makes humankind so great, is kindness.

Journey into Nature Part 1: Is it fate?

I wanted to escape the city and go into the mountains. I found on wikitravel a “gorgeous waterfall and swimming hall” in the “small and cute” town of Barva, which is just north of Heredia. None of the local Gringos or Ticos who I asked about the waterfall had ever heard of such a place, but that didn’t stop me from journeying into the unknown.

While on the bus, I reached for my guide book and read that Barva is known for the Feria de la Mascarada, where performers dress up in lavish costumes and wear huge masks (some of which weight up to 20 kg) of demons, devils….and local celebrities. The festival was on the upcoming Wednesday…I was three days too early.

I imagined Barva as a quiet village set under the shadow of Barva Volcano. But this was no mountain village. The main square was filled with people, out with family and friends, and vendors, selling churros and chop suey. I left the bus and read the directions, “Facing the church, walk left, then take your first left. Follow that road for a quarter of a mile…to the left will be a trail going down to the river.” I took the first left and walked down the road…

...as I walked, I came across a flat white building with music blasting from inside. I peeked my head in. There was a girl dancing, dressed in traditional garb, a white, green, and red plaited dress, in front of a screen that showed pictures of Jerusalem and had lyrics about Jesus. Everyone was chanting with incredible fervor, besides a detached teenage girl sneaking peeks at her cell phone. An old woman saw me and motioned for me to enter so I did, and I stood there and watched. I thought about my time at the discoteca and how dancing and singing was such a big part of the culture here…and I made the connection to religion. I suppose certain things are engrained in society and they're all interconnected. I thought about a night in Heredia when I heard blasting salsa music coming from a large hall and when I looked inside, I was surprised to see not the young students from the university nearby, but a crowd of old men and women, dancing their heads off. You’d never see that in the States, I thought, it’s not an integral part of our culture, something we learn as a child, and continue until we’re elderly, like dancing to a bolero, or bolting out tunes at karaoke, or juggling a soccer ball with our feet.

I continued down the road. But I saw no trail, river, just houses, and cars speeding by me at dangerous speeds. So I retraced my steps and took the second left instead of the first. This time I passed a river, and thought I was going the right way…but never saw a trail. By this point, I had walked quite a bit, so I took a taxi back to the main square, ready to admit there was no waterfall (but now, I wonder if it could have been the other "left"...)

When I got to the town square, a van stopped in front of me and eight young men and women dressed in costumes and giant masks walked out. They began dancing in a circle, and I realized that the reason the square was so packed with people was because today, not the upcoming Wednesday, was the Feria de la Mascarada. I watched the performance with glee, thinking, sometimes the unexpected comes true.

Starting a New Life

August 17, 2011

I’ve finally moved into my own place: a two-bedroom apartment in a great neighborhood for a reasonable price. Only it’s unfurnished…which in Costa Rica means no stove, no fridge, no bed, no table, not even a chair.

To make things more difficult, I moved in on Mother’s Day, and Ticos really love their mothers. Nearly all shops close (the two days prior are so busy they’re like the Black Friday) and the locals spend time with their families. One of the few stores open is Walmart, which is really expensive here, so there was no way I was buying furniture there. But at least I could get a bottle of raid. When I moved into my apartment, the shower curtain was suspiciously closed; then when I opened it, low and behold – a cockroach had discovered a nice wet spot to reside. Throughout the apartment, there were bugs everywhere. My sister had told me a story before I left about how when she was in Costa Rica, she woke up to a tarantula descending towards her. I didn’t particularly want that experience.

I got a little lost on my way to Walmart and found myself wandering through a residential area I hadn’t been. I came across a soccer game and middle class families were watching the players move like acrobats in the rain. This was how I imagined Central America.

Back at the apartment, I took out the bottle of raid and sprayed every nook and cranny of the place. I removed the dead cockroach in the shower, killed the spider in the bedroom, and squashed the small, fly-like creatures, which were easy to kill, but were also intent on sticking to the most difficult to reach corners of the room. I discovered one spider in the laundry room that had built a web that was quite impressive. You could tell that that spider had labored over it, that it had lived there for a long time (in spider years).

