Monday, September 21, 2009

Checkin in....

Hello everybody and welcome back, I hope everybody is doing great and of coarse had a great summer. I think its coming to and end up there; which sadly means I missed out on a season of rafting, camping, dirt biking, boating, BBQing, beer drinking, and probably many other fun summer activities that I would have loved to partake in with all of you.

As for me, I’ve been in Costa Rica for over 6 months now and it has flown by. Nevertheless, if I think by to the last time I saw my family or friends from back home, it does seem like forever. However, I prefer to look at the bright side of things and think about all that I have done in the last 6 months and the experience that I am having.

Since my last update I’ve just been “Pura Vida”. Literal it means “pure life” but anybody that has experience of Costa Rica knows that it is much more. It is used to describe just about anything. Ticos (Costa Ricans) always are pura vida, even if they’re having a shitty day, its still pura vida. In that since, I understand why Costa Rica was named one of the happiest places to live in the world on some CNN special I heard about. Not to say it doesn’t have a fair share of economical and social problems as any third world country, but if I had to generalize, it’s a happy culture, so we get along pretty well, lol.

I don’t really have any new updates on work here, waiting on a couple of projects that we are putting together mainly getting some public phones, remolding the school, cemetery, and trying to get a bridge over a creek that cars cant pass when its rains which is about 5 months out of the year. And of coarse teaching English has basically been filling up my days. Not to mention for the last month and a half I have been concentrating on a report that I have been writing about my community, it’s a pretty through Spanish document, about 15 pages of info which, for my little community was a feat. After it gets edited and corrected I can give it to the town and we can attach it to project proposals and hopefully it might make a difference, I’m just glad I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It made me feel like I was back in college writing a report.

On the health side of things I am glad to mention that I’m having luck as well; since I have been gone I have yet to be struck by any serious illness (knock on wood), which is something that can happen much easier in a third world country. I’m blessed with a strong stomach but, Costa Rica is home to some unfriendly parasites, worms, other stomach illnesses, and diseases in which I hope to continue to avoid, and of coarse the usual illnesses that plague all countries including the AHNI flu that is from my understanding now a pandemic, which is present in Costa Rica; our President Oscar Arias was the first leader of a country to get it. In all reality I am not too worried about it, since I don’t spend much time in the city, and I am young and healthy enough that if I did get it, it wouldn’t be all that bad. Not to mention the Peacecorps has pumped me full of some good but many unnecessary vaccinations along with drugs against Malaria, which I personally don’t feel the need to take, but I would never break a PC regulation. (If you can read sarcasm; there might be a little there) The side effects of the anti-malaria drug include but are not limited to mind-altering dreams, along the lines of a hallucinogenic drug trip and hair loss (I really don’t mind the dreams, but from the looks of my father and grandfather I wont need any help losing my hair… I think the side effects out number the possibility of me actually getting malaria since the small number of cases are confined to the Caribbean side of the country and I live on the Pacific Coast, and nobody in my town knows anybody who has contracted it. I’m more scared of getting bit by a torceopelo (fairadlaine in English) a very poisonous snake that unfortunately is extremely common in my town, if you look at a previous post there should be a photo of a dead torceopelo we killed. The good news is they have anti-venom at the hospital in San Isidro only an hour away by car, and they only kill about 5 people a year in Costa Rica, which is surprisingly less than bees. Dengue Fever is another disease that I want to stay away from; like malaria it is passed by mosquitoes and from what a fellow volunteer who got it said, it was the worst experience of his life. Supposedly it’s a terribly fever accompanied by your whole body aching to the point where you can’t do anything. On a more positive note if for some reason I did fall victim to some nasty illness the Peace Corps has a good connection with a top-notch hospital in San Jose. I was able to see the hospital’s care first hand when I visited a friend of mine, who for her second time since arriving in country in January as a World Teach Volunteer is back in the hospital. That visit made me realize how thankful I am to have been able to stay healthy here in Costa Rica.
So yeah, that’s all I have time for today a have to go catch a 2 hour bus ride and then walk another hour to get home, so until next time…

Pura vida
-Leif