The Greatest Miracle

My adventure to Costa Rica began when I found a job teaching at the Pan American School, an international bilingual high school outside of San Jose. It was there that I spent the majority of my time, teaching adolescents about literature, test-taking, and how to write. The day before my flight back to the U.S.A., I stopped by the Pan American School to pick up my final check, and I chatted with the principal, coworkers, and secretaries, completing my journey where it began.

I then went to a hostel near the airport and reread the previous blog posts, reflecting on my past experiences: dancing merengue at the local discoteca; killing spiders in my unfurnished apartment; having shabbat dinner with my student's family; seeing my first sloth; cutting open a coconut straight from the tree; jumping off a waterfall; living by candlelight.

What did I learn from these experiences? Peace has no boundaries. Sometimes the unexpected comes true. How we respond in the face of challenges helps define us. Sometimes, we have to chill. When you work for something, the juice is that much sweeter. Even dogs learn to look both ways. We gain strength by overcoming our fears. There is a tranquil beauty in living the simple life.

Walking out the doors of the Pan American School on my last day in Costa Rica, I realized that there was something greater than all the experiences. I was glad to have known Philip Bennie, the vice principal who hired me, Carlos and Monse, who welcomed me into their home when I first arrived and invited me to spend Christmas with their family, and Jacob, who gave tremendous advice on the art of teaching. It was the people, not the experiences, who made the difference.

Last spring, I never would have imagined that I'd live in Costa Rica. And then there I was, the humid air against my cheeks, rice and beans on my plate, español all around me like surround sound. It was surreal. The fact that I had the opportunity to reside in such an inspiring country as Costa Rica - it almost seemed like a miracle.

I missed the bright lights of Manhattan, the nightlife of the Village, Brooklyn pizza, New Jersey bagels. I wanted to be in New York when the Giants beat the Patriots. But I didn't come back home...for home. I came back for my friends, who gathered at Genesis Bar in the Upper East Side the night before I left for the tropics, and for my entire family, who read and commented on every blog I posted, loving and supporting me in whatever I chose to do.

The day after I walked out the doors of Newark Airport, feeling the brisk air against my face, I went to Primavera Italian Restaurant in West Orange, New Jersey, for the celebration of my grandmother's ninety-fifth birthday. Only four months ago, Grandma Naomi had a seizure, and was delirious in St. Barnabas Hospital, the same place I was born, in Livingston, N.J. Somehow, she regained the faculties of her mind, revitalized her spirit, and exited the doors of the hospital in nearly the same state as which she entered.

In that hospital, where I came into the world, my grandmother went off to a faraway place, and through a sense of determination nothing short of extraordinary, and with the strength of a mighty waterfall, she came back to life. At her birthday dinner, I asked her what her secret was, living to the ripe old age of ninety-five. She replied, "Well, that's easy, Jonah. It's sitting right here, family." As she blew out the candles on her birthday cake, I realized that here, in New Jersey, I was witnessing the greatest miracle of all.

Japan and Costa Rica: An Unlikely Parallel

With my first time living abroad being in Japan, it is inevitable that I would attempt to make parallels between my experience there and my life here. Because of this, I initially took these comparisons with a grain of salt, assuming they were forced connections, stemming from the personal in a way that they would interfere with discovering the universal truths that writers so desperately seek. But after living in Costa Rica for some time, I must admit that I have come across many striking similarities between these seemingly disparate nations.

There is a well known social phenomena in Japan described as ¨honne¨ and ¨tatemae¨. I recall explaning the difference between ¨honne¨ (a person´s true feelings) and ¨tatemae¨(behavior one displays in public) to some gringos who had lived here for many years. They replied immediately, ¨sounds exactly like Ticos!¨ When I repeated this to another group of gringos, they responded in the same way. And so on.

This was when I began to notice several odd and inexplicable connections between these faraway nations with completely different histories. In both Asian and Latin American cultures, family values are stressed. Youths live with their parents until they are married. Both the Japanese and Ticos are polite and hospitable and this is reflective in their use of language. Japanese has two distinct forms: polite and casual. Spanish also has the ¨usted¨¨and ¨tu¨ forms. Yet it is the Ticos in particular who use the polite form more than any other people in the region. Husband to wife, parent to child, even master to pet use the polite form in Costa Rica. Yes, when speaking to your dog or cat in Costa Rica, you ought to use ¨usted¨.