When I killed the spiders, they all put up a fight – crawling away, flailing their little legs – except for the spider that made the intricate web. That spider let go after a single spray of Raid, as if it knew this day would come. Although I killed every other insect in the place to the point where my apartment reeked of bug spray, and I obliterated all the other webs, I didn’t tear down that spider’s web. I couldn’t destroy its home.

Religious Pilgrimage

Every August 2nd, Ticos (Costa Ricans), Nicos (Nicaraguans), and citizens of other nations in the region walk from their hometown to La Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles in the ancient capital of Cartago. Old men, women, and small children alike make the journey, some from miles away, and for weeks on end. When they finally reach the basilica, many complete the last two hundred meters on their knees.

They make this journey to see a statuette less than a meter tall. La Negrita, or “The Black Virgin”, is a representation of the Virgin Mary. The story goes that it was found at the basilica in Cartago by a native woman on August 2nd, 1635, and when she tried to take it, it miraculously reappeared…twice. Although La Negrita may be small, it is incredibly holy to Ticos, who have declared her the “patron Virgin”.

Needles to say, I wanted to see what all the fuss was all about.

With a day off work on August 2nd for the holiday, I made plans to go to Cartago immediately. The only problem was I couldn’t find anyone to go with me - everyone who I met here had either already taken the journey, or had no intention of going. Well, it wouldn’t be the only time I traveled solo.

But then it got more complicated. Monse told me that the pilgrims were completing their walk on August 1st. I had to work that day and would have to go at night. Pickpocketing is a bit of a problem in Costa Rica and it is ill advised to go out at alone at night. Even worse, I would have to take a bus through San Jose, which is not only more dangerous than Heredia, but it is a city in which I had never been – plus I would have to walk through the city center to get the bus to Cartago. (There are no “bus stations” here really, you just have to find the street where the bus you want goes – oh and there aren’t addresses here either. Seriously. I currently live at “one hundred and fifty meters from the so-and-so high school” and it’s not uncommon to have addresses where something occurred, like a famous person was born or died, or even near buildings that no longer exist. Addresses are geared toward the locals. But we’re getting off topic.)

I decided to be prudent and go in the morning on August 2nd to see the mass instead. So I was up at 6:30 (a late day…I’m usually up at 5:45 for work) and bussed it out there (no, I wasn’t making the trek). Out the bus window, I got to see a few of the last pilgrims on the final leg of the journey. I took out my camera for the first time since I arrived here and snapped away.

When I reached La Basilica, an impressive structure, there were throngs of people praying with umbrellas. I made my way into the crowd of people who hymned away, watching the priests through a TV screen and gazing at La Negrita, enshrined in gold.

A police plane flew dangerously low and dropped something from the sky. I had no idea what was falling and I ducked under a stranger’s umbrella, shielding my face with my hands. But then I saw what it was that the plane had let fall from the sky – they were flowers.

I looked around to see if I could spot any other gringos. I didn’t see any but one thing’s for sure: I was the only Jew here. But having gone to a Jewish day school, I was familiar with the act of praying; although people of differing religions seem so opposed to each other, there is a certain connection they have, an understanding.

I spent forty minutes or so at the mass. I found a spot in the grass near a mom and three kids who were Nicos. When the prayers came to a (temporary) end, one of the children turned to me and put out his hand. I shook it. Strangers all around me offered me their hands. And they said two words. “La Paz.”

There are certain ideas that have no boundaries. No matter our nationality, religion, or race, we all share the human ideals. I thought back to when I was at Strawberry Fields in Central Park on the 70th Anniversary of John Lennon’s death and New Yorkers chanted “Give Peace a Chance!” We stood out in the December cold for hours to commemorate a symbol of peace. I remembered my time studying Hebrew in Israel, and thinking how “Shalom” was the only word in the language with three meanings – Hello, Goodbye, and Peace. And here, every person who had made the incredible journey to the basilica had come to pray for the same ideal. Peace is Costa Rican: there is no army, no war. But it’s more. Although countries may be divided, and their differences may be vast, peace has no boundaries.

La Discoteca

Carlos’ wife taught me how to dance merengue and salsa in preparation for a night out at the local “middle class discoteca”. I put on the pleather shoes I bought last week at Moo Shoes in the Lower East Side of Manhattan just for this occasion, and Monse taught me the “basicos” of these dances in the living room.

It was at the discoteca that I received the dose of culture that I was looking for. Ticos (Costa Ricans) flocked to the dance floor as the night wore on, dressed to impress. Each song was a different style. In addition to salsa and merengue, there was reggaeton, a Latin urban music that originated in Panama and has become very popular in Costa Rica, along with several other songs and dances. All of them were not only distinct musically and had different dances, but they had their own character. Most impressive was Cumbia, a dance that originated as a courtship dance with African slaves, which was so quick that it looked like it was in fast forward motion, and Carlos even “pulled a muscle while doing it once.” I wasn’t surprised. The men spun the women in circles, they held each other’s arms behind their backs, then in front, knees and feet never stopped moving. The dance was so fast that the exactitude of the movements were almost indiscernible. I found myself watching one couple, who Carlos described as “doing it right.” They were mesmerizing.

I wanted to try my hand at merengue. I noticed a group of girls looking over at the “gringo” so I asked one of them, “quiere bailar?” After a nod of the head, she joined me on the dance floor, and I led with the correct steps this time, Monse’s instructions in my head, “Always keep your knees and feet moving; take both of her hands and move them up and then around outlining el sol; take your right hand off her waist and spin around with your back toward her, then take her hand with your left and spin her; take your right hand off her waist and spin around her with your back toward her again, but this time take her left hand with your right and her left with your right and spin her; keep spinning”.

I was sweating like crazy and we danced in so many circles I was surprised I wasn’t seeing double. I had never put so much thought into dance moves before, which made the experience kind of rewarding, but the most fun I had were the times when I let go and went with my instincts.

The evening was a uniquely Latin experience and definitely a highlight of my time here so far. Unlike in the States, the dances here have specific moves that the locals learn from a young age. In addition to having a great time trying out these moves for the first time, I was impressed with the exactitude of the dances, the speed to which they were performed, and ultimately, the sheer joy in the faces of the Ticos.

First Two Days in Costa Rica

7/22/2011

The mixed emotions of fear and excitement in moving to a new country are similar to that of teaching. Entering into an unknown world takes courage, and so does standing in front of a classroom for the first time. By putting great efforts into my teaching here, and attempting to use the most effective methods to bring out success, I hope that success in the classroom will translate to my overall experience in Costa Rica, like it did when I lived in Japan and China. I wonder if the two - teaching and living in a foreign land - are inextricably bound. There is the obvious reason behind so many teaching jobs for foreigners abroad - to fill a need. But is it more than that? To be a teacher is to be a particular kind of person - one who is willing to meticulously plan and at the same time, be able to think on one's feet; this is much like the ambitious world traveler, who plans trips, yet often possesses an inclination for spontaneity. The best teachers have eyes in the back of their head; you ought to be aware of your surroundings in a strange place. There is nothing better to a teacher than seeing the excitement of a student learning something new, the same emotion that a foreigner feels when he or she embraces a different culture. Perhaps even the obligation that teachers feel toward their students is what motivates the person who lives abroad - a feeling of obligation to oneself, or God, or life.

There are five things I'd like to accomplish in this new chapter of my life: be the best teacher I can be, learn as much Spanish as possible, learn how to dance salsa and merengue, travel, and soak up the culture like a sponge.

Until I get settled, I'm living with my friend Carlos and his wife, who are incredible hosts. They've been helping me with everything from picking me up at the airport to driving me around to cooking meals to translating from Spanish to English. They've taught me a few words of Costa Rican slang. "Tuanis!", which means "Great!", supposedly comes from gringos saying "Too nice!" and "Que buena nota!" is slang for "Que Cool!". The one that has earned the most laughter so far, however, is "chunche", which translates into "thingumajig" (a "lazy word").

That's all for now. I'm going merengue and salsa dancing Saturday night. The experience will be recorded in my next blog.