4th August, 2013
...and the saga is drawing to a close...

More beautiful tropical plants to enjoy.   I'm afraid I don't know their names though.

Last week was basically the same as the previous two weeks:  eat, sleep, study...

If you remember, I had a blissful night of uninterrupted sleep a week ago while the family was off celebrating a birthday.   Well, I paid for that night of peace on Monday.

I arrived home at 5 p.m. after my usual 25 minute walk, ready for some quiet work before the evening meal, and retired to my room.   Then the noise started.   The boyfriend of the 20-yr old (Mother of the 3-month old) was visiting and they were having a merry old time making jig-jig before her Mother returned home from work.   When their physical exertions were finished, they then started moving furniture around, scraping the floor every time.   Remember, my ceiling is their floor.   There is zero insulation.   Meanwhile, the 8-yr old nephew and 10-yr old niece were visiting, and

having a fine old quarrel while chasing each other
around the house screaming at one another.   Naturally, the TV was on full-blast the whole time.   Then the rest of the large family visited; dinner was very late, and yipty-do, we were served KFC (which I did NOT eat), and this whole circus went on until 10.30 p.m.   I must confess that I lost it at that point and I slammed two doors very, very loudly.   There was instant hush, and a lot of whispering, and then the house quietened down for the night.   I guess I had made my point, and without saying a word!   Apparently, Costa Ricans will go out of their way to avoid confrontation, so the next day it was as though nothing had happened.   The ensuing evenings and nights have been much quieter though, so it was all worth it, and there is no bad blood at all.   It was just a Clash of Civilizations!  

And then there was Tuesday.   Well, at least I am here to tell the tale.   I was walking home again after school, at the usual time, minding my own business, when just as I was a few yards from the big roundabout, six pistol shots rang out, coming from just where I had been walking.   Everyone stopped in their tracks, including me, wondering if they were gunshots or fireworks.   I asked a bystander what he thought and he said at once "una pistola".   What to do?   I was very tempted to throw myself on the sidewalk, but as you can imagine, that in itself was a hazard, as well as being full of trash.   So, true Brit that I am, I kept on walking, with heart pounding, and legs that had turned to jelly.   I have never been so close to gun-fire, and smelled it, and it would have been so easy to have been hit by a random shot.   I briefly fantasized about how it would feel to be shot, and what would happen to me in that event.   These events happen so rapidly that one can never be prepared for them for they are out of our control.

The place where the shooting took place was outside a prosperous-looking high-rise condominium, next to a very large private, walled and gated private residence.   Who knows who the intended victim was, but the police cars started arriving in full force, and so did the ambulances.   Vainly I searched on the TV that night for news of the shooting, but to no avail.

Well,  I thought, that certainly validated all the warnings on the State Department website about Costa Rica, which until that point I had considered vastly exaggerated.  After all I was living in Rome when the Red Brigades were in full swing, committing acts of violence, murder and kidnapping every day (remember the capture and subsequent murder of the politician Aldo Moro?), and the picture painted of Italy by the press at that time was a dark and dangerous one.   The only thing that I saw during that whole period was a parked car outside the Palace of Justice, with a man hanging out of it, shot to death.   Other than that, life went on as usual, and that is the case here too.   Life is dangerous everywhere, and it could be a drunken driver ploughing into us rather than a bullet, but if we stopped to think that way all the time, we would never leave our houses.   And even that may not be safe if there is an earthquake!   Better to go out and grasp life by the horns and wrestle with it rather than cower in a corner afraid to do anything.   If your number is up, it's up, and there's nothing you can do about it!   I'm not advocating foolishness, but I am advocating living life to the fullest, and not letting oneself get sucked into a routine of bored and comfortable survival.   It is common knowledge that we are at our most alive when we are facing possible death.   Perhaps we all need to recalibrate our priorities on a regular basis, and to fully understand that "being" is so much more important than "having".   Apropos of which, I highly recommend Erich Fromm's small book entitled "To Have or To Be".   I don't know if that is the English or American title.

However, after that event I learned of other similar incidents.   My teacher, Eduardo, told me in class that twice he had been held up at pistol-point and robbed of his money.   He is such a laid-back and pleasant man though that he was able to barter with his assailants on both occasions, so they took his money but he kept his documents!   And talking with my two student house companions yesterday, they told me that a male friend of theirs from university had been robbed by a man with a gun, and he was foolishly carrying $250 on him at the time.    They also told me that a girlfriend of theirs was raped one evening recently.   The girl was in a bar, drinking with strangers, presumably got tipsy, and left the bar with a local, who raped her behind the bushes in the park.   ALL of these events are highlighted in the State Department website with videos and graphic warnings.   This would certainly explain why all the properties look like bunkers here.   Here's a picture of the outside of the house where I am living, wearing my uniform of blue jeans and old black sweater.   Gone are any pretensions of fashion or glamor.   My room is too dark to see to put make-up on, as is my bathroom, and wearing nice clothes would be a bad idea because then one would look prosperous, and likely be held up....

Casa Rodriguez

I return home next Saturday, so have only one more week.   Unfortunately, Eduardo will no longer be my teacher because he has been committed by the school to giving lessons to people from the World Bank, who come to the school three times a year for language and local politics, and that is right up Eduardo's alley, for he is very political.   So, who knows who my teacher will be.   And my previous class-mates left already so I shall either have new ones or be alone.   Most of the students are at the beginners' level.   I've completed all the grammar, and am at the Advanced level, stage one, so now it is just a question of speeding up the thought process so that I can choose the correct tense for the verbs, and decide in a split second if this sentence needs a direct object or an indirect object!   The logic of the language is not hard to learn, but at my age, it is the retention that is a challenge, so constant conversation is essential in order to speed up the mechanism in my brain.   I shall be very happy to spend next Saturday night in my own bed though, ojala!   And I can hardly wait to go shopping at Whole Foods!   I have started reading a book of short stories by a Costa Rican author,  Carlos Salazar Herrera, and they are absolutely charming, and very poignant.

But all in all, it has been a wonderful trip, I have learned a lot of Spanish, I have re-learned the simple things of life, and I have been even more aware than before of the importance of gratitude.   I am grateful for my life in Houston, and also grateful to Mamma Rita and to this house and culture for teaching me to be patient (not that I always succeed though), and through lack, showing me the plenty.   I certainly plan to return to this school, though hope to find another home-stay that is quieter.

I did not do any travel outside of San Juan this time, but really the weather does not make that an appealing option, added to which it is always more fun to explore with a companion.   Unfortunately I didn't make any new friends at the school because they were mostly teeny-boppers from universities all over the world who clung to each other in their little cliques, and there was only a smattering of older people, none of whom I got to know.   I am very thrilled though that to-day my darling friend Chetana is arriving from Houston, so when I go to school to-morrow at 9 a.m. I shall be able to greet her as she emerges from her 8 a.m. orientation hour.   I can hardly wait to see someone I love and to give and receive a heartfelt hug.

I will write again next weekend.   In the meantime I end this blog with a few more general photographs.

 I shall miss the profusion of tropical fruits and beautiful papayas such as these

 Another beautiful, and ubiquitous flowering tropical plant

These are photographs of two watercolors in the lobby of the school, depicting typical Costa Rican country buildings, and note also the wooden cart with wooden wheels, used to-day and usually covered in very colorful painted images.   Note also the towering high hills in the background, for they are visible on all sides from the town of San José.   San José and the other main towns of the country in effect sit on a high mesa, or plateau, that runs down the middle of the country and drops off precipitously to sea level at the two coasts.   It makes for some very scenic landscapes.

Que dios los acompañe!