In Japan, the word ¨chotto¨, or ¨a little¨, is used all the time. In Costa Rica, Ticos add diminutives to everything. The Japanese have varying degrees of politeness, conveyed in how far and for how long you bow, to ways of saying ¨thank you¨ (arrigatou, arrigatou gozaimasu, arrigato gomazaimashita, domo, domo arrigatou, etc.). If you look at language as reflective as culture, these similarities speak volumes.

One of the biggest differences between these nations is their view of religion. Costa Rica, like nearly all countries in the Americas, is a Chritian nation. Japan, on the other hand, is very irreligious. Discussing religion with someone from Japan is like chatting about sports. I remember how the majority of the Japanese had no idea when I asked them the differences between Buddishm and Shintoism, the two major religions. In fact, some people couldn´t even remember which religion they belonged to - or they belonged to both. Customs define society, not religion.

Still, Japan is filled with little shinto shrines in homes and along streets. When I first moved to Costa Rica, I remember walking down the block from my apartment and noticing a Christian shrine. It bore such a striking resemblance to those in Japan that I stopped in my tracks when I saw it, and caught myself staring in amazement. From gaijin to gringo, in certain ways, I hadn´t traveled very far.

Living the Simple Life

It was time for a change. My best friends here, Carlos, Monse, and Jacob, had either returned to the US or were about to. I liked Heredia, the city where I was living, but I wanted to explore other parts of Costa Rica; I wanted to experience something completely different. So I quit my job, sold my furniture bit by bit, from my bed to my favorite coffee mug, and moved out of my apartment and into a room lit by candlelight, with a shower without hot water.

I currently live at Alba Nueva, the New Dawn Center http://www.thenewdawncenter.info/about-newdawn.html, an organic farm in the Talamanca Mountains, the unexplored, rarely traveled, extension of the Andes Mountain Range, in the southern region of Costa Rica. Each morning, I work, which consists of either construction (we´re building a bamboo structure), mixing concrete, or planting and weeding in the vegetable garden. It´s not exactly lesson planning.

For lunch, we eat organic vegetables, straight from the garden, and fresh fruit, right off the trees. In the afternoon, I take classes: naturopathy, massage therapy, medicinal plants, and Spanish. The farm is run by Ed, who moved to Costa Rica 30 years ago from the US, married Jessica, a local Tica, and raised two sons here. The only other people living on the farm are Tanner and Ryell, a couple who are studying abroad through a college in Washington State. Each night, we eat dinner together and write in our journals.

This new simple life is not without its challenges. First of all, the buildings have been constructed with open spaces and we are surrounded by critters of all kinds; I´ve seen a tarantula already. Needless to say, I sleep beneath a mosquito net with a bottle of "Off" insect repellant by my side.

But it isn´t the mosquitoes that worry me, or even the tarantulas. As soon as the sun comes down, the snakes come out. I walk through the grass with a flashlight in hand, stomping the ground to let them now that I´m coming. Snakes don´t bother you if you don´t bother them...so I make sure, every step of the way, that the rounded twig I see lying in the grass in front of me is, in fact, a twig.

The classes have been challenging in their own right. It isn´t that they are difficult (there are no tests) but they challenge the modern way of thinking. Naturopathy is a controversial alternative to modern medicine, claiming to cure all sorts of diseases, even cancer. Every day I learn a new way of looking at the world.

The diet it professes - vegetables, fruit, grains, nuts, and seeds, ´the diet of our ancestors´- is quite different from the Standard American Diet (which Ed abbreviates, ´SAD´). I am a vegetarian, which helps, but I love my carbs, and I´ve already caved and cooked up some pasta.

When I first arrived and Ed told me he was putting me in a room ¨lit by candelight and closer to nature¨, I said I´d prefer a room with electricity. But then I changed my mind. There is a certain freedom of not having to check my watch for the time, of not having a phone vibrating in your pocket - of living with the bare essentials. I´ve found myself strangely compelled to the simple life